We have all heard by now that failure is a great teacher. Once parents and students accept this, grades will reflect growth, not judgment; God will be in His heaven and all will be right with the world.
Wrong.
The one component I “failed” to account for was the necessity of failure to my own learning curve. To what degree have I acknowledged failure as my own teacher?
Here is what failure is teaching me this year:
Students brought typewriters to self-started creative writing group.
I am prepared for everything except the next thirty seconds.
It never works twice.
My most brilliant students will miss The Second Coming if it occurs in print.
I keep forgetting that classics must be read aloud and with enthusiastic slowness.
Students can do fine without me; students cannot do fine without me: I will never know which day one of these statements is true – I will always guess incorrectly.
Why Tweet when you can Type?
There is still no point in commenting in writing on a student’s paper.
No amount of literature or dialogue will widen a narrow mind.
Now, I am not discouraged by any of this. Perhaps my new-found wisdom will help me to make New Year’s resolutions to be a better teacher. mainly it serves to remind me that whatever I thought they were learning today, they actually learned something else. The very unpredictability of teaching, the Michael Crichton factor of chaos theory (substitute this week’s aluminium foil Mechanical Hound for T-Rex) is what brings me back engaged daily.
In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause.
George Eliot
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/georgeelio148905.html#4UYvxHo1eVuTG8mK.99
Gordon – This may be my new favorite post of yours. And I know that your willingness to “fail” and to empower and to listen and to acknowledge frustration is one of the many things that makes you a gift to your students.
Thank you, Sara. I really enjoyed your end of the year wrap up w. A. Condee podcast This Writing Life, and the way you both inspired the writer in all of us.
Bravo! Your list IS the reality of teaching!
As is your science bearings 180 on Posterous, doing visually what I do verbally.