What was your favourite teaching moment?

Answer 1

I had a Chinese student in a beginning English class who came up and asked me,
"What does it mean 'nomsen'?"
I asked where she saw that word and she said, "Black man always say..."
Then I understood she meant:
"Know'm sayin'?"

Answer 2

I don't know about favorite (I'm just beginning) but these are my funny stories from student-teaching:

I was teaching physics in a highly Hispanic population and I said, we call this (and I paused) Coulomb's Law (and the way I said it they heard 'Couloo' or something which means 'butt'!!) A bunch of people started laughing and I was like 'Huh?' and they told me what it meant in spanish. I laughed and from then on and they would count how many times they could get me to say it (What does the C stand for, capacitance? No Coulombs. (1) etc.)

Middle school: I would always be nice and let one person go to the bathroom at a time (whoever asked first) so one day they planned it and all of sudden the entire class raised their hands! I was confused and called on one of them- Gabbi- and she said ,'Can I go to the bathroom?' and then everyone started yelling out 'But I need to go!!'... At that point I laughed and said no one is going today.

One time when I was teaching a pendulum lesson with paperclips and string, someone threw something and I stopped what I was doing and made a huge deal of it, saying, there is to be NO throwing in THIS classroom. And it was silent and someone asked, what did they throw? And I said trying to show as much anger as possible, A PENDULUM. And the way I said it, with so much vigor, all of a sudden I started laughing (because I wasn't REALLY that mad) and I could not stop laughing. I turned around so people wouldn't see but I could not stop!!

Answer 3

This is my 3rd year in my position. For the past 2 years, I and the other 2 teachers in Tech Ed were told to hang in there (we all started at the same time) and the "fruits of our labor" would be evident. It finally happened! I was teaching multi-view drawing (drafting/CADD class) when I heard a student say that they remembered this from "Wids" class! Over the next few days, I heard that many times! It made myself, "Wid" and the 3rd teacher in our group extremely happy to find out they were remembering and applying the information 2 years later. Up until that moment, I would have told you that it was last year when a Senior told his his Mom and I that if it wasn't for my class and me supporting and helping him (I didn't know his track record) when other teacher's had given up on him, he would have dropped out after the first marking period of the year.

Answer 4

I have been so lucky - I have so many but I would like to share a couple:

1) a very difficult student I had taught for 2 years came up to me in a shop a few years later and introduced me to his girlfriend as "she is that teacher I told you about - the one that never gave up on me".

2) another is a student telling me that he wants to teach because I made the job sound attractive/fin/worthwhile. As teachers WE DO NOT DO THIS ENOUGH!

Finally, the look on a students face when they finally "get" an idea - I love that look!