Failure

When I moved to Indiana my former school's curriculum didn't match up with the new school's educational plan. I'd been enrolled in Algebra in 8th grade, which wasn't an option at my new middle school. (Now that I'm a teacher I now know that Arizona was operating in a Jr. High setting and Indiana operated in a Middle School model and both have different ideas of the educational process)

Indiana's answer was to stick me in the accelerated math class. Little did the school counselor know that I'd struggled with the idea of negative numbers and it was only through an explanation of the negative number fairy that magically made numbers change value was I able to get through pre-algebra in 7th grade. Of course, the material we were covering I'd done before, so I succeeded without too much effort, and I continued into High School in accelerated Algebra.

HSE (my high school, although now known as HSHS) designed accelerated math around Freshman and Sophomore years. You would take Algebra 1 and half of Geography in 9th grade and Algebra II and the other half of Geography in 10th grade. I'd had half of Algebra before, so my Freshman year math class, while not exactly easy, was possible for me.

Sophomore year was another story. Ms. Wong, who had her students dress up as Pathagoris or other mathmaticians, was a different ball of wax entirely. I struggled from the beginning, most likely because she began with liquid conversions, which I have still never managed to conquer. I kid you not, that is/was the worst sort of problem for me. They're logic, plus formula, plus word problem, plus visual, and somewhere in there I get lost.

After a few weeks of low grades, unlike anything I'd experienced before, she called a summit to move me to regular math. I tried to convince her it was just the unit, but she wasn't convinced. Looking back, she was probably right. I was just going to struggle along, failing, when I could be getting high grades in a regular classroom. I was not an accelerated math kind of girl.

But I wondered then, and I wonder today, what would have happened if I stuck it out. Could I have made it? I really do have trouble with math.

But even in Accelerated English I was at the bottom of the advanced curve. I didn't get straight A's and I probably could have in a regular classroom. I think I advanced further than I would have had I been top of my class in a less challenging environment. So would I rather have struggled to get a C in math and stayed in the regular classroom, or moved to the regular classroom? Would I have ended up failing Ms. Wong's class? Again, I don't know.

I don't fail well. I know that's somewhat silly, because nobody likes to fail, but some people are better at failing than others. I've become harder and harder on myself as I've aged. I don't know why, but I can't tolerate mistakes that I make in myself that I can tolerate in other people.

I can't accept myself for who I am, because it's not good enough.

One of the teachers on the interview committee at Bedfored(yes the one who didn't hire me) once said to me that reflection on teaching practice is good, but that someone who beats themselves up is not long to the teaching profession. I think that's not true. I think someone who beats themselves up is not long to ANY profession.

I keep hoping that I can learn from my past. It was difficult to fail at math and to be moved out of "the smart group" but I eventually moved on. Of course I took the minimal amount of math required for college graduation because I knew I was "not good at math". So I essentially avoided finding out if I could hack a harder match class.

Sometimes (especially now) I feel like a failure at teaching. It's challenging, and at times I feel like I'm not up to snuff. I ask myself if I should find a profession that is less challenging, one that I can excel at, or should I stay with it? I may have been on the lower cusp of advanced classes in high school, but I turned out pretty good (with the exception of my ability to spell). When do I know if I should cut bait or see it through? And how will I know if I'm just avoiding the question?