Wednesday 26 November 2008

Bless Their Little Cotton Socks...

Teaching can be full of unexpected pitfalls...

I was attempting to teach Year 7 all about space, the Universe, the Solar System, and other related topics. Unfortunately, there are a lot of misconceptions held by children, and I decided to start by explaining that our Sun is a star, and our Solar System has eight planets (yes, Pluto has now officially been downgraded by the National Curriculum) but that there may be other solar systems out there in the Universe, etc. etc...

It was all going swimmingly (or so I thought) until a couple of hands went up...

"Miss, isn't Galaxy much bigger than a Milky Way... "

Unfortunately, I couldn't resist following a brief diversionary route past the relative merits of Galaxy and Dairy Milk, but I think it was all sorted out in the end...

4 comments:

Vernon said...

The little varmints obviously know that you are a chocaholic!

the mother of this lot said...

And I bet you just happened to have one of each in your laptop case!

Kasia said...

Ah yes...we had a teacher in our high school who could be effectively derailed by simply asking the right question(s). We would then spend the rest of the period snortling over how we got from ex post facto to spending the whole period talking about his recent trip to Brazil and how if you're not a jeweler you can bring back all sorts of uncut gems without paying duty... :-p

(I'm loathe to admit it, especially to a teacher, but kids DO do that. Especially when you take something as simple as ex post facto, which, if you're not going into extensive ConLaw case histories, can be quite effectively covered in oh, ten minutes? and spend the whole period talking about it...)

Mulier Fortis said...

Kasia - I know they do that. I used to do the same. However, in view of the impending arrival of Christmas, I felt that a diversion into my favourite chocolate brands was justified...

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