Re-thinking Taipei 101 and Teaching

Where in the World is D Today?

Re-thinking and revising a few things.

I have gone on the record on this blog and other places as saying, (The things I know, I am completely confident of. The things I don't know, I am totally neurotic. I know teaching. I am 99.9% completely confident when I go to teach a lesson. Women... hmmm.... well, put that in the neurotic category.)

Today I went in to teach what I thought was a pretty good lesson with kids I was confident would do well. While I think it was a good lesson in theory, me believing we could build from the two previous weeks. I felt like I was at the base of Mt.Vesuvius (look it up if you don't know the history) during the lesson. Translation: the lesson was AWFUL!!

After crawling out of the ash, I bounced some ideas of Will, my friend and mentor. Will would not actually say this, but his response was some akin to, "that's dumb". So going back to the drawing board a third time, I came up completely re-vamped lesson for my second class. (All in about 40 minutes time!) And you know what?! I was a lot better the second time around. There is still one adjustment to be made but I felt so much better.

I admit I am a recovering perfectionist. I know things can't always be perfect. But dang it, anything worth doing is worth doing well! My students had no idea what I had gone through with the previous class and whole exploding volcano thing, but did they get a better lesson. Frankly, yes. And I was happier too!

NOW, about Taipei 101. I would now like to retract my preious statement of "I thought it would be taller" and basically dismissing the excitement over it. Last weekend I was on my way north to see some really cool stuff north of Taipei. So as we're driving by I look out the window and OMG!, there is Taipei 101! From a distance, with other "tall" buildings in the picture, 101 is GIGANTIC. And yes, if I were a freakishly large gorilla I would want to climb it.

So people, sometimes we have to back and see things from a different perspective. And be gracious enough to say, "Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time, but gosh, I was wrong."

In the end, Everybody wins.