This November, I stepped out of my comfort zone and ran three separate workshops for colleagues to learn about vibe-coding interactive simulations for their learners.
Why did I do so when my inclination was to shrink into one corner and be a shabby kitty subsisting on tossed leftover morsels? The impending changes – leaving a school where I had been in for seven years, bidding farewell to students I had taught and learnt from since they were Y1s – felt destabilising, ponderous. There was this desire to fail visibly so as to model a growth mindset.
And were there failures?
Yes, definitely.
To set up this website, I had to keep reading materials, seeking help, trying, failing. One expensive mistake was crashing this site. A family member returned with dinner and, distracted, I turned towards him and deleted a folder of critical files without backing up.
One memorable incident happened during a gathering I attended for web developers. An Amazon Web Services dude went around in a circle asking to add everyone on LinkedIn. When he reached me, he paused then skipped to the next person. Ouch.
Were there regrets? At those moments, yes. Chastised myself, I did and with very strong language.
After a few days, I addressed the sore self the way I would treat a student or an NPC in a story. Get over it, it’s not life and death.
It’s with this mentality that I agreed to conduct these sharing sessions. The participants’ feedback was overwhelmingly positive for which I am still quite amazed by and remain very thankful for.
Here are some photos from the three sessions:
1. Gryphon Node: AI x Pedagogy Catalyst
2. Science Department Meeting
3. Professional Learning Day
Keep learning, keep growing, I’ll remind myself.
Thank you so much for your support.