Once again I found several interesting
points that apply to my everyday personal and work environment while reading
this week. These are my take away points or “ah ha” moments from Chapters 5
through 8 of The Art of Possibility. We are all…human and are capable of making
mistakes.
I can relate to the story of the
conductor apologizing openly to the percussion section for the error he made.
This past school year I had several visitors in my class observing my students
as well as me. My students are encouraged
to talk and interact with one another often so its expected to be loud during
class time. However one particular day a
few of my students were off task (or so I thought) so instead of me going over
to the group I yelled out to them to get to work as I continued with my reading
group. I realized very shortly that not
only were all of my students working, they were on task and actually creating a
debate for their challengers. I stopped
the groups brought everyone to circle and apologized to my class 1) for yelling
out and 2) for assuming that the group was off task. I discussed with my students the importance
of admitting when you make a mistake and apologizing when you are wrong. I can remember telling my students that we
are all human and we will make mistakes in life but the important thing is to
learn from those mistakes and try not to make those same mistakes again.
out of my mouth in that tone I could immediately see my 1st grade teacher wagging her ruler at us screaming to the top of her lungs. The truly sad thing about her class was she never treated us like we were human and she never apologized. I never felt good in her class and I made a promise to never treat my children like that and here I am sounding and behaving just like Mrs. Such-In-Such. So I had to make the needed change within me and I had to do it fast because I never want my students to have that mental image or feeling about school that I once had.
2 comments:
Tracy, I found your blog entry to be very inspiring. We have ALL been there – in that moment when your teacher hat comes off and the street hat comes on. (I keep a few street hats in my back pocket.) Nevertheless, few teachers have the humility to admit to acting in wrong judgment or apologizing. This becomes especially problematic in this digital age of email and social media. I sometimes find myself preferring NOT to reply to a student email simply because I know my tone is going to be misinterpreted. You have taught your students a valuable Life101 lesson that they will remember far beyond the school year.
It's so important to not forget what we learned as students when we're teachers. I thought that that was an asset as a classroom teacher to not forget how bored I was as a student and relate to my students. Thanks for sharing your memory and how you try to live up to doing better with your students.
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