The Lesson | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: The Lesson | Previous Challenge Entry
By Tammy Ortung
02/24/21
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Students sit in their quadrants, masks on, talking through plexiglass panels like prisoners on visitation day. Muffled voices grow louder as they struggle to be heard. Some students give up entirely and rest their heads on their desks. This had been a difficult year for everyone. I used to think it had been hardest on teenagers, but I’m starting to realize it’s taken a toll on me as well.

“Good morning class,” I say, forcing a smile. “How was your weekend?” A few students speak up, but most sit in silence. I wonder if they had a rough night too.

“Last week we learned about the parts of an aircraft,” I continue. “Today we’re going to look at their functions.” How do I expect them to get excited about this topic when even I can hear the lack of enthusiasm in my voice?

I glance down at my lesson plan and read the objective word for word. “After today’s lesson, you will be able to identify the three primary flight controls and understand how they control aircraft movement along the three axes of flight.”

“The first flight control we’re gonna cover today is the elevator,” I say, gesturing toward the promethean board to my right. The slide depicts a C-5 Galaxy, one of the largest cargo planes in the military inventory. Some of my students aspire to be pilots and others want to join the military. I thought this graphic might help keep their attention.

It’s doing nothing for mine.

“If you remember, elevators are located on the horizontal stabilizer at the tail of the aircraft,” I say, pointing to the slide. “I have darkened the elevators on the C-5 to make it easier to see them. These controls move in conjunction with each other. You can see that when both elevators move down, the nose of the aircraft goes down. When they go up, the nose also goes up. This up and down motion is called pitch.” The airplane on the slide keeps moving up and down with each corresponding movement of the flight controls.

“Ailerons, on the other hand, control aircraft roll,” I say, gesturing to a new slide. “They are located on the outside trailing edge of the wing, next to the flaps. They’re also shaded so you can easily identify them. Notice that they move in opposition to each other.”

I wondered if that was our problem. It sometimes felt like we were competitors instead of lifemates.

“When one aileron goes up the other automatically goes down. When the left aileron is up and the right is down, the aircraft rolls to the left. When the right one is up and the left down, the airplane banks to the right.” Again the C-5 moves, tilting left and right, until I click to the next slide.

“Finally, we’ll take a look at the rudder, which controls the yaw axis. Rudders are located on the back of the vertical stabilizer on the aircraft tail. They control the left and right movement of an airplane, keeping it on a straight path even when turbulence and strong winds try to push it off course. If an aircraft loses its rudder authority, it can easily spin out of control in a frisbee, boomerang-like motion, called a flat spin.”

Just like our argument, spiralling out of control.

“Did you know that the C-5 is almost as long as a football field and as tall as a six story building? Yet this massive aircraft can be felled by one small flight control.”

I wondered if our relationship would be felled by that argument? He’d said so many mean and hurtful things. Maybe I had too. I still didn’t understand how the conversation had escalated so quickly.

“Okay class, now you’ll complete a student activity sheet to review what we’ve learned today,” I say as I hand out the worksheets.

While they work silently, I sit at my desk emotionally and physically exhausted. I can’t stop thinking about last night. I hate feeling so out of control. Why hadn’t we stopped the hurtful words that kept spewing from our mouths like vomit? Words that were good for nothing except creating even an even larger chasm in our relationship. The Bible says that “no one can tame the tongue, that it is restless and evil, full of deadly poison” (James 3:8). A venomous toxin that might destroy our marriage if we aren’t careful. Lord, why didn’t we heed your warnings?

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