@steve-o

Hi Steve-O

I am sorry for your suffering. On a positive note, please note that you are blessed to be part of a nobel profession. I hold a lot of respect for teachers of any kind as they guide us in becoming better students of life.

I can relate to your situation as I have been involved in teaching over the last few years as a pay back to my profession. I teach adults who bring a lot of challenges to the table and are always in the question mode. I am in mid thirties and by right, I should be able to relate to them as we are not too far apart in terms of age and I have the relevant work experience, but in the first few months to a year, I was constantly questioning myself if I was doing a good job. I would often feel embarrassed, doubt my capabilities and had more bad days than good days.

I will share how I turned things around for myself:

1. by accepting that we are all students. Even students can teach us something valuable. This helped me open up to new experiences, which I was denying myself by thinking that I am the teacher / facilitator and students should just learn from my experiences. I am not sure what level you teach but perhaps asking the students their feedback on your teaching style may be a useful learning experience for you. We can all improve everyday in some ways. This also takes away the pressure off us as we dont have to be perfect all the time 🙂

2. By asking some star students in the class on what went well and not so well during the last lesson. You could trial the same and see if you can take some positives out of it and incorporate that into the next lesson.

3. By making the quieter students to contribute to the group as much as the vocal students do. This helped me the most as I could finally relate to where my facilitating skills were lacking. The quiet students can often give you a wealth of information, which you had no clue about. As they are shy, they tend not to step forward with their feedback or questions.

Now getting back to your actual issues.

Please do not feel defeated. Take something positive out of every experience and see where you can improve a little. You don’t have to master everything in a day. Just aim to improve in small ways. Try a new way of teaching. Try explaining a concept in a different style or ask one of the smarter students to share their insight on how they understand it. There are various ways to skin a cat 🙂

The kid who used to be fond of you and is not anymore and wont attend your class —– Hey, do not worry about this kid. The kid will come around when she has sorted her own issues out. Don’t make her issue yours. You are a teacher and you should remain completely neutral for all students. The moment you start to associate feelings or emotions towards one student, teaching takes a back seat. I know we all have our favourites in the class but we are in-charge of a big responsibility, which requires us to be professional at all times. Leave the emotions out of it as it doesn’t take too long to cross the thin line between our personal and professional obligations. Emotions help to create an unnecessary expectation and expectations often lead to disappointments if we are not careful.

Anxiety issues —– this is an issue that you need to explore and understand where does your anxiety stem from ? Are you afraid of rejection ? Do you have a fear of failure ? Do you need validation from students to feel good ? Do you look outwards for happiness or a sense of well-being ? Only you can work on this issue and you can find some support in the form of therapy if need be.

You can hit the reset button everyday in your own mind if you wish. It is really that easy. You don’t have to go to Peru to do that but Peru is a lovely place so go there for a holiday 🙂

Hey, the more you tell that mind of yours how bad you feel, the worse it will make you feel. The negativity slope is a slippery one, which only runs downwards. Don’t let yourself ever go down that path as it is difficult to get up quickly. Remember, you are doing a great job and always think of the huge contributions you have made in the lives of these students. I am sure many of the students think of you very fondly but may not have come and told you so. Some kids just don’t do that hahaha.

Work on always improving yourself and then you will never have self-doubts. No person is perfect in this world but we can always strive to become better by learning from every experience.

Hope this helps. Cheer up and chin up. You are awesome.

Jasmine