Teacher Error
We’ve all been there.
We’ve all had that moment.
In fact, we all have these moments and they happen more than people will dare to admit.
Yes, we make mistakes. We’ve all had that ‘page not found’ moment when we don’t know the answer or we bumble and blab our way through.
When we are distracted or under stress then the chances are we are going to drop a few clangers. Our heads aren’t built for perfection so we slip, lapse and make a mess of things from time to time.
Admitting to our mistakes isn’t something many of us readily want to share with our colleagues – this is a difficult and sensitive subject.
Thankfully the mistakes we make aren’t life-threatening but they can still be harmful. Bashing yourself up about them is self-harm in itself.
Many teachers will brush mistakes away or pretend it is “water off a duck’s back” when actually deep down inside these mistakes cause a huge amount of grief and embarrassment.
Most of us care deeply about what we do and the pupils we teach. We don’t intend to be careless. Being supported by colleagues is what makes the difference and how many of us can truly say we get that from those we work with, especially senior managers? Mistakes really test relationships.
Human error in teaching is inevitable because cognitive limitation is normal. But sometimes those errors can be avoided and these often boil down to failures communicating with each other or poor leadership.
To be more resilient we need to “fess up” and share the load and just remind ourselves that ‘404’ errors are part of our own learning and these will always be a feature of our work. We all make mistakes, so let’s talk about it. We are the weakest link.