A Promise Kept

One of my students asked, "What are you eating?"

I answered, "Banana bread."

A pause, then, "Is it good?"

In between chews I replied, "Yes, very good."

Another pause.

"Who baked it?"

Smiling, I said, "My wife."

A longer pause, then, partly joking, partly serious (as middle-schoolers are), "You should bring some for all of us next time."

"Ok, I will."

Today I kept my promise. Close to the end of math period a number of students asked for help in understanding a math question.

"What does this word mean?"

The word was halved. Aha! A teachable moment.

I said, "Wait, let me show you seeing as I have to keep a promise I made, anyway."

I reached behind my desk, grabbed a cloth bag and set it on a student desk.

"What's in there, Mr. K.?"

I pulled out the bread knife first for effect. Then, I reached in the bag, pulled out the loaf.

"It's bread!"

I unwrapped the loaf, picked up the knife and cut the loaf in half.

"There, I halved the loaf."

"Oh, we knew that. We were just testing you."

(Uh, huh.)

I proceeded to slice the bread and asked the students to help themselves.

"This is really good!"

The bread was delicious (a shout out to my spouse who baked it - thanks!).

It wasn't the teachable moment that really mattered this morning, or that we ate banana bread together. What mattered, especially to the students that I teach, is that a promise was made, and more importantly, was kept.