When the teacher becomes the student

When lockdown started in March 2020 in the UK I had never before given an online tuition lesson. I had to adapt overnight. I found an old whiteboard on an A frame in the garage and bought some whiteboard markers, positioned my Macbook so that both myself and my whiteboard would be in the Zoom camera shot, and wrote ‘Words Of The Week’ (covid-related words in French and English) on my board. I was proud of how well I had adapted. Gold star for Sarah.

A 12-year old student of mine was less than impressed. He took one look at my whiteboard and rolled his eyes as if to say “that is soooooooo old-fashioned, I’m embarrassed for you”.

“What’s wrong with my whiteboard?”, I asked. He shook his head. “Zoom has its own whiteboard, you know”. I didn’t know. He then spent 15 minutes teaching me all the different ways to use Zoom, how to share a screen/whiteboard, how to send files, how to annotate, and so on. I listened intently to everything he was showing me, and found the time invaluable. He taught me many things, amongst which was a reminder that sometimes the student becomes the teacher.

Thank you again, young man.