Teachable Moment

(students’ names changed - I don't think I have ever taught a Billy or a Susie!)

The whole class was gathered on the carpet reading Jack Prelutsky’s poem, I Did Not Eat Your Ice Cream. We were practicing turning and talking to our neighbor. The poem was about a child that blamed everything on his/her sister. The students were generally confused and thought that the sister really did these things. This group has some difficulty “thinking deeply”. So... we were in the midst of this discussion and I was trying to pull thoughts out of them without just telling them what I thought the poem meant. I turned to write something on the chart paper and one of my boys bounced up on his knees to get the attention of the other students and to be silly. I told him to knock it off and he immediately responded, “It wasn’t me. It was Susie!” Tired of this constant denial of misbehavior, I began to scold this child when it dawned on me that this was exactly like the poem we were reading. I’m sure the children thought I had lost my mind when I said, “ And this is just like our poem!” I was on a roll by then waving my arms and talking loudly. Boy, I had everyone’s attention. I reread the lines of the poem and said, “Billy said, “ I didn’t do it and I saw him do it. I know he did it. Who do you think did all those things in the poem? “ Almost every hand is waving. “The poet did it.” “Yeesss!,” I said. “And why did Billy say that he didn’t do it when he really did it?” More waving hands. “Because Billy didn’t want to get in trouble!” “Right again,” I said. “So... why did the poet say that his sister did it?” “He didn’t want to get in trouble!” It was a breakthrough. Amazing. The student that was driving me crazy was what I desperately needed to help the class make the connections they needed to understand the poem. Never underestimate the power of a teachable moment!