Empowerment. Engagement. Authenticity.
Generation Gap - Old School Thinking
Grandpa and I sat in his front porch as we had
every Friday afternoon until I was thirteen, a chair serving as a card
table between us. He jiggled one callused heel as he skimmed cards
between his hands in an expert shuffle. I tried to picture those aged
hands as they'd been a generation ago when he'd been a teacher as I was
now.
"Guess teaching has changed a lot since your day, huh, Gramps?" I
admired the dexterity of his fingers as he dealt us cards for a game of
Rummy. I imagined those confident fingers wielding chalk in front of a
class of students or red-penning errors in exercise books.
"Our tool of choice was a firm hand," he said. "You're using computers
to teach blind people. Remember what I used to say to Mr. Chai?"
I smiled, picturing the wrinkled Chinese shopkeeper from my youth. "You
always called me your smart granddaughter. Did you enjoy being a
teacher, Grandpa?"
"I did. I was headmaster. I dealt with discipline. "
Thinking of the 'discipline' still rampant in Trinidad, I asked, "Is it
true that Dad used to come home from school with his white shirt stained
red from teachers beating him?"
"That was a long time ago," Grandpa hedged. "But if he did, it was
because he wasn't as smart as you."
"Mrs. Neckles slapped me in grade one," I recalled, wondering why it
should embarrass me thirty years later. "Said I was stupid for getting
my subtraction wrong." I thought of my classmates, Simone and Anton,
who'd been her favourite targets. I knew every six-year old in that
class had labelled them as stupid, too.
Grandpa's mouth tightened and he discarded a card with a snap. "She
wasn't a good teacher."
"But you've said yourself what doesn't kill a child makes them
stronger," I pointed out. I rearranged my cards. "Wouldn't you say that
slap helped me understand my mistake?"
"Did it?"
"No. It was Dad – with his own dose of strained patience, mind you – who
explained that the bigger number had to go on top of the smaller number
to make it work."
"That teacher had no right to hit you. Should have explained until you
understood."
"Would you have?" I smiled. "I mean, she'd put multiple examples on the
board. Not her fault if I was stupid."
"You weren't stupid." His heel jiggling accelerated. "What would you do
as a teacher if a student got something wrong?"
"Mistakes are a part of the learning process." I considered as I lay
down my winning hands. "If it were me, and explanations didn't work, I
would use tactile objects to demonstrate the process."
"Student-centered' learning," Grandpa huffed, gathering the cards for
another shuffle. "Diminishes a teacher's authority."
"Ah, so it was the power you enjoyed." I thought of my Grade 1 class and
our collective fear of Mrs. Neckles. Was it the threat of her metre
stick that had committed the times tables to my memory? "I don't think
allowing my students to learn in their own way costs me their respect,"
I said. "In fact, I think they appreciate me more when they grasp
something on their own terms." I gestured to the card game. "You taught
me how to play cards without hitting me." I set down my cards as he
showed me his win. "And I still respect you as the better player."
"My smart granddaughter," Grandpa said, patting my knee.
(c) Kristy Kassie, 2017
Generation Gap
Characters from different generations can have
very interesting conversations.
