We went to an after-school function at Hallie’s school last night. It was showcasing the various modules her first grade classmates were working on. That in itself was fun and interesting, but that’s not what stuck in my mind all night.
Right when we walked onto the school’s second floor we were greeted by four enthusiastic students waving GPS devices around and standing in front of homemade poster boards with GPS information on them. They seemed to be patiently waiting for someone to talk to them.
“Want to know how GPSs work?” one girl asked me eagerly.
“Sure!” I said, wanting to see what she knew.
All four then began to rattle off facts about GPS, mentioning among other things the 24 satellites that orbit the Earth. They all ended up vigorously shaking their heads as they explained how GPS devices don’t work inside.
“Well,” I said, smiling as I savored the good learning moment. “Does anyone know why they don’t work inside?”
They hemmed and hawed, some of them explaining that the GPS device couldn’t transmit its signal through the roof up to the satellites.
I chuckled and explained how the GPS devices don’t do the transmitting, they just get their signals from the satellites and do the work from there.
An adult with them, perhaps a teacher herself, seemed impressed. Seeing a moment herself, she asked “would you be interested in coming in to talk about how GPS works?”
I happily handed her my card, and I’ve been looking forward to it ever since. I truly love to teach and I love working with kids. While a teacher’s salary won’t pay our current mortgage (and the fact that I have no college degrees limits me there, anyway), if there are ever opportunities for me to help kids learn something I won’t turn them down.
Awesome! The lack of respect that teachers get bothers me a lot (and their pitiful salaries) so it’s great to see people who love teaching kids. 🙂 Good luck!