Teaching Tip #47

Teacherscribe’s Teaching Tip #47

It’s important for us to share with our kids our breakthrough moments as students.

Here is the first one that occurred for me.

Mr. Mueller devised a mock game show for us to act out called To Tell The Truth.  He was going to video tape it, which back in 1986 was about the coolest thing ever.  So he gave us all our parts.  When I looked at mine, I was horrified to see my role: host.

For an overweight introvert who was suffering through puberty, this was a nightmare.

One of my good friends, Dale, who was the definition of an extrovert, saw that I was to have the main role and asked me if I wanted to switch.  My prayers had been answered!

When I pleaded my case to Mr. Mueller, he declined to allow me to switch with Dale.

Then he uttered some words I will remember as long as I live: “Kurt, I chose you for that role for a reason.  You can do it.  I have faith in you.”

It was the first time a teacher ever said that to me.

So I suffered through the first few days of filming.  And I sucked.

Finally, Mr. Mueller asked one of my classmates (even worse, it was a girl!) to describe my performance.

“He’s boring,” she said.

Then Mr. Mueller told me to liven things up.

Talk about constructive criticism.  Instead of being crushed and losing hope, as I expected to happen, I somehow came out of my shell.

The next day I was cracking jokes and hamming it up.

Mr. Mueller had seen something in me that I didn’t know was there - I was a ham.

The rest of the show was amazing.

And from there I began to emerge from my introverted shell.

Now 30 years later, I’m still hamming it up every single day in class.

Talk about a valuable lesson.