TRUST FALL
Teaching Trust and Playing With Fire
Never trust someone who is makes no mistakes
I worked with a teacher once who told me to “never admit your mistakes, especially to students.” That seemed like the wrong attitude to me, but I was in my first year so what did I know. I nodded, thanked them for the advice, and went about my day.
I made so many mistakes during my first year, it would have been laughable for me to not admit at least some of them. I maybe made fewer mistakes the next year, but still not a low enough number to hide.
As I gained experience and realized that mistakes weren’t something to be hidden, I began to relish them as a teaching moment. Sometimes I forget to square a number, divide by the wrong thing, or just plainly write the wrong answer. Sometimes I call a student by the wrong name, start the wrong presentation in class, have a saucy language slip in the middle of factoring, or make up a test problem that has no possible answer. I’ve called the wrong parents, spoken too harshly, broken a filing cabinet trying to demonstrate something, and started a fire. I once dismissed a class 30 minutes early for lunch because I forgot what day it was.
When these things happen, I laugh and tell my students that I haven’t been perfect since Clinton was president…
