"Grandma, do you know how to hack Roblox?" Jack asked.
"No, tell me about it!" Nena answered.
Jack's eyes lit up. With hand gestures, pace, pitch and power evident in his voice, and unusual enthusiasm the little boy explained the procedure his grandma asked about. Nena and I, of course, understood nothing.
I got an immediate epiphany.
"Jack, instead of practicing your letters and numbers, why don't you write out what you just explained to grandma?"
Jack, as if shot out of a cannon, ran to his desk and was back in less than two minutes with the page printed above.
Today I learned something. Find out what actually interests the student and build on that foundation.
Jack is smart. Jack loves L N G! Jack will someday have a job in the L N G industry.
ReplyDeleteI had never had too much interest in classwork as I entered the 11th grade. An English teacher,, whom I will never forget, instructed us on day one that by Friday we were to turn in a 3 page paper on any topic we wanted, within limits. It was mainly an exercise to determine what level of writing capabilities each student was.
ReplyDeleteAt the time, I was nearing the end of reading The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn about the Soviet forced labor camp system under Stalin. So I wrote my 3 page paper about that book.
After class the following Monday, she held me back and was suspicious about a low "c" and high "d" student was reading materials like that and if anyone had helped me write the paper.
I explained that I was an avid reader and had been self studying eastern European history for five or so books and was venturing into Russian history quite a bit. I also told her that no one had ever asked me to study something that interested me before.
With her help, I started writing for the school paper, entered the debate team and four graduate degrees later, I can safely say that that teacher changed my life forever.
It all started by asking me what i wanted to learn.
What is going to happen to this kid when he reaches the homeschool version of the 3rd. Grade? That's about as far as Jim's teaching ability reaches.
ReplyDeleteNo need after a period after "3rd" in mid-sentence. Jack will be fine since you're not his teacher.
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