It was a unanimous middle-school opinion that stepping on a dog’s paw is much, much, much worse than accidentally hurting another human.

If you hurt a person, you can simply say you’re sorry and move on.

But a dog?

That’s the worst.

The situation can only be rectified with lots of snuggling, apologizing, and many, many treats.

Were we wasting class time discussing this off-topic issue?

Nope.

Unanimous, rectify, and apologize were vocabulary words we had been working on.

The kid telling the dramatic story about accidentally stepping on his dog’s paw wasn’t intentionally using our vocabulary words.

He was just telling a story.

And, I suspect, he was trying to waste time so he wouldn’t have to do any more work.

I wrote a summary of our discussion on the whiteboard, emphasizing the vocabulary words.

Everyone laughed.

And everyone learned.

More importantly, they probably won’t forget those words.

A vocabulary lesson in context is so much more meaningful than memorizing a random list of definitions.

At the end of class, when students are getting restless, I often encourage a little chit-chat.

Then I listen.

Because somewhere in that completely unrelated conversation, there will be an opportunity to use some of our vocabulary words.

When people are laughing, they lean in.

When they lean in, they listen.

And when they’re laughing while learning a new word?

They remember it.

Apparently, even if the lesson starts with a dog’s paw.

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