The Vulnerability of Failing: IATEFL 2013 Failure Fest

IATEFL Failure Fest: how is failure a better teacher than success?

When I first heard that Ken Wilson was going to lead a session on failure at IATEFL Liverpool, I was intrigued, but mostly I was grateful. I imagined the Failure Fest as a space for reality checks, healing, and great learning for ELT professionals. Sophia Khan wrote about this beautifully in her debut blog post, Why We Should Celebrate Failure Fest,

what I like about Failure Fest is that it says: “I am human, just like you”. It focuses on our similarities rather than our differences. Finding a shared emotional experience creates a sense of solidarity, mutuality and possibility. Because we are alike – human – I can learn from your mistakes – and your achievements – as if they were my own. What is possible for you is also possible for me. No matter how qualified or experienced you are, we are more alike than different. Think about it: have you ever had a worry, feelings of self-doubt, anxiety about what the right thing to do is – then you find that someone has gone through, or is going through, the same thing as you? It is such a blessed, wonderful relief to know that you are not alone, even if you still don’t have all the answers.

And this sense of relief is what we all felt during the fest. The relief was expressed through having a bit of fun (Caroline Moore‘s punctual cow bell and Ken’s witty introductions), and through the presenters’ ability to show their vulnerability.

What struck me about each of these engaging storytellers (Ken Wilson, Bethany Cagnol, Chia Suan Chong, Andy Cowle, Herbert Puchta, Jeremy Harmer, Rakesh Bhanot, Valeria Franca, Willy Cardoso) was the fact that they were all able to laugh at their failures. However, among the laughter, each presenter also expressed a sense of discomfort that came along with the initial moment of failure — or as Kathryn Schulz described during her TED Talk, On Being Wrong, how it feels to realize that moment of failure. Jeremy Harmer embarrassingly admitted that the first thing he had ever taught a student was to describe his “big, red, bushy beard.” Chia Suan Chong talked about how she cried after the miscommunication with a German bus driver. Valeria Franca described the dread of seeing little Luciana come up to her after her revamped English lesson on clothing. Bethany Cagnol shared the devastation she felt after being fired for having fun with her students.

“embracing our fallibility”

For many of us, the laughter doesn’t usually come immediately after these moments. It may come years after and for some people it may never come. There is something safe about hiding in the belief that we shouldn’t make mistakes:

“We get sucked into perfection for one very simple reason: We believe perfection will protect us. Perfectionism is the belief that if we live perfect, look perfect, and act perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgment, and shame.” – Brené Brown

I think one of my biggest failures has been holding on to this idea of perfection. I used to work late hours planning the “perfect” lesson, and on a few occasions I even broke down crying after class, realizing I had answered a question “wrong”. “I’m a trainer dammit! I *should know these things!” Although I may not be in a space where I can laugh at this failure, I feel a great sense of lightness at being able to admit it. And I know I am able to express this thanks the Failure Fest and also thanks to what teachers have been writing about failure over the past few weeks (Kevin Stein, As many flavors of failure…; Chris Wilson, Failing at Modal verbs).

The Journey of Failure

An old post of mine, The Teacher as the Archetypal Student, came to my attention the night of the Failure Fest when a new reader left a comment. I hadn’t read this post in years (written on September 11, 2010). Although my post doesn’t directly express my concern about failing, this reader saw it clearly:

I think it is the responsibility of the teacher to show her students that it is okay to make mistakes. Students can learn more from a teacher who allows herself to be vulnerable in front of her students, rather than an obviously flawed person who pretends to be perfect. Students will respect a teacher who openly admits her faults or knowledge gaps. When a teacher does this, learning can become a journey that the teacher and student go on together.

And so I thank Ken Wilson and Caroline Moore for providing a space to the world of ELT to embark on this journey of seeing the light between the cracks of failure. I also have great gratitude for all the presenters for sharing their light.

Willy Cardoso left us a wonderful quote to keep us pondering along this journey of embracing failure:

It is this great struggle, to choose between having a lot of freedom and having a lot of stability that makes us people. (…) And when you believe you can achieve both, it’s probably the beginning of a failure story…which is inevitable. You have to choose one when you know you won’t have much of the other. (…) I’m not likely to go about cycling on busy roads ever again because I don’t want to run the risk of falling, although I know it would give me a great sense of freedom. So in this regard I choose stability over freedom. In love, on the other hand, I will always be willing to fall.

In teaching and in learning, what is this love you are willing to fall for?

How Not to Initiate Feedback

The following is an example of how not to initiate feedback:

“Can I be honest with you?”

“Sure.”

“I think you bombed your presentation. What happened?”

I can’t remember if the term bombed was actually used, but the implication was along those lines. No matter what language was used, a “you” statement definitely made an appearance in this feedback initiation.

So, after hearing this, do you think I felt willing to explore how I could have done better at my KOTESOL presentation last Saturday? Absolutely not.

Finding My Voice via Reflective Blogging

When I think back on when I started blogging, I am amazed at the changes I’ve gone through. It’s hard to pinpoint if I changed because of my blog, or if I changed along my blog. No matter what the case may be, I’ve changed.

Blogging helped me create my own voice. When I started teaching, like many teachers, I had low self-confidence. I wasn’t satisfied with my teaching, and I knew I could be a better teacher. As soon as I was introduced to the process of reflective teaching, I knew this was a remedy for my low self-esteem.

When I reflected, I gained courage. I realized that if an activity didn’t go well, I could try it out another time, and at that time it probably would get better. I knew this because I learned from experience. If I reflected, made an action plan, and tried that new plan, it was almost always a success.

I transposed this reflective process from private Word documents on my computer, into a public blog. The benefit of reflective blogging is that I had an audience to share my ideas and questions with. I could bounce around ideas with other teachers, whereas if I simply saved files on my MacBook, I would have been my only resource. Although I believe that the self is the most crucial resource in the reflective process, I also know the strength of reflecting in community.

Via reflection, I went from being a teacher concerned with low self-confidence to a teacher firm in her beliefs – not too firm to inhibit the natural process of change. If you look at my blog’s trajectory, to the amount of posts I wrote, and the content of those posts, you see a clear picture of that change. But the change didn’t come with ease.

At first, I was a fresh and excited reflective teacher eager to improve at her new job as a conversation teacher at Keimyung University. During this time, I wrote rigorous, in depth reflections. I couldn’t simply look at a small, significant episode that happened during a lesson. I had to examine the whole lesson.

Then when I moved into teacher training, the frequency of my posts dropped dramatically. My confidence wavered, and I wasn’t willing to let my vulnerability shine through. I was having huge doubts about my position as a teacher educator and couldn’t bear the idea of people seeing my weaknesses. Instead of writing, I just posted pictures, or my participants’ work.

This was where the blog as a medium for reflection fell short. Blogging is public,and I was in a bind. I wanted to blog because I needed a reflective community, but I also was afraid of being seen and judged.

Then something shifted. I realized I probably wasn’t the only teacher who felt weak and vulnerable. I also realized that if I wrote from a place of authenticity, intention and responsibility (professionalism), then no matter what anyone would say to me, I wouldn’t break. I knew that from this space I could take any comment that came my way.

Tonight I am still planning what I’ll say during my presentation, Blogging: Creative Interaction (scroll down to see my abstract), next Saturday. I’ve been feeling concerned about what I might say and how I might say it. Luckily my blog has saved me again. This entry just helped me find my voice. This voice has seen a lot of change, and realizes she is not alone. It’s time to share my voice.

Blogging: Creative Interaction

We all know the benefits of reflective inquiry: it brings clarity to our teaching practice and helps us define our professional goals. But how many of us really practice reflective teaching? At the end of a long week, the thought of writing a lesson analysis onto a stark white piece of paper, or a blank Word document can seem like an uninspiring task.

This is why the presenter began blogging. In the blogosphere, the canvas for reflection is colorful. The possibilities for creative interaction range from meaningful play with photography and video, to passionate personal dialogues with readers. It is through this multimedia, and through peer sharing that the presenter has been able to increase her teaching confidence, as well as develop a clearer vision of her pedagogical ambitions.

The speaker will present the evolution of her blog (throwingbacktokens.com), and how blogging can impact the audience’s reflective practice. The presenter would love to see her audience leaving her presentation with the idea that the reflective blogging community may be also be a circle they would like to join.

Learning No. 1: Confidence=Fuel for Teaching

My first year as a teacher trainer has now passed. It can undoubtedly be defined as one of the most rewarding and challenging years of my professional career up to date. Writing and researching my MA thesis throughout the year definitely compounded my workload, but the arrival of my diploma in October mitigated any memory of academic exhaustion.

Yes, last year was quite the learning load. My lesson planning creativity was flexed and stretched to multiple degrees. My understanding of teaching and learning magnified due to the “meta” nature of teacher training. My confidence as a teacher dropped a few steps, and in the end found its way back to the top of the staircase. This is where the list of my top 5 learning moments of 2010 begins.

1. Confidence = Fuel

Teachers need confidence. Confidence ignites our drive to utter the first word at the start of a lesson. It fuels our ability to keep pushing through when a student/trainee asks a question you just can’t answer. At the core, confidence is what allows teachers to stand in front of a class of individuals and be vulnerable.

I say this because I had a few memorable bouts with confidence last year. It mostly came into jeopardy at the beginning of each semester, a sensitive time for everyone. Participants (students) are trying to figure each other out, and they’re also testing the trainers (teachers), to see what they know. It was during this storming stage that I most frequently questioned my skills as an EFL teacher, and as a teacher trainer.

Why did I question myself this way? It’s dreadfully simple. Participants asked me questions I just couldn’t answer off the cuff (detailed questions about grammar and sentence structure), and I believed I should be able to answer right away. I know I put too much pressure on myself, and that it is impossible for teachers to know everything off the top of their head, but I couldn’t help hearing that little perfectionist’s voice inside my head saying,

“Come on Josette! You should know this. Can you really call yourself an English teacher if you can’t answer this question right now? What kind of example are you setting? Why would they want to keep learning from you if you can’t answer these kinds of questions?”

Harsh right? But this kind of self-talk is all too common.

When a participant asked me that type of question, luckily I mustered up enough confidence to tell them,

“I’m not sure about that. I’ll look it up and get back to you tomorrow.”

So I went home, plopped down on my office floor, and surrounded myself with reference material. I figured out the issue to the best of my ability, and I came back to the participant the next day with what I discovered. This is how I saved my confidence.

Yes, we can debate whether or not teachers should admit that they don’t know the answer to a student’s question, and I know this is debated in the teacher training world. But if this is what you need to do in order to keep a hold of your confidence, I believe it is an essential maneuver.

This belief was brought home when I was told on a few occasions during both semesters (semester 1 = 57 participants; semester 2 = 37 participants), that my honesty about not knowing all the answers was refreshing. Some participants were relieved to learn that they could respond this way to their students, and still maintain confidence from both the student and themselves. In the end, the way I responded to my drop in confidence fueled confidence in my participants.

There isn’t a magical way to create self-confidence. The way I know how to hold on to it is by reflecting on what I don’t know (what went wrong), and making sure I understand it at the end of the day. From here I can create an action plan. This involves getting up to date with teaching methodologies, studying grammar, reading books about sentence structures, listening to Grammar Girl, and collaborating with colleagues. It isn’t easy, but I know that since I need confidence to teach, I need to spend extra time building it up. Anything that kills the little perfectionist’s voice in my head is definitely worth the extra work.