Preparing for OMG

I was thinking back on my teaching career so far. I thought back to a time when I was in my first classroom teaching a class of grade 3 and 4 students. I was reading the words out for a spelling test, one of the first of the year, and I kept checking my watch. I was wondering when the "real" teacher was going to be back. Then it hit me.

OMG-I am the real teacher now.

Some of what I studied in university was helpful in preparing me for my career. Some was not. What I want students to think about is the feeling they would have when a customer or client looks at them after asking them a question, and then they realize that this person is now depending on them to know what to do.

This is the "Oh My Goodness" moment.

Students need to shift their thinking from learning things that teachers and parents tell them to learn, to thinking about how everything they learn changes them, or how it might equip them for their own OMG moment.

Because you never know when it will happen to you.