Anyone who has ever spent time tutoring or teaching has hoped that they would impart a lesson that would be lasting and memorable for their students.
But TikToker Kay Sloan may have done just that with the teachable moment of all teachable moments, captured in an impactful TikTok video.
In her elementary school classroom, Sloan was giving her students a lesson on descriptive writing, teaching them through writing instructions on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
It seems like making the classic sandwich would be easy enough, but it's easy to skip steps. What items do you technically need to make the sandwich? How do you describe the scooping and quantities of peanut butter and jelly? How do you tell someone to assemble the sandwich?
Before the video, Sloan asked her students to write their instructions on a piece of paper—and to demonstrate the effectiveness of their descriptive writing, she tried to follow their instructions verbatim in front of the class.
The students soon learned that they may have not written as descriptively as they thought.
The first student simply said that peanut butter, jelly, and bread were needed. But when Sloan held the three of them in her arms and said she'd made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, her students argued against the completion.
Another student said to spread jelly on one side and peanut butter on the other side, so Sloan scooped the condiments out with her fingers and spread them on the outside of the bag, since the student had not included taking bread out of the bag in their instructions.
The students were in an absolute uproar as Sloan squished the bread bag, scooped condiments out with her fingers, and even applied condiments to her arms "like a t-shirt."
In the end, they discussed some of the things that had been missing from their assignments, like the inclusion of plates and utensils, and the very basic need of removing the bread from the bag before applying.
You can watch the video here:
Fellow TikTokers applauded the teacher for her commitment to the bit.
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This is one of those things that we all think we know how to do until we have to put it into action in real-time. These students likely filled in the blanks in their minds and thought they had written complete instructions, only to realize that when they were taken at face value, some vital information they needed to include was missing.
One thing is for sure: The students will likely never forget a lesson like this one, and they'll hopefully be much more careful with their phrasing in the future!
@JamesTate121/X
