Emperor

There is more than one way to run a successful classroom. I learn this after reading the teaching guru Rafe Esquith's Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire.

But there is only one way to face a mistake in front of students: Admit it. I know this because I've made one today.

It's harder to do than it might seem. To begin, frank discussion with genuine expectation of divergent views is an exception rather than the norm between teacher and students. If anything, many students avoid disagreeing with their teacher for fear of being ridiculed or because they don't want to present an unpopular view. I've played the dictator enough as a teacher to understand why students prefer to shut up.

This morning, I brought my intern to the operating theatre and showed her the way we inserted a catheter into a patient's tummy for dialysis. Layer by layer. One stitch after another. Everything seemed smooth and clean. And my intern appeared impressed. At the end, we pulled out the catheter from the skin wound. And then out of nowhere, we saw a tiny piece of what-appears-to-be-skin near the wound. No more than the size of a hole created by ticket punch. I didn't really want to be distracted by that small piece of skin.

"Hmm," my intern said, eyeing that stuff with suspicion. "What's that?"

"I don't know. Perhaps a small piece of skin being peeled off."

My intern leaned. She leaned further. There was a curious silence.

She then picked up the skin and brought it closer to me. It took me a while to even bother taking a close look, only to learn that it's a torn piece of glove. My surgical glove.

I felt (and looked) like an idiot.

An idiot emperor who was pointed out by someone he is naked.