Why every educator should be a student sometimes
The Wine and Spirits Education Trust (WSET) Level 3 Award in Wines is a big deal in wine land. It’s a course designed for wine makers, buyers, distributors, sommeliers, viticulturists, oenology students. Globally, it has a 50% pass rate.
It is not designed for a quasi-lifetime English major who has managed to enjoy wine for a couple of decades without looking beyond the label.
I took it anyway.
In 2021, I passed the WSET Level 2 Award. It was a reason to leave the house after a year of Covid lockdowns, a pleasant challenge, a chance to taste a lot of wine.
I knew the pass rate statistics for the Level 3, but thought: how hard can it be?
What I meant was: how hard can it be for an educator with two Masters degrees?
What is that they say about pride and a fall?
Although I’d read the course book and started taking tasting notes, I wasn’t even close to being prepared when the four-week lecture series started. Stunned, sullen, I spent the first two weeks waiting for things to make sense.
Then it became clear: nobody was going to learn for me. I had to figure out a way to master an insurmountable mountain of facts, or accept failure.
Did I enjoy the climb?
Honestly, no.
But it made me realize how vital it is that educators become students, from time to time. Being an expert all the time has a tendency to swell the head. When things are familiar and easy, it’s easy to forget that may not be the case for our students.
Tackling the WSET Level 3 taught me the importance of…
New material
So. Much. Information.
My self-satisfied notion, prior to this, was that I constantly learned new stuff.
But I read all the time! etc. This is not untrue, but reading for fun varies a great deal from memorizing, in a matter of weeks, a body of knowledge that ranges from meteorology to botany to chemistry to history to global legislation.
Being forced to engage with a mass of new facts and data, and having to learn it in a specific order, to apply in a certain way, was a powerful lesson.
New strategy
Being presented with this material meant my usual study strategies, or lack of, had to change.
Usually, I read, write and bluff.
That wasn’t going to get me across the line for the WSET Level 3. The multiple choice questions were ruthlessly precise (ask me about which Loire Valley rose is always dry) and the bulk of the points come from four ‘short answer’ questions which aren’t short.
To pass, I had to figure out how to learn what was required, then learn it.
New discipline
This required a new (and frankly boring) dedication to doing the work.
My Master’s degrees (Creative Writing, Education) were breezes in comparison. All they required was occasionally cranking out an essay, or a chapter of a novel.
The WSET Level 3 doesn’t mess. My course at The Wine Place was a sedate four weeks followed by an exam in week five.
Some intensive versions are crammed into a matter of days.
It got to the point, I was cramming while cooking, brushing my teeth, doing yoga, between (teaching) classes, in the car. Only the shower was safe.
New perspective
This provided me with new — and probably overdue — perspective.
As an educator who loves my subject, I sometimes struggle to remember that my students don’t necessarily share my enthusiasm. Or that they may genuinely want to succeed and improve, but not know how.
Being overwhelmed, feeling out of my depth, getting frustrated… it knocked my confidence. And the farther my confidence slipped, the harder it was to muster motivation and stay on track.
It’s one thing to understand that as an abstract; it’s another to experience it.
New mindset
The final test result was better than expected. But the most valuable parts of the learning journey were the least comfortable ones.
Studying for the WSET Level 3 reminded me the world is (much) bigger than my bubble, and that it’s crucial to hold space for other areas of knowledge, other ways of seeing, other practical skills.
It pushed me to commit to learning as much from my students as they learn from me.
And it taught me there is a great deal of joy to be found in looking beyond the label.
