Today, something both amusing and instructive happened during our teaching practice exercise, which is a compulsory requirement for the Nigerian Certificate of Education (NCE) program.
My colleague and I are currently undergoing this teaching practice, and today happened to be the day his supervisor paid a supervisory visit to assess his teaching performance. Unfortunately for my colleague, he had barely taken classes since the school resumed for the second term academic session. As expected, the news of the supervisor’s visit made him visibly uneasy.
In an attempt to manage the situation, he quickly devised a strategy. He approached the students, many of whom had not received consistent lessons from him and asked them to suggest a topic they were most familiar with. A student randomly responded, “Evolution, sir.” Relieved, my colleague immediately accepted the suggestion.
He then gave the students a rather unusual instruction: when the supervisor arrived and he asked questions on evolution, every student was to raise their hand. Those who believed they knew the answer were to raise two fingers, while those who did not were to raise one finger. The aim was simple to convince the supervisor that the entire class had a solid understanding of the topic.
Moments later, the supervisor entered the classroom, and initially, everything unfolded exactly as planned. The students complied, the class appeared attentive, and the lesson seemed to be going smoothly. However, things took an unexpected turn when my colleague invited the students to ask questions, expecting complete silence.
Instead, one student driven by genuine curiosity stood up and asked a deeply complex question:
How can natural selection, epigenetic inheritance, and environmental modification together create long-term directional evolutionary trends without implying purposeful design?
At that moment, my colleague was completely caught off guard. He struggled to provide a meaningful response and was unable to address the question convincingly. The atmosphere in the classroom shifted, and it became clear to the supervisor that the teacher lacked adequate mastery of the subject. Unfortunately, this incident negatively affected my colleague’s assessment.
The experience was both humorous and sympathetic. While it gave everyone a good laugh afterward, it also highlighted an important lesson. I told my colleague that I would share this experience so others could learn from it.
The takeaway is simple but powerful: never step into a classroom unprepared.
Please any additional advice for my colleague?
