Overcoming Adversities

I teach Mathematics and admittedly many students find  this subject challenging. This is the last week before the term break so I’ve been giving out some tests. There I was, lecturing (we teachers like to do that sometimes) about persevering and not giving up and blah blah blah. I meant well and and I really wanted to encourage them to keep trying and not to give up. Clearly some were frustrated, maybe they prepared really hard and still made silly errors. Now, I love playing tennis and been training really hard with a coach for the last 2 years. I’ve improved leap and bounds so that really makes me happy. I worked hard, persevered and played often. However, the last 3 days hasn’t been good at all, out of the blue, I can’t seem to get my forehands going. Each day I get out on the court trying to figure out what went wrong, seems like the more I try, the worse it gets. My coach couldn’t make it today and I felt helpless. My mates were trying to encourage me and I was really getting Frustrated! No matter how hard I try, nothing  was working. On the court, I thought about the kids that I teach, wonder how many of them felt about Math. No matter how hard they try, things just not getting any better. I am certain I will overcome this funk, hopefully soon, but it feels terrible while going through it. We all find some things come easy and some just tough. In times like this I know I need encouragement from friends, I need my coach, I need to get mentally focused, I need to reflect, maybe take a break but be determined to overcome the challenges. To keep trying…

Guess, that’s my role as a teacher, to foster an environment whereby we help one another to overcome challenges and succeed. I get frustrated too…