Mistakes Happen. Here’s How Teachers Can Learn From Them By Larry Ferlazzo — September 26, 2024

Mistakes Happen. Here’s How Teachers Can Learn From Them

By Larry Ferlazzo — September 26, 2024

An ‘Iron Fist’ Doesn’t Work

Gina Elia is a high school Mandarin Chinese teacher at an independent K-12 school located in south Florida. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2018 with a Ph.D. in Chinese literature:

The biggest mistake I made as a rookie teacher was thinking I had to come into the classroom with an iron fist.

I had not anticipated ending up as a teacher, so my preparation consisted of a crash course the month before I started based on Harry K. Wong’s classic The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher, which my well-meaning AirBnB host, also a high school teacher, had plopped into my hands. Wong stresses the importance of consistent enforcement of classroom rules and routines as crucial to a well-managed classroom in which learning can occur. I thus started the school year misunderstanding his point as meaning that being a strict teacher was fundamental to having a classroom that ran like a well-oiled machine.

I imposed what I wanted to do on students without asking for input and ignored them when they complained. When they continued complaining, I told them they were being insubordinate and threatened to send them to the dean or write an email home. I had several students that year who were some of the worst I have ever had, disruptive and disrespectful to me. Instead of shutting them down, I made their behavior worse by reacting to it, thinking I had something to prove.

It was clear that my students, even the majority who were not disruptive or disrespectful, did not like me much. They argued with me on how I had graded their assignments, they did not go out of their way to tell me about their lives, they sulked in class, and so on.

I eventually started to notice that most of my colleagues were not aspiring to be as strict as Headmistress Agatha Trunchbull in Roald Dahl’s Matilda. They acted friendly, charming, and poised. They had ideas about what they wanted their classroom to look like, though, and when students behaved in ways that were counter to those ideals, these teachers came down hard on them. The overarching sense in their classrooms was, “If you respect me, I’ll respect you.” I thought about how I always treated my adult peers with respect, and wondered if maybe it would be best to approach my students the same way.

The first turning point in my teaching career came about a month in, when there had been a miscommunication about a test and the students in my most challenging class behaviorally were all annoyed about it. For the first time, I apologized for my mistake, even though I had read many books and heard much advice insisting that teachers should never admit their errors to students. I turned it into a teaching moment, explaining that while I would do better with my communication, I also needed to see some changed behaviors from them that would create a more orderly environment in which information did not get lost in the chaos.

After I was finished, I started teaching, and multiple students started shouting out questions they had at the same time. One of the students, whom I could tell the others respected, chided them to “raise your hands, guys,” one of the requests I had just made of them, as he raised his own hand by example to ask his question. Before this moment, he had been one of the most vocal in criticizing my decisions and management. I could not believe how, in that instant, I had won him over after a month of misery with one show of vulnerability paired with a reasonable request of him and his peers. That class and I ended the year on a good note, smiling and waving at me and wishing me a good summer as they walked out on the last day of school.

When I communicate with my students now, I see them as individual people worthy of respect, not as a mass to be controlled. They sense this in me, and 9 times out of 10, my good intent and desire to respect them makes them want to act in a way that makes my job easier, not more difficult. When it comes to classroom management, cultivating an environment of mutual respect for each other has made all the difference.

Admit When a ‘Lesson Has Lost Its Focus’

Emilie McKiernan Blanton is entering her 16th year teaching high school in Louisville, Ky.:

No one is perfect, and it’s hard to be the adult in the room and acknowledge the mistakes you’ve made. However, after 15 years of teaching, I know my mistakes have been an opportunity to grow, learn, and do better.

A major mistake a lot of teachers make is not admitting when the lesson has lost its focus. Sometimes, teaching requires calling audibles in the middle of class. Maybe the activity didn’t go as planned for logistics. Maybe there was an unplanned fire drill, and the focus was already gone! Maybe the lesson was made with other students in mind and isn’t going well in your room.

Regardless of the reason, it’s better to take a pause and recalibrate instead of trudging through a lesson that’s just not working. I am always honest when this happens in my room now and let the kids know that it’s just not working and we need to restart. It’s important both to know that sometimes lessons don’t work out no matter what you try and that your students see you learning from a mistake instead of stubbornly continuing to do something that’s not working.

It took me a few years to get this right, but I have started pausing my lessons when something overwhelming has happened. This could be a verbal (or unfortunately physical) altercation happening in the room, a major news story that has kids upset, or even a bee in the room! No matter what has shifted the focus, your lesson can wait, and it’s OK to take a minute to regroup and come back. It doesn’t mean the lesson is going poorly! Sometimes, we just need a quick minute to let our brains rest and get back to where we were in a minute.

Especially in the digital age, a major mistake a lot of teachers make is not holding firm work/life boundaries. I get it! Our school email is on our phone where we are also signed into our Google Drive, and the next thing you know, you’ve been working for hours at home and answering emails as they come in.

We all do it at some point, but it’s important to maintain boundaries that help you rest and spend time with your own loved ones. I know sometimes teaching can feel like a 24/7 job, but it’s not supposed to be! It’s OK to answer that email in the morning and hold space for yourself to be a human.

Reduce Times When Students Are Sent to the Office

Jenny Grant Rankin most recently taught at Columbia University and has lectured at institutions like the University of Cambridge and University of Oxford. She has a Ph.D. in education and writes books for educators like First Aid for Teacher Burnout: How You Can Find Peace and Success 2nd Edition and Sharing Your Education Expertise with the World:

I spent my first year of teaching (junior high school English) learning this hard lesson: Unless something dangerous is happening and a child needs to be removed from the classroom for safety reasons, a teacher should never send a student to someone else to handle a behavior issue.

When I first started as a teacher, I was hard-working and determined to make a difference, but I had a lot to learn. Well-meaning teachers around me offered to take youth “off my hands” to handle misbehavior whenever students “acted up” in our classroom. In other words, I could just send a misbehaving student to their rooms if I ran into trouble, and that teacher would “deal” with the student for the remainder of class.

At first, doing this offered me some immediate relief. However, its actual impact was damaging. Whenever I sent a student to another teacher, I was broadcasting a loud message to the class that I couldn’t handle things myself, that I would give up on students when things got tough, that I was in over my head, that I wasn’t as competent as other teachers, that I couldn’t connect with some students, and more. I couldn’t help but notice other teachers caught in the same habit, with some teachers sending students to the front office for a similar effect.

As the year progressed, we found ourselves sending disruptive students to other teachers’ classrooms or the front office more and more. I also imagined that the educators receiving the students from us repeatedly started to take the referrals less seriously, anyway. Worst of all, we were letting these precious students down.

After that first year, I stopped sending any students to other educators for help. I made my lessons super fun and interactive (e.g., turning concepts and skills into games) so that students were eager to participate productively. If a problem did arise, I might ask a student to step aside for a moment so we could have a private chat (moments that were ripe with connection), but I kept the student in our classroom. Students should only be sent to the office for severe infractions, such as when a fight breaks out in class. We should never, ever seem to turn our backs on them.

Thanks to Gina, Emilie, and Jenny for contributing their thoughts!

Today’s guests answered this question:

What are the biggest mistakes you have made as a teacher, and what did you learn from it?

In Part One, K. Renae Pullen, Kayla Towner, Neven Holland, and Diana Laufenberg shared their experiences.

In Part Two, Cindy Garcia, Chandra Shaw, Stephanie Farley, and Jay Schroder contributed their answers.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@epe.org. When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo.