A random “ah-ha” moment I thought I’d share…
You know the saying, “To teach is to learn
twice.” Well, that came into full effect today. Call me dumb, but I didn’t
really understand how we elected a new president until yesterday. Sure I’ve
heard of the Electoral vote, and the president needs 270 electoral votes to
win, but honestly, I didn’t really know what that meant in its entirety.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I teach English
to a group of teachers at my school, we call it “The Teachers Class.” I always try
to teach them things involving current events. This usually consists of me
taking an article from CNN and then slicing and dicing it to a paragraph or
two, creating a handout with key words and discussion questions. (The main goal of this class is so that
teachers have a place to practice speaking in English with me and other
teachers). With the election taking place on a Tuesday I thought it was the
perfect “current event.”
So, I did some research, watched a few
videos and educated myself in great detail about all things election night. It
was important that I FULLY understand because I had to be able to break down
this confusing process to a very elementary level of understanding, thus
enabling me to gain a really strong understanding.
And good thing I did! The questions these
teacher’s were asking me were tough and had I not researched so thoroughly I
would have been embarrassed. Korean’s are very politically educated and even
the students knew that November 6th was Election Day in the US, and they knew
the names of the candidates! I bet you didn’t know that Korea is having their
own presidential election next month and one of the candidates is a woman, the
daughter of a former president! I really enjoy teaching the teachers
because I learn so much about Korean culture, it’s definitely a win-win
situation!
So, if you ever want to check yourself with how well you know and understand something, try teaching it to someone else. If you want to know whether or not you have mastered something, try teaching it to someone who is learning English as a second language :)
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| The worksheet I created for class |
