A repost that describes a possible way to choose a curriculum, one based on interest:
I met Colonel Sanders in the ’70’s in Venice, Italy. Yup, I did. I was in college, on the Washington University St. Louis year abroad (Strasbourg, France) – I was all over Europe in those years. It’s funny, but few recognized the great man. He was standing with his wife in a corner of Piazza San Marco, dwarfed by a culture and a history that made him look truly odd, near a church whose history was made of greatness, and there he was. What a persective. Imagine seeing Ronald McDonald in Sainte Chapelle in Paris, and you’ll understand what it felt like.
Anyway, I don’t know how it happened, but I told that fact to a student right before a class. The student found the information so amazing that he quickly told the class, which, as we settled in for class, immediately had that “You are lying to us” attitude. What to do?
I could have ignored this palpable energy of doubt and done a regular class, or used this fact to teach them some French. That feeling that we are abandoning a perfectly good lesson plan is one that we all know and usually guilt ourselves about since we live in a school culture that says we have to be doing some one thing that day, a culture based in fear.
I decided not to ignore it. I felt the energy in the room and I chose to tap it with one of the biggest natural power source in our work.
I knew right away that I had made the right decision.
It got real visceral in there and there was some yelling. They wanted proof. There was (gasp!) English used. (What did I say to him? Who was I with? What did he say to me? Why didn’t you get a picture?) We then got through it pretty well, but it was a dogfight.
My point is that we can use anything that has energy to talk with our kids. The kids, in their need to say that my story was not true, provided the energy. I drove the car and the kids provided plenty of gas, and off we went.
Or I could have done a serious class on that day on something important. I could have targeted some aspect of the French language and been like the Businessman in the Le Petit Prince, who is “un homme sérieux”. That’s a tough one. Hmm. Be serious, or talk to your kids in L2 in an endless conversation that is full of laughter and learning. Hmm. Tough call. I guess I’ll take (b).
Follow the energy. Don’t use class time in skill building. It doesn’t work.