There’s a phrase that gets thrown around a lot in education and in life called the Teachable Moment.
Now
this can be characterized by some sort of learning that is happening between students
and teachers or between parents and children.
It can be planned out as part of an activity or it can be
spontaneous. Which is better?
It
would depend on who you ask as to the response you receive. That in itself could be considered a
teachable moment.
Me
I like, or prefer, the unplanned spontaneous kind.
That
being said, I witnessed a teachable moment today while I was at a school and
for me it was an eye opening experience.
While working with a school today on their first news broadcast you
could say that everything that could go wrong went wrong.
- The sound did not work
- A computer did not power up
- The teleprompter did not work
- The camera kept shutting off
- The crew was late
Hey
it happens so we drop back and punt and prepare for the next day.
In
the mist of the chaos, the students took it upon themselves to figure out what
the problems were, how to fix them and how to help each other to ensure a
successful broadcast the next day.
I
became a bystander as I watched these students diagnose and work through the
problems that had happened during the morning broadcast.
As
one student determined what the problem was they would gather the rest of the
news crew around and showed them how to fix the issue.
This
was something that I had not seen in some of the other schools that I have
worked with in the past. Usually
students would just accept that there was a problem and then leave and go on
with their day, maybe hoping that the problems would fix themselves.
I
expressed to their faculty mentor that this was something that I had not
witnessed in other schools and it was incredible to see coming from middle school
students.
Yes
it was a teachable moment for the students to fix the issues and work with each
other but I think that it may have been more of a teachable moment for me in
that it was something that I had not expected and impressed me greatly.
photo credit: woodleywonderworks via photopin cc
