Student Endorsement Joy

I am a student of all the different ways people learn. I am always trying to improve my teaching by coming up with the most efficient ways to teach. I am not a student of the way other people teach, but I learn from my students how they have been taught so I have gained a lot of insight in the ways other’s do it.

I had a wonderful group of women in my beyond beginner class this week at Coral Bay. About half of them had learned Mah Jongg from the start from me and the other half had learned from other people, but wanted to further their education.

I asked those students new to me to try and set their tiles up in a different way from the way they were taught. I explained my reasoning. I got a little push back as they said their “Teacher” had told them to do it this way. I asked them to try it my way just for these three days.

Today one of those new to me students came into class early to tell me a story. She said she went home the first day after class, not convinced I was right and wanting to get evidence that they way she was taught was the best way. She researched all the other mah Jongg teachers she could find and all of them except for one taught the way she first learned. Ah ha! She was right, but she didn’t tell me that the second day.

She came to class. We practiced what I taught and we won every game. So she went home from the class and decided to practice online. She told me she never plays against the computer because she says you can never beat the computer, but she saw us beat the computer every time that day. So she gave it to me try. She won 8 out of ten games, something that she had never even come close to before when she set up the tiles the way she was taught.

It only took two days with me and she was a convert to my method. Now she could see many new and better possibilities.

It made my heart so happy that she was so skeptical, but was willing to try a new way and found success so quickly.

I told her, most people who teach mah Jongg don’t study how people think, they way I do. Just teaching people the rules does not make learning this game fun. You have to help people learn to see possibilities and weigh the options in ways that work for their brains.

I am constantly changing the way I teach and coming up with improvements. You might think you know how to play mah jongg, but I teach you how to win mah jongg.