Caveat: Knowing About Everything in the World

My TP2 cohort shrunk even further – two of the remaining three students are on vacation trips with their families, leaving me with one student left. Rather than try to continue following my debate curriculum (go ahead, try to have a debate class with one Korean middle-schooler – try!), I decided to just have a kind of conversation class.

I have these little cards from a "Kids' Chat Game" that I bought once at the Minneapolis airport. They have goofy or sometimes thoughtful little questions – conversation starters. We went through them, low-pressure, just finding ways to talk about things. One question was: "If you could invite anyone in the world to your school to talk, who would it be?"

The answer the student formulated and expressed surprised me: "I would invite my English teacher, Jared. He knows about everything in the world." 

Talk about feeling complimented! I didn't even think this student liked me. I often berate him, in my mild-mannered way, for not doing homework or being laconic in class. I was rendered speechless, momentarily.

Do I know about everything in the world? Not really. But I have a way of speaking, in my more advanced classes, rambling from topic to topic, telling little stories and snippets of news and autobiography, that must seem rather wide-ranging to these kids.

Well, anyway. I'm not reporting this except to say, it was nice to know a student seems to think well of me. One doesn't often get direct, clear, positive feedback in the field of teaching.

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