Are you afraid of being in the SPOTLIGHT and, ooopppps, making A HUGE MISTAKE when ALL your students' eyes are on YOU. Well, don't be afraid, to be SINCERE, it IS BOUND TO HAPPEN, and not once, believe me, it is pretty frequent we, teachers, make mistakes when teaching...
And then, anxiety comes in the dead of night, creeping into your soul and you are left breathless feeling your whole world is about to collapse...
Again, YOU WANNA BE A GOOD TEACHER, well, then, ACCEPT THAT MAKING MISTAKES IS JUST HUMAN and you are human, YOU ARE NEITHER A FAIRY OR A CYBORG (maybe you will be those beautiful things in another life or maybe you are being so in a different dimension, who knows). For the the time being, your human shape will show human traits, isn't it lovely?
You are alive..., which is WONDERFUL, and if you are alive you are here to MAKE MISTAKES AND LEARN FROM THEM WHITHOU A SENSE OF REMORSE, we do things, we create things... and of all of a sudden we fall on our knees and see how everything crumbles to the ground..., then we GET UP, KEEP ON WALKING AND CREATING, which is so GREAT!!!! Do you get this, SUPERB WOULD-BE TEACHERS? I think this is one of the features of "GREAT TEACHERS", they overcome difficulties with a smile on their faces and that is devoted to inspire their students... Do you agree? As always, I may be so wrong...to actually be kind of right.
But well, tell me something, are you really worried about making mistakes when teaching? How do you think this may affect our teaching lives? Do you see a way to get out of this full circle?
Waiting for you comments my good students about to become excellent teachers!!!!!!!
And of course... I am sure I have made some kind of mistake in my writing here, or in my theories there... And that is so great..., because IT MEANS TWO THINGS 1) I AM ALIVE (YEAH!!!!!!) 2) I MAY IMPROVE MY TEACHING.
Thanks for your wonderful cooperation, my good pals!!!!!!!!!!!
(Fran)
To be honest I am pretty worried about making mistakes while teaching. I can´t get out of my mind the idea that I am going to be wrong when I will be explaining something to my pupils; I mean, I am going to get nervous and anxiety is going to seize myself. I think it´s a problem about self-confidence, because as you saw this morning, when you told me: "Ok, Víctor, come here and explain your favourite movie" The first reaction was: "NO NO NO NO", because I admit that I feel a bit shy when I speak either in English either in Spanish in front of a big group, altough they are my classmates who I consider them like my brothers and sisters, but I still have this sense of "fear".
ResponderEliminarBut I am conscious too that, as you have just said in this article, making mistakes is normal; and if children see us (teachers) making mistakes they would see us like we are people that can make mistakes, so they will not feel fear to be wrong, because they will see that they "role-model" sometimes can be wrong too. They will be more accepted to share their ideas and more open-minded.
To sum up I would like to say that with the pass of the years I hope to feel more likely to make mistakes and I hope in the same way about not think what others would think.
I believe as well that is a problem about experience; I mean, when you start to teach you feel more frightened to fail , but while you learn to cope with this feeling (with the pass of the years or with more experience) it gets easier to deal with this situation and feel better with yourself.
Totally agree with you, Víctor. I think it's all about experience: as more experience you get, as less frightened you are.
ResponderEliminarSometimes, we forget that babies and little children starting to learn about the word using "ensayo y error" system (among others). They try different things, and they fail; so they try in a different way, and they fail too... until when they succeed. What would happen if those children stop trying after they failed the first time? Would they learn anything anytime?
In this way, the learning process takes longer, but I think it's stuck better in your mind. So, why when we become adults we are so afraid of making mistakes several times? It's a natural way to learn.
For finishing, I'd like to share with you a sentence which I like:
"If at first you don't succeed,
try, try, try again"
I totally share this feeling of fear about making mistakes in class as a teacher. From my point of view, telling students wrong information or not knowing how to answer a question posed by a child is one of the worst things that could happen to a teacher. I always imagine the same terrible situation in which a student comes to me and says that her father/mother says that something I told the other day is wrong! If I were in this situation, I should try not to get nervous (although it would be very difficult for me), and maybe I would try to relax, to accept my mistake, and not to feel bad about myself, because it could happen to anyone. I don’t know if I will react like this, but, of course, I’ll try.
ResponderEliminarHowever, I think that any teacher is exposed to this kind of situations every day, and, as we are human beings, we are not an infinite source of knowledge and we may not know everything about any topic. That’s why I believe that we have to deal with these situations as best as we can, and that we’ll learn how to do things with our experience as teachers. In my opinion, the key to become into better teachers is learning from our own mistakes.
I think that fear is some implicit in our life and we can't think that fear doesn't appear due that fear is implicit and also necessary (el miedo guarda la viña). But it can't be negative and we must take this extra of energy and use it to improve in our teaching, our evolution and in our wisdom in differennt knowledge helping us to be better teachers.
ResponderEliminarThis fear can't made us be sad and as Francisco sais we have to be happy and being always transmitting positive energy enjoying our job.
I see you are really MAKING SO MANY GOOD POINTS in your commentaries, THANKS. Elena, María, Víctor and Daniel... you are so very right, there are so many "essential" ideas to be considered and hence understood that we would need a couple of lives to be just a "decent kind of teacher". And Reality proves that we have four years at College to get a Degree that says "OK, you are able" and then we are into the "wild world of Teaching" on our own. Goodness me, such a responsability!!!!!! But well, the WHOLE POINT HERE IS TO SPELL FEARS OUT, and then accept them, enjoy and keep UP the good work!!!!! So easy, isn't it? Thanks again to you both, readers and writers, you are a wonder!!!!!!
ResponderEliminarYesterday, I experimented this strange feeling which appears when you have pupils asking you a question and you don’t remember the answer.
ResponderEliminarI teach Spanish Language and Maths to a child who is at the last year of Primary School. I am not brilliant at Maths at all but I have managed more or less with the questions he has asked me about this subject. Yesterday the pupil’s homework was to solve a SQUARE ROOT. I couldn’t imagine it!!!!!! I hadn’t solved a square root since I was twelve years old!!!!!! I felt nervous but I tried to keep calm and go on. I thought that there must be an explanation in the students’ book so I asked him to read the book. Help! It wasn’t!!!! Then I have asked him to explain me how to do a square root trying to imagine that I didn’t remember it (something that was true =S). He didn’t remember too. (We have a problem!!.
Finally, I have realize that there was a computer in the room and I remembered that there are many useful tutorial videos on the net about maths for Primary Education level. I told the student that we were going to watch a video before doing the square root. I found quickly a good one and we watched it. When we finished we started to do the square root and he asked me some questions but in general he didn’t have serious problems to solve it (and me neither).
I was laughing inside myself the whole class. Those minutes were really funny and stressful at the same time. My mind was working too fast thinking about possibilities to overcome the situation. I felt stupid for a moment but with the help of the video I remembered how to solve a square root. It was not so difficult after all.
My reaction to this situation was to overcome it with a smile on my face, as you have recommend us. Nevertheless, I don’t know if I am going to have the same reaction to a similar problem in front of a class of twenty five students!! I wonder it.
I totally agree with you. In my opinion fear is a feeling that we are gonna have for the rest of our lives. Teacher is not an easy job, and being teachers does not mean that we are encyclopedies nor that we mumst know all the information. We need to know a lot of information and we should be very qualified for the job but of course we are gonna make mistakes along our careers. I am sure that more than once we will have to say our children...." Sorry, I am not sure about the answer, so I prefer to look for the right information and share it with you tomorrow".
ResponderEliminarI am not really scared about that, as I said we all can make those kind of mistakes for not knowing all the information. My main fear is not knowing to express myself, I mean, being understandable for my children. I am not dure if they will be able to understand my explanations or what I am trying to teach them. What about if my little pupils don´t learn anything and they don´t improve because of my fault? I would never forgive me that :(
On the other hand, making mistakes while you ar teaching just have a repercussion, we are gonna learn from them and we will not make that mistake ever again. Bad mistakes become good lessons.
I am glad to see you keep on coming with "wonderful" interpretations on the ART OF TEACHING, thanks Cristina and Julia for SHARING with us your views. Now we have a better understanding of it all...
ResponderEliminarFrom my point of view, a teacher becomes nervous when he is going to face a new group of pupils because he is a human being! It is related to our own nature. Everybody becomes a bit nervous when he or she has to talk in front of a group of people.
ResponderEliminarI think this feeling is caused by the fear of making a mistake (according to the post) and making a fool of oneself. If we are sure of what we do (an exercise, an explanation, etc.) or we can control any unexpected situation (because we know the topic very well), we won’t become so frightened. I believe the key is to be sure of our work and to love it, of course!
The fear of being in front of a group of people is related to our most primitive nature. Some surveys have proved that a person who has to face a group of people (for instance, a teacher) suffers the same feeling that an early human being when he was going to be hunted by a wild animal. A lot of eyes look at him and if he makes a mistake (although it is a small one), he can be killed!!
A teacher only can teach better and better through his experience. Mistakes belong to our nature too and we have to learn from them! Fortunately, nowadays a teacher (and a person) can learn from his mistakes. He is not going to die if he makes a mistake when he is in front of a group of people, but the feeling is the same!
Thanks, Gonzalo!!!!!
ResponderEliminar