I can’t remember if I’ve written about this before, but it’s my favorite moment of the year, and maybe of teaching ever, and it came up in conversation today, so here it is: The Best Kid Story (Yet).
I taught my classes Communism in a pretty basic way, but of course I differentiated it so that some kids were really focusing on “It means no one owns stuff” and others were getting more “Workers of the World Unite!” It’s always hard to tell who’s really getting it and who’s just parroting it back, of course.
A couple of days afterwards I was in my room grading and eating Teddy Grahams (lunch of champions) when one of my 10th graders came in. He started badgering me to share my Teddy Grahams, and because I have zero sympathy for 15 year old boys, I said “Absolutely not.” He whined, he cajoled, he pointed out how unfair I was being. “Miss, you have a whole box. I just want one!”
“Sorry, dude; they’re mine, so I get to eat them.”
He looked sly for just a second, and then pouted “Miss! People like you are the reason to become Communist!”
It floored me. He understood everything I’d been trying to teach, and he could joke about it! I was so excited I called all my friends to tell them what he’d said — the non-teachers were awfully confused. It was so nice, thought, to have actual, tangible proof that I taught someone something. Finally!