All About Attitude, Part 1

[Kaylene]

Recently I was preparing some lessons for my students and I started to feel very terrible. The last class I taught before sitting down to work had not gone very well. I started to say in my own mind: "You are not a good teacher! After so many years of teaching you should not have bad teaching days--you should be able to handle every situation with great confidence!"

Can you understand my feeling?

Well, I remembered after that happened: if I can have a good attitude about myself and my teaching and my students, I can certainly have energy to face and overcome my challenges in teaching! However, there are so many things that can affect our attitude about teaching. These may include:
* Stress in other parts of our lives (such as in our family or our neighborhood)
* Physical problems (such as not having enough sleep, not getting exercise, being sick)
* Things around us we can not control (such as the weather or new policies being enforced in our schools)
* Emotional reactions (such as mistakes we have made or long times of negative feelings)

After this happened, I was able to have a deep, long night's sleep and a good breakfast. The next morning, the sun was shining! (Very exciting in Dujiangyan!) So I made some delicious cake for my students. And as I sat enjoying the delicious smell of the cake filling my house, everything looked brighter. "Yes, you can do it!" I said to myself. "The last classes were not so good. But you can plan the next ones and improve yourself and your teaching methods! What can you learn from the mistakes of the past?"

For the love of my students, I bake tasty food.
And for the love of my students, I will keep on working to improve myself and my lesson plans.
Next time you feel like a "poor teacher" please try to rest for a little while and then think about how you can change your attitude.

--From Miss Kaylene