Teacher covers herself in peanut butter to teach her class a lesson about the importance of words
Making a PB&J is one of those skills we take for granted—but in a viral TikTok, one teacher demonstrates that it's not as easy as it looks.
In the clip, which has since amassed 54.6 million views, second-grade teacher Kay Sloan (@kay_sloan) decides to make a PB&J sandwich based solely on her students' instructions, teaching students and viewers an insightful lesson in the process.
A unique PB&J
Sloan began by asking students to write down instructions on how to make the snack.
“I’m going to read some of your responses on how to make a PB&J, and then I am going to copy exactly what your writing says," she explains.
She then gathered the bread, peanut butter, and jelly and held the items in her arms. “So, the first one says, ‘You get bread, you get peanut butter, and you get jelly," she tells her students. “Did I make it?” To which the students shouted in unison, "No!"
“That’s what it said to do," Sloan explained to her students. "I got my bread, I got my peanut butter, and I got my jelly—so it’s done.”
@kay_sloan MY ALL-TIME FAVORITE LESSON AS A TEACHER???????????? #informativewriting #descriptivewriting #writinglesson #teachertok #pbandj #teachersoftiktok #elementaryteacher #elementaryschool #firstgradeteacher #primaryschoolteacher #justteacherthings #teacherlife ♬ original sound - kay_sloan
As another student protested, Sloan acted out a second list of instructions. She began by pressing down on the bread in its packaging, noting how this list told her to "put the bread flat." She then spread peanut butter and jelly on both sides of the bread's packaging and asked her students, "Is it ready to eat?"
Again, the answer was a resounding no.
She then went on to a third attempt. Per her students' written instructions, Sloan proceeded to "get out" the bread, jelly, and peanut butter, tossing it all onto the table. “Okay, it’s ready,” she said, much to her students' chagrin. “That’s what it said to do.”
For her fourth attempt, she followed her students' instructions to "put on" peanut butter and jelly by spreading it all over its arm. As students once again protested, with one yelling, "You're doing it wrong!" Sloan said, “But you told me to put it on. Like a T-shirt?"
What's the point of the lesson?
She then got to the point of her lesson, as she explained: "All I did was exactly what you told me to do. So, do we see how important it is to include all the correct steps?"
From there, she asked students to start again, as they began yelling out more detailed and precise instructions.
In a full-circle moment, Sloan told Today.com that she got the peanut butter and jelly sandwich idea from TikTok five years ago, and has done it every year since.
“The point of the lesson is to add detail and be descriptive in writing,” she notes. “Words are so important and can easily change the meaning of what we’re saying. That’s why I was so literal with the instructions.”
She adds that her inspiration to do this "memorable" life lesson by her own elementary school teachers.
“Learning is supposed to be fun and messy,” she said.
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