One failure I had as a teacher was that I didn’t try hard enough to excel in my job because I did not care for the subject I was teaching. I didn’t want to teach math; I wanted to teach technology courses. I had previously taught IT and engineering, and I absolutely loved those courses. But changes had to be made in the next school year, and I was needed for math. My heart was not in it. In fact, I wanted to quit. But I stayed on.
Then, at an event, I listened to a speaker, who said that regardless of what job you are doing — whether you like doing the job or not — it is your responsibility to do that job to the best of your ability. It shows the kind of person you are and the integrity you have with the profession and organization you are working for. That made so much sense to me.
So I set out to do just that. I had it as a performance goal as well.
This year was tough because I had lost loved ones and emotionally wasn’t doing well. I had a co-teacher this year, and her energy inspired me to do better. We developed lessons that gave students more hands-on projects. It was a great success academically, and we had much more student engagement.
With COVID-19, we had to get more creative and engaging, so we made video lessons. Some days, they were even funny. The students said the videos were helpful, and the principal commended our work at the end of the semester. I am happy to do remote teaching and accept the challenge to help my students during this pandemic.
Improving my teaching was a success for me.
“Doing your best at anything you do is a success, and I think I have done that with teaching.
I was very hard on myself when I failed at anything as a young person, but now, I handle failure with grace, move forward quickly and learn from my failure. One thing I teach my students is to learn from their mistakes. That is what math is all about, and it’s my philosophy in anything I do: I learn from it, and I do better next time.
