From Soup To Nuts

I was grading essays with a bunch of my colleagues a few days ago. We do that in our school. We sit together and grade the essays from each others' classes. It ensures accuracy and consistency. Great system, try it in your school if you're not doing it already.

A colleague of mind then asked out loud to all who were present,"Has anyone heard of the term 'from soup to nuts'?" No one had heard of it before. He quieried our head of English. She wasn't sure either. Another fellow colleague blurted out,"Google it." Brilliant idea. But no, someone reached for the dictionary instead. He didn't find it in the dictionary. No points to you for guessing that right! The phrase in the essay was underlined, with the other errors that were underlined in bright red ink, standing out for all to see.

But would you know, someone actually Googled it. And not surprising, he found it. The idiom 'from soup to nuts' is a commonly used term to convey the meaning of 'from beginning to end'. Not anyone of them knew that. But they could have, if they'd had listened to the earlier advice to check it out on the internet.

"Yup, I Googled it and it led me to somewhere in Wikipedia. The term exists," he told all of us.

"But Wikipedia is not a reliable source," someone retorted with her know-it-all voice. Guess someone's been reading the papers recently and noted that some academics have disallowed the use of Wikipedia in citations of academic research essays. But that's not the point is it? The fact is, there's this staunch belief that our collective wisdom as teachers is so strong, so powerful. First, our collective wisdom meant that it didn't have to be checked. A rudimentary check among all those who were seated sufficed. Then we decided that our collective wisdom actually beats the collective wisdom of Wikipedia!

We know that the collective wisdom of teachers is not always correct. That's not the point of my chapter. We need to remember that like our students, we are learning. But that shouldn't surprise us. After all, being a teacher is not about teaching, it's about learning.