Failure in the classroom

Saludos,


Can you believe it is now November? Only five weeks of class remaining and another semester will come to an end.  It seems like an appropriate time to consider the question "have you ever experienced failure in the classroom? What happened and how did you recover from it (or did you?)"?


Well, anyone who has taught more than a month would be lying if they didn't admit to failing in the classroom. To one degree or another every teacher misses the mark at some point. I have been teaching since 1991 so it is fair to say I have had days when I walked out thinking ...


"Wow, I really blew that one."
"Oh my, that was a disaster."
"This is crazy, I don't even deserve to call myself a teacher."
"Why didn't that work?????"


Then invariably what happens is I think about the lesson, the interactions, and how my students reacted. I ask myself "at what point did it fall a part?" Lots of time I don't sleep that night trying to figure out what went wrong and how to make it better. With me, I obsess more about fixing it than the failure itself.


I will give you an example of just such a day! I planned this elaborate assessment day with four different activities. The students were grouped and moved from one assessment station to the next. I thought I had it perfectly orchestrated, but quite quickly it started to break down and chaos seemed to ensue. Now it wasn't chaotic in the sense of a classroom of 20 five year olds running around, rather 20 young adults moving around confused and frustrated for a multitude of reasons. There was obvious tension and I realized fairly quickly that this wasn't a favorable situation for assessing language performance, but just wasn't sure how to fix it on the spot.


I agonized over this that night and the whole next day. I am a senior teacher. I kept asking myself "how did that happen? I thought I had it perfectly planned?"


The next class I greeted my students by simply stating that they had witnessed a teacher's plan fall apart in front of their eyes. I told them that I needed their honest input and suggestions and that I would take their input into account as I planned future assessments. That day we all learned something and fortunately I didn't lose any sleep that night.


“Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, only this time more wisely.” - Henry Ford


Until next week,