NYC Educator: Yesterday's Class

NYC Educator: Yesterday's Class:

Yesterday's Class

by NYC Educator

You know, if you read the papers, you probably think teachers hold up hoops for kids to jump through, and throw them fish if they make it through 90% of the time or higher. But alas, high test scores are not the fondest memories in anyone's class.

In my class, we were reviewing past tense and present perfect via stories about the Olympics. The article I was using placed great emphasis on American and Canadian champions, as it came from an ESL book designed to sell in those markets. Naturally, I bragged about how wonderful our Olympic champs were, as though I had anything remotely to do with our success. Some of my Chinese students protested that they had champs too.

"Who?" I asked, but none of the kids could name one. They made me take out my iPad and look it up. I found a 15-year-old female gold medal recipient named Ye Shiwen. When the kids pronounced her name, it sounded a great deal like, "Yeah, she won," so we got a lot of mileage out of that. It's very gratifying to see my beginning students so