I am capable of failure.
I am not so full of myself that I believe I am perfect-- I made plenty of mistakes this year and I struggled to hone my craft as a science instructor. In the end, I also made it work by the time it really counted and I gained confidence in my skills as a professional educator.
This confidence was severely tested when I found out that I did not pass PACT, that terror of all assessment portfolios. To make things even more stressful, I had a month to re-do the whole thing. How was I going to pull my students together when it had reached the point of the year in which the spring could begin to untighten now that CST testing was over? Was I meant to be a teacher if I could not pass this important task in my professional trajectory?
I had never failed at something that I worked hard at before. I believed that hard work would be enough. My first reactions were to mope, curse the universe, and ask "Why me?" Ten minutes later, I knew it was time to get to work.
Over the next week, I designed a new teaching segment, implemented it, and reflected. To my ecstatic joy, I passed the second attempt and shared my story with my students. My peers, supervisors, and students were impressed with the finesse that I demonstrated in this process. I was proud of myself for picking myself up again, dusting off the remnants of my old PACT, and making something new that turned out to be the lesson that my students enjoyed the most all year.
Sometimes you will fail. Keep calm and pretend it's on the lesson plan. What you create the second time around will be better as long as you stay reflective, mindful, and positive. (Having an obsessive relationship with the rubric works, too.)
