In my parent’s basement (simultaneously on elementary school grounds), I’m teaching a football class. At first, we just play football for a couple downs, which goes pretty well. Then I get a clever idea: I’ll have each student contribute to teaching the class about football between downs, the least knowledgeable teaching the basics (they can be assisted as they teach) and the most knowledgeable teaching the interesting details.
The first forced teacher is one of a couple of Latina women. She can barely speak English. I tell her we are talking about football. Then I realize that that’s confusing because she might be thinking of soccer when she hears football. I say “American football”, but I’m not even sure she understands that. Meanwhile other students — the young, strapping men all ready to play — are getting bored and antsy. They just want to play. Everyone just wants to play and are just stifled being forced to play parts as teachers, especially when fun and the independence of simply playing a game is so close at hand, especially when this little teaching idea is so not working.