This week, starting on Tuesday and ending Saturday, I'll be detailing my five biggest failures as a teacher this year. I made a lot of mistakes that made this year harder than it should have been, and it will help me (and hopefully others) to reflect upon what I could have done differently.
Of course, I wouldn't be doing myself any favors if I was to dwell only on what I did wrong and not on the good things as well. So from Tuesday through Saturday next week, I'll balance the negative with my five greatest successes as a teacher this year.
I can tell you that it was much easier to come up with five ways I've failed (I actually came up with so many more that I had to stop myself) than to come up with five successes. I'm my own worst critic, so of course I tend to think things are much worse than they actually are, but that forces me to constantly strive to improve. In the end, I think my students benefit from that.
Here's all of the entries from both series:
On Failure:
- Systems and Procedures
- Student-Teacher Relationships
- Teaching a New Subject
- Stressing Out
- It's Not About You