Teaching

Back in the mid 1980s there was a kids' TV Game Show called "Double Dare" on the Nickelodeon channel. We didn't have cable TV but at some point it started to air on regular television. Our local TV station even aired an episode early in the morning before school at 6:30am. The show format was fairly simple. One part were standard panel-type questions with answers gaining you points. Sometimes your team would have to perform "physical challenges" which usually involved something messy - like digging through a small pool of pizza sauce looking for a flag. The team with the most points at the end got to go through an obstacle course for sixty seconds. Collecting flags throughout the course got you more money and prizes to take home. ...

Sometimes the hardest part of being a teacher is figuring out what your students DON'T know. It's relatively easy to teach a subject to an entire group when you're following a prescribed curriculum. The problem comes when the teacher doesn't realize everyone is learning at a different rate or figuring out what some students may already know. Maybe the needed skill is empathy - knowing when students are lost/misdirected - and to foster less resistance to ask questions. ...