Learning to Fail

"I have failed my way to success." - Thomas Edison

a teacher, learning

I had gone to sleep on Sunday night, como ya tu sabes, on a cloud floating above the world: from here perspective encompassed humanity on a grand scale and peace was abundant in such a position closer to the heavens.

Monday morning, I woke up in the very dirt of earth. I just didn't know it yet.

My confidence went before me with steady strides as I neared my second teaching lesson Monday afternoon after our TESOL classes terminated. El tema, or the theme, of my lesson was sure-fire: the students would be working backwards to dissect inspirational quotes from figures in the range of British and American history. The lesson would start with a warm-up activity as simple as ABC - literally.

From the start, says my colleague, the indefatigable John, the planets were aligned against me. (I thanked him later for blaming the universe on my behalf.) Monday brought a group of TESOL participants cranky and irritable, full of smart-alecky comments like me. There was just a pervasive attitude problem in the air. 

The students, our lovely intermediate-speaking English students, were under the same cloud when they came in the door at four o'clock. I don't mean to imply that they were rude; I'm sure the day is far when I will experience anything like American student disposition from an Ecuadorian in my class. However, they were quiet, and obstinately so. They weren't in a creative mood, they weren't in a happy mood, they weren't in a fun mood. And they hit me with my first shock in the first five minutes.

The general idea (or rather, the specific SLO - student learning objective) was for the students to work their way up to reading and discussing a short inspirational quote and presenting as a group the main motivational idea within. As they would be speaking and using the language later in their fluency activity, I started them off with a warm-up known as the ABC speech, which I got from a talented long-term substitute teacher this last year teaching in junior high. The students are required in this activity to each get up in front of the group and say all 26 letters of the English alphabet - as creatively or not as they want to, so long as they say them all.

Sensing my students' mood, I split them up into two smaller groups to take the pressure off of the ABC speeches. Despite my modeling the activity with the complete ABC song and many other ideas, the students whispered their letters with a lackluster, timid creativity and we awkwardly commenced the activity after the last two read the alphabet with me. Sound like the wrong moment to embark on an abstract activity?

It was.

The quotes I had chosen had been carefully cut into significant words or phrases, and these I handed out to the students after modeling a response: they could write what the word or idea meant, or they could write it in their own words. The idea just seemed to blow their minds: what do we write?! I don't understand this word! What does this mean! 

The class set to work in near tombstone silence. The next part of the activity was for each student to share their word or phrase and written comments with a couple of different partners, thus familiarizing the students with not just the vocabulary but also some of the key concepts of the quotes which we would attack next as a group. Whispers and uncertain looks darted all around.

Perhaps the smaller phrases were simply unclear out of context, I thought. Better this next phase, where I introduce two quotes printed at the top of a blank page and pass them around the class from opposite directions, eliciting responses from each of the students. This, too, I modeled - but simplifying my response to a one-word emotion, alleviating the pressure from my as-yet uncomprehending students.

The students stared at the two quote pages as though they were the tenth problem on a Differential Calculus exam. Blank.

Blank stares.

Blank faces.

My head whirred, calculating an exit strategy for the class. They were supposed to present a content-based speech by the end of class, and they could barely give a single word of response with no one listening. I moved them into small groups as planned, and handed out to each a group of four quotes to choose from - two easy, two a little more advanced. I left, however, the instructions aside. I didn't have new ones yet but I certainly wasn't about to hand out the original task. Without fail, each group picked an easy quote - one from Semisonic, one from Aristotle, and one from Tupac:

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end."

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit."

"Even the genius asks questions."

In groups, I encouraged their feeble discussion as much as possible. There was such fear present in the classroom, I was hurting as a teacher for their discomfort. This was not the type of environment in which learning takes place. Finally, with some final glances at the clock, I determined a new route for us to take: instead of "speeches," the groups would be responsible for paraphrasing their quotes and presenting them to the group.


Which worked. Sort of. 


At the end of the class, each group had an acceptable - impressive, even, in some cases, considering where they had started - paraphrase of Tupac or Aristotle. I, however, had not known how to carry out the final modified stages well. Afraid that the students were completely underwater at this point, I didn't dare ask for feedback from the other groups on a group's quote just to embarrass a student more. As sincere of a congratulations and happy ending as I could muster, I gave them, but my spirit was crushed.


I felt I had failed as a teacher, to make my students uncomfortable and afraid to speak. Since their silence had prevailed, my own voice had filled it at times, which wasn't providing the interaction or speaking necessary for language learning to take place. After our first lesson, the group had so left me with the impression of wanting more; in fact, one of my mature female students had spent her whole 15 minute break encouraging me to put them in debate situations, speaking activities, and listening to native pace and vocabulary in my teaching. This second lesson had been planned with such excitement for them to have a positive challenge - but instead, I felt I had challenged them into a brick wall.


When I finally got home to my room much later that night, I set to work on my initial self-evaluation, which would start off the evaluation period on Tuesday morning. I was unsparing, the students and a sense of failure in my responsibility to them in mind the whole time.


Now, lest you think I was downtrodden and desperate in this hour, let me assure you I was not. Disheartened, yes. Giving up? Not at all. I retained my confidence as a teacher, but prioritized it behind my sensitivity to my students and their learning.


I read my evaluation to my peers and my trainer on Tuesday morning, fully ready to face the gauntlet. However, my teacher turned to my colleague John with a somewhat surprised expression and said, "Well she is just not going to let this go."


"Nikki, you're being much too hard on yourself. Here is what I observed of good teaching strategy in your lesson..."


Kill them with kindness, they say. A tough evaluation I could take. A kind one? Somehow all the pressure, excitement, highs and lows of emotion, and all the rush of being in Quito  in the TESOL course, the making and breaking and reforming all kinds of relationships, the expectations and the surprises...well, they just all kind of started building up behind my mascara-rimmed eyelids. I pushed back tears softly and with great embarrassment behind my brown scarf as my peers read their evaluations.


They quiz us repetitively on how we handle a stressful environment before we enter the TESOL course. At first I thought I was broken for crying, and terribly ashamed to just be such an emotionally-ready girl in that Tuesday morning. However, crying is one way of dealing with stress. And it helped. Sometimes, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. Hey, I haven't cried about any other thing on this whole trip.


Resolve and making the most of every learning experience is a good stress-easing solution, too. So are cheeseburgers.


Tuesday evening, Brianna and I went out with our colleague Kevin and his Ecuadorian girlfriend to the Magic Bean in la Mariscal and we had some therapy in the form of super hamburguesas americanas con queso and frappe mocha chill, which is the most delightful blended coffee drink in all of Ecuador and will cure you ten times faster than Starbucks.

Step program: recovery

Thank God for friends, for relief, for the Magic Bean and for all my loved ones showing me your support during this adventure. I had to learn those recovery steps fast...my third lesson had me failing my way to success yet again. :)

As I write this and prepare to sign off for what is hopefully more than four hours of sleep for the umpteenth time, my Abuelita anfitriona comes down the hall and passes me in the living room.

"Es por eso que estas adelante," she says. "Siempre tu trabajas muy duro."

Si. Yes, yes I do.

:)