Making sense of what you do in 20 slides This is my personal story of putting my teaching principles to the test. Learn if what I believe in as a teacher, has proven to work in life. 

1. Making sense of what you do
in 20 slides
Personal Story

2. Let me tell you a story.
Have you ever wondered
if what you do
makes sense?
Yes, that’s this kind of story.

3. Back in 2013 me and my family decided to
go to the mountains in the winter.
It was quite unusual because we hadn’t
been on winter holidays for more than ten
years. There were never the right
conditions, never enough money, or just
never enough will to go.

4. Do you have fond memories related to
winter holidays?
I did.
My parents used to take us to the Alps
to ski. This was exciting time and I
enjoyed myself. But it was a bygone era
by then and nothing more than a
shadow of a distant memory.
What’s more, I was certain that there
would be little of my skiing skills left
after all those years.
I wasn’t sure what I would like to be
doing there.

5. And then, my best friend, Kuba, offered
to lend me his snowboarding gear.
Snowboarding!?
Yeah, right. I was reluctant, to say the
least. I wasn’t sure I would know what to
do with it.
And when I remembered all these
YouTube videos of people failing
miserably at standing straight at it – well
– I was not exactly thrilled, if you know
what I mean.

6. Anyway, here I was, packed and ready to go. The snowboard, the boots,
the helmet, even the gloves – all neatly packed at the back of my car.
The journey made me think though….
…. yes, yes, we have reached the nub of the issue - finally .

7. What if I treated this as a learning experiment?
After all, if there is one thing I am sure about myself, is that I am a
teacher. So, why shouldn’t I teach myself to snowboard?
That was a valid question.
I mulled it over and came up with a plan.

8. What if I applied everything I believe in
as regards teaching and learning into this
situation?
What if I tested my principles and beliefs
on this case?
If what I do in classes makes sense, then I
should be able to teach myself – and learn –
how to snowboard.
My mind was made up.
I was ready to give it a go.
After all, I had nothing to lose.

9. Wrong!
I had everything to lose.
Just imagine what it would mean if I failed! It would be like a slap in the
face. You and your stupid, pointless teaching principles.
If it didn’t work, I would have to sit down and really consider my life
and what I am doing with it.
But it didn’t stop me from trying.
The pursuit of knowledge, popularly known as curiosity, was my driving
force.
I needed to know.

10. OK. So, what do my teaching principles had to say in this situation?
My first, overriding, principle is that students need a teacher. At least,
up to some time, when they are ready to move on and take advantage
of their newly acquired skills and abilities.
If students need a teacher, so did I.
In fact, I found two.
My first teacher was a snowboarding instructor, whose name has
unfortunately been already erased from my memory, but whose
persuasive, professional and persistent approach helped me through
the initial stages of setting up the gear, standing up, basic moves and
turns.

11. But I needed to immerse myself in the subject.
That’s yet another principle for effective learning.
If you want to master a subject or skill, just jump in
at the deep end. Make it your new living space,
surround yourself with it, breathe it, consume it.
Let your mind get firmly anchored in it.
So, I found these siblings, Jill and Rick, who teach
snowboarding on YouTube, the SnowProfessor.
They were great instructors – informative,
digestible, entertaining, but above all, passionate
about what they do. This passion was quite
contagious.
Yes, you have guessed it. It’s another teaching
principle.

12. Students make mistakes.
Sounds like Paolo Coelho's adage?
Well, it is trivial but true. What it meant for me was rather painful. Yes,
painful in its figurative and literal meaning. To learn to snowboard I had
to accept and embrace the fact that I too would fall.
And you need to know something. It’s rather personal, but I am ready
to share it with you. I hate falling. I wholeheartedly despise it.
So, whenever I fell, I kept repeating to myself, “Mariusz, falling is part of
the process. You won’t make any progress if you stop taking risks.”
Even when my edge hit the snow and I plunged like a bag of potatoes
hitting my head so hard I passed out for a brief moment, I knew I could
not give up.

13. Never, ever give up.
That’s another crucial principle for learning.
The excitement stage fades quickly and then discouragement creeps in.
It is telling you to give yourself a break, that you are too old for that,
that there is no point trying. You have to break through this wall of
deterrence.
So did I. I stood up. Cleared the snow of my jacket like Neo cleared the
dust of his shirt when he was fighting the Agent.
And I moved on.
It felt good. Very good. This positive feeling fuelled my determination.

14. And I was making progress.
The turns were smoother, the speed was faster,
I was bolder and started having fun.
I’m sure you know that feeling.
It’s so much fun when the things you are learning
become part of who you are.
Now I could do snowboard to my heart’s content.

15. There’s just one more principle I follow when I teach.
What water is to plant, so is praise and encouragement to a mind that
is learning.
What I needed at that stage was to get some credible feedback on my
progress. My instructor had already been gone to other students. My
family had little experience with skiing and were learning on their own.
I needed to find an expert and make them comment on my progress.
I know how important it is for my students. I have seen them grow and
blossom when I regularly sprinkled them with credible, specific and
well-earned praise and encouragement.

16. At first I thought I would record myself and let my friend, Jakub, see
me. If he had seen me, I would have known if my progress had been
good. I would have received authentic and credible feedback, even if a
little sweetened.
You know, that’s what friends are like, aren’t they?
But I couldn’t persuade anybody to record me.
My family were struggling with the slope, waging their own learning
battles.

17. One day I decided to come back to the slope in the evening. I had left
my family at the boarding house, and geared up for a few more raids
down the slope.
It was dark by then and the slope was lit artificially. Skiers and
snowboarders were just black silhouettes cutting the slope with no
apparent pattern or rule.
When I was going up on the ski-lift I spotted two figures who were
snowboarding seamlessly down the slope, carving regular lines in the
snow with grace, confidence and poise.
I knew I had found what I was looking for.

18. If I only could get them to tell me how I was doing, I would have closed
the learning cycle and have the prove I needed the most.
I mustered all courage and approached them when they were getting
on the ski lift and asked if I could join them. They agreed and we talked
briefly about our experience with snowboarding.
Kasia and Iwona were much more experienced and had done some
snowboarding courses in the past. They were just warming up here, in
Poland, before their proper winter holidays in the Alps.
Their credibility checked all right for me.

19. “It’s my fifth day, girls” I said, and continued: “If I fall or something, just
keep on going. I will learn much even by just looking at how You do it.”
And off we went. The slope was not very long, and there were just a
handful of people skiing and snowboarding at that time. We basically
had the whole mountain to ourselves.
It was the perfect ride. We synced like US commandos readying for
action, and arrived at the base at the exact same time. I was thrilled
and tired. It was exhilarating.
And then I heard them say…

20. “Mariusz, I think you lied to us.” said
Kasia, “You are too good at it to be
doing it only for five days.”

21. Yes! My experiment worked!
I have proven, beyond any doubt, that my teaching principles
are valid.
If they worked on me, they must work on my students as well.
So, what about the question from the beginning of this story?
The answer is: Yes!
What I do makes sense.
I am a living (or rather snowboarding) proof of that.