A bad day at school yesterday, particularly in second-year algebra, in which the students had had a hard time grasping algebraic transformations and we had to try to recover old ground without falling behind.
We’ve been warned that new teachers are dangerously prone to take such failures as condemnations of their own technique. That doesn’t quite apply in this case, since I’m simply assisting an established teacher. She assures me it isn’t my fault, reinforcing the warning of taking things too personally, assures me that sometimes kids just don’t get the lesson. That’s the way it goes, and you just allow for such setbacks where you can—a practice that’s become harder with the rigid and often misdirected testing practices of NCLB—adjust your pace, and carry on.
Still, it’s hard not to get discouraged. Like stage performance, you knock yourself out and sometimes the reviews are bad. That’s life. Soldier on. But ask any actor: the bad reviews still hurt, even for established and idolized performers, but especially for newcomers who haven’t yet proven they’ve got the sand at all.
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