My Finest Moment in Teaching

So there I am, teaching my students about the periodic table. All very exciting so far, right? Okay, so... not. But for those of a certain generation you will soon understand the joy this lesson brought me. (Incidentally, I KNOW I shouldn't start a sentence with "But". Just bog off, okay?)

First, a bit of catch-up for those of you who spent science lessons sleeping; the periodic table lists all the elements that everything is made of, and can be thought of in terms of groups (the columns on the table) or periods (the rows). So there I am (still), merrily teaching my students that groups are columns and periods are the rows... and I realise that this lovely, but less-than-academically-gifted group has not got a clue what I am talking about. Now, that is not as unusual as I would like it to be, but I am pretty sure this is a simple concept, so I wonder if the problem lies with something other than my own ineptitude for a change. A bit of exploration with this reveals that not a single one of them can even tell me the difference between rows and columns. Uh-oh. I go a bit further and find vertical-horizontal is a bit of a puzzle to them too. Oh dear, thinks I. A bit of a digression about columns in Roman architecture and the horizon being, shock, horizontal doesn't generate that spark of comprehension I was searching for in their faces (Not many Roman amphitheatres in Hackney, nor even much a horizon for that matter, just rooftops) so I move onto plan B.

Trouble is, at that point, I didn't really have a plan B. Well, I think, remembering that my lesson is being observed by a quiet-as-a-mouse, trying-to-decide-whether-to-become-a-teacher lady off to one side of the lab, I've got to do *something*. Time to regress to primary school, I decide, and quickly get all of the kids holding a finger out in front of them, a little bit like ET. You know what I mean. Moving my own finger up and down, and making the kids do the same, I start reciting "Vertical. Repeat after me - vertical" then horizontal, rows, groups, periods, columns and so on. Pretty soon they are doing it without me showing them with my own finger, moving their fingers with abandon and calling out "COLUMNS!" after me, and having a gay ol' time of it (in the old-fashioned sense of the word, of course - I work in a Catholic school. More on that later too, by the way).

It is at this point, I realise I have become one of my own personal Hollywood Heroes. In a moment of inspiration, I call out "Wax on!".

Awesome.

Almost every boy in the class starts moving his hands in circular motions. Turns out a certain Hollywood movie about a New York boy who moves to LA and becomes a karate champion is still pretty popular with the kids of today.

Yes, my finest moment in teaching was when I became, just for a few minutes, Mister Miyagi from Karate Kid.