Someone once said that if you write about yourself, you write about everybody and if you try to write about everybody, you write about nobody.
My success depends on the success of my students. If they do well, I feel I am doing well--and currently they are doing very badly. They don't seem to have learned what I am trying to teach them. They are not writing well. They are not working hard. But is that my fault?
It is hard to believe that it is not one's fault. It is lot like your children or your wife. If they misbehave you feel it is a reflection on you. You can't quite allow for the fact that your children have a mind of their own, your wife's behavior is merely a sign of your wife's character. After all, you begot those children, you chose that wife. These are --these must be -- a reflection on you.
Such thinking must be squashed. You might want your children to behave well because it will get them further in this world; you might want your wife to be nicer because it will be good for her in the long run -- but it is for their sake that you want their performance to be better -- not for your sake.
I have to let go of the belief that my student's performance is a reflection on me. So much else is going on in their lives. Their parents may be in the midst of a divorce; their girlfriend may have just broken up with them; their life might be in shambles for one reason or another -- an their poor performance on a paper assigned to them in one class out many classes really has nothing to do with what they were taught, or the effectiveness of my teaching.
It is so hard to let go of the belief that one is responsible for the behavior of those whom you raised, taught or married -- and in some sense, one should not let go of that belief. Not to feel responsible is to resign responsibility, deny that one can be responsible. It isn't my fault that my children are mean; it is not my fault that my wife is inconsiderate; it is not my fault that my students know nothing about writing.
It is, in part, your fault. If you didn't think so, you wouldn't try to improve your children, your wife, your students. But for a teacher, such thinking leads to depression.
I have tried so hard to instill certain principles into my students. I've tried so hard and I've tried so hard for so many years -- and yet year after year after year I fail miserably with so many of them. Deep in my heart I feel my success depends on their success -- and yet so few of them succeed.
The wife of one teacher told him to focus on the successful students. So many of us focus so hard on those who have not succeeded, those who have been disruptive, that we drain our energies in an essentially useless pursuits--and we then don't have enough energy left to help those who are trying, those who are in part succeeding.
We must try hard to focus on our successes, on what went right. Too often we focus on what went wrong--and then we don't have enough energy left over to help those that need help, to focus on projects in our life that need our positive energies & not our negative thoughts.
Copyright © 2004 Henry Morgenstein