It's not trivial

This morning before kids' class started one of the younger students came up to show me the praying mantis he found in his backyard a couple days ago. It was a big specimen with a dark green iridescent hue. Unfortunately the student didn't punch any air holes in the container, so the mantis also had an iridescent funk, kind of like a freshly turned mulch pile.

Sifu went over our last test scores after the class had left, pointed out errors in the written section mostly. "You have to know these things," he told us. "You're teaching now."

"So we should spend more time on the trivia?" I asked. It wasn't exactly what I wanted to say.

"It's not trivial," Sifu replied.

See? Bad choice of words. The written test is kung fu history, details on the style's theory, lists of forms and concepts. A student only has to answer about five written questions, but he has to study 50 questions before the test. They are short answers, like trivia questions. But they're not trivial.

This week I'll think about how to incorporate those questions into the class. Asking one of the questions at the end of class is OK but it probably shoots out of the student's mind as soon as they're dismissed. So maybe a 5-minute "think break" during forms training instead, so students don't feel put on the spot.