I've been asked to present a half-day seminar for the new teachers in our district next month. Many of these will be fresh faces out of college or older individuals who are making a career change. But all of them will have one thing in common: this next year will be their first in a classroom.
As a twelve-year veteran, I've learned a thing or two about how to survive, deal with day-to-day stressors that only teenagers can bring and strategies for organization. I will be sharing these, but they won't be the most important part of my program.
Instead, I will be sharing some of my greatest mistakes.
I've still got a couple of weeks before I have to present, and in preparing my program, I've found myself re-visiting my "days of old" when I too was fresh out of college, 20, and dying under the pressure of trying to save each little soul that walked through my door.
It's hard to face the reality that I've failed or made some stupid mistakes, but I have. Sometimes I focused on the wrong things and missed the bigger picture. Sometimes I failed to connect with a kid because I was too caught up in my own life to see their need. And sometimes I had what I thought was a brilliant idea, and it blew up in my face once I tried to implement it.
Yet I am still called a "Master Teacher".
This is a misnomer because I feel like I still learning. Each group of kids I work with brings with it their own challenges and lessons for me to learn.
I may be the teacher, but I feel like I am the one that gets an education every single day.
Facing my mistakes is painful because I don't want to admit that I could make such blatant errors. Some of these errors weren't my fault. I wasn't mentored or taught how to do certain things. Instead, life was my teacher and I have to scars to show for it. But a lot of my mistakes I have to claim. I made them and learned from them and that's how I've continued to grow, personally and professionally.
But to stand up in front of others and publically confess my idiocy is another thing all together. I am risking judgment by sharing my mistakes.
But I'm prepared for that. It is my hope that by sharing my pitfalls and how I learned to avoid them, that others too will find value in what I've learned. I won't be able to prevent all of the mistakes from being made, but hopefully I can head some of them off. If others can laugh with me as I share some of my blunders, then maybe they won't be crying later on when they make their own.
There is something about us that wants to present a perfect image to the world and that's a huge mistake. Failure is our best teacher, yet few people are willing to risk this part of their learning process.
Michale Jordan once said that he is successful because he failed.
There's a tremendous amount of truth to that.
We shouldn't be ashamed to talk openly about our mistakes. This is how we grow and learn. Likewise, we shouldn't judge others for their mistakes. Ok, so some mistakes are stupid. But a lesson is learned regardless and that's where the value lies.
In reflecting about my career, I realize how far I've come. I hope that my first groups of students learned as much from me as I tried to teach them, but I know that may not be the case. As I have grown stronger as a teacher, so has my ability to share the material and present it in a variety of ways.
Don't ever be ashamed to claim where you've been or what you've done. You are who you are as a result. And only you have the power to change that reality.
I used to cut because I believed I was a screw-up. I have learned that I did some screwed up things, but that didn't mean I was without value.
That's a huge lesson that I've learned and one I can't wait to share.
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