Hello Steve-O!

I see Jasmine already asked what I was going to 🙂 Are you seeking validation from the students? If so, then you’d set yourself up for a world of pain and suffering. They have a life of their own, and how they behave and what they decide to do is a reflection of their life and who they are, not who you are.

Do not make assumptions. Ask! Get feedback on the material, but in a way that you’re not asking for validation for yourself as a teacher. Who you are as a person, who you are as a teacher, what one particular training material is like and what the students are like are all separate things. What happens in the classroom is not personal.

When you are in front of a classroom, you are a leader, and you need some confidence to be an effective leader. All of that can be learned. Leaders make mistakes, and then they communicate and evaluate what needs to be done. Notice that I did not say that they directly apply the feedback to their work. Sometimes people complain for a reason and sometimes they complain for no good reason. We are inherently lazy, pleasure seeking creatures, and being challenged, whilst good for us, can make us grumpy. Of course being expected to do something that is completely out of our league will make us lethargic. Still, people will always gravitate towards a leader to show them the way, but they will test to see who’s tough enough to follow.

And believe me, all teachers have been tested. I went to a school where all the teacher students trained and so we had multiple different young teachers to teach us over a period of few weeks at a time. Some of them we cracked and they started to cry. Some of them we liked a lot. We were just kids and kids can sense fear and weakness and a genuine spirit. We weren’t there to validate their sense of worthiness. We were there because we had to be there. Whilst that was about teaching children, it’s not that different up until you are giving a course to people who have purposefully sought to be there.

You are still learning to be a teacher and you are still learning to be a leader. Take in what you learn and look at it from a neutral point of view and don’t take it personally. Teaching and leadership are skills that require learning and refinement and skilful flexibility. You need to be a bit tough, but caring. Kind of like a parent.

So, suck it up, forget the Peru and get back in the classroom. Also, consider reading Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements for some understanding on making assumptions and seeking validation.