An Old American Saying (September 1st, 2006)

I was just reminded of an old American adage that goes something like, "Fool me one, shame on me. Fool me — can't get fooled again!" (If you have no idea what I'm talking about I encourage you take a three minute detour to check out this video.)

During the first week of training I made the mistake of keeping my goggles up all afternoon long (one trick we learned as instructors is to take our goggles off while talking so the students can see our eyes. I figured it'd be easier to remember if I just kept them up). I got home and my eyes were itching like they had sand in them. Rubbing my eyes, I walked into the bathroom, looked into the mirror and was greeting by a pair of absolutely bloodshot eyes. The sun wasn't out all that much, so I was a little surprised to see that. But, as has been mentioned several times since, there is basically zero ozone down here, giving the sun a much more dramatic affect than one would expect. My goggles have been on pretty much since them.

Today was a very mild day on the slopes. So mild, in fact, that my goggles were making my forehead sweat. Fortunately that's easy enough to fix, so I popped my goggles up and left them there for the rest of the day. And, predictably, I'm sporting bloodshot eyes again. Can't get fooled again!

We're entering our last weekend before the big daddy, the New Zealand Stage One exam. Our last day of training was today, so we're basically as ready as we're going to be. There's a different feeling this time around (compared to the NZ CSI exam). Going into the CSI I didn't know what to expect and definitely didn't feel prepared to take the exam. "Well, I'll just go in there and do the best I can," I thought as the week got started.

This time around I know pretty much what to expect. More than that, our trainers have definitely given us all the skills and knowledge we need to pass this test. Meaning that the only way I can fail is if I screw up during the exam. Obviously the same "give it your best" attitude is appropriate, but it's nice having some preset excuses to fall back on. I'm afraid I don't have any this time around.

And there's one part of teaching -- "student analysis" -- that can go horribly awry very quickly. When you meet a new class you have just a couple of minutes to figure out what the students know, determine what they want to achieve, and detect what's preventing them from getting there. The detection step is crucial. One slip up there and your entire plan is built around fixing the wrong problems (which translates as an automatic fail). In three of our six practice sessions today the person designated as "teacher" didn't correctly diagnos the students' fault. It's stressful and you don't have much time to get it right. But if I do go on to be an instructor I'll have to do it 6 times a day, so it's obviously a skill that needs to be present.