I was a confident and experienced educator whom the students worshipped, in equal measure to their love and worhip of learning about nouns, adjectives, and the other parts of speech. Thus, I gave them the unorthodox pleasure of listening to Beethoven symphonies on a record player I had dragged in. I assigned them the exercise of writing creative stories beginning with, “Suddenly one day…”
One student was such a challenge that it was necessary for me to escape for a long weekend holiday with my wife and our two youngsters, who were pre-schoolers at the time.
As we wheeled into a motel parking lot by the seashore, who should park next door? That kid and his parents! To my surprise, we had a great time. He played with our son and daughter and took them for walks along the beach. It was truly a fantastic weekend.
When school began the following Tuesday, teaching this boy was suddenly a picnic and continued that way the rest of the school year. He was the classroom leader and it seemed he never recovered from the shock of learning that teachers can be humans. too.
EXCERPTED FROM DAN'S BOOK, EDGE-U-CATION, available HERE.