The Beauty of Teaching

Last week in my morning grammar class, one of my students out of nowhere asked: Kate, what does 'erect' mean? Trying to stay as cool as I could, I asked "In what context?" We were covering phrasal verbs that day, and he was trying to get the definition of 'put up'. 'Erect' came up; he didn't understand it, and asked me for the definition. I can't remember exactly what I said, something about putting pictures up on a wall; I was glad when he seemed to understand.

Half hour later, same student said: "Kate, I know you've already explained it, but I forgot; what's 'erect' again?"

This time I said: "Can you please take out your dictionary and check the meaning yourself?" He did. Seeing the reaction on his face was priceless. He got very serious. "Did you get it?", I asked. He slowly looked at me and said: "Yes, I know exactly what it means."