2024-04-15

Teaching my regular classes at the Ross Farnsworth - East Valley YMCA.

Rank exam results were announced today and … I messed up. I was short one belt. Fortunately I had an adult student who only comes on Mondays and was willing to wait until next week to get his belt. Whew. Lesson learned … triple check belt inventory before rank exams. Nevertheless, I managed to turn this into a lesson: Sensei makes mistakes too. Truth be told, I beat myself up about this much more than my students would have. They were all completely understanding.

In other news, the announcement of results occurred as usual. I call each student to the front, read their exam feedback out loud for all to hear, then present them with their feedback and (assuming they pass) their rank certificate and a new belt. I give each student personalized, written feedback so they know what they did well and what they need to do to improve. This also allows me to look back at previous exam feedback to see if there are any ongoing issues.