All teachers make mistakes. The trick is to forgive yourself and use them as opportunities to grow. We teacher-coaches have made many, many mistakes over the years. Together, it didn't take us long to compile these 26 common gaffes but, to be honest, it took us quite a while to really learn these lessons. Can you relate?
Not taking care of
myself: coming to work tired, sick, or hungry only made me more tired,
more sick, and more hungry.
Poor Aim: not ensuring students know the learning target.
I’ll do it later:
not getting my materials ready ahead of time usually turned into a classroom
management nightmare.
Keep a Copy: By not keeping the plan, next year becomes a teaching guessing game including that awesome lesson
with that neat video clip.
Rush-Rush-Rush: not recognizing the importance of
wait-time, think-time, time to reflect, time to process.
Tossing it over my Shoulder: using a new strategy only ONCE because it didn’t work perfectly the first time.
Kids These Days:
after a lesson went poorly, I often blamed the kids as opposed to applying a
different instructional strategy.
Stern-face: forgetting to smile and greet kids
(even when it starts to feel creepy) because this truly models respect.
It’s Easy or You're so Smart: saying
these words does not make something easy, nor does it help a struggling student
suddenly figure it out.
Who's Working Here? working harder than the students.
Chin Up!: focusing more on my
insecurities than on modeling confidence.
They’ll Figure it Out: putting questions on a test that don’t have answers or are worded so
poorly even I didn’t know what they meant.
Why do we need to learn this stuff? Forgetting to make learning relevant to students' lives.
But they’re Quiet:
thinking students were engaged just because they were sitting nicely looking
forward.
The Quick Kick-Out: not giving students a chance to explain the situation before jumping
to conclusions and kicking them out of the class.
Shutting my Door: avoiding collaboration because...what if someone finds out I feel like a fraud sometimes?
Not Being Myself: even if my colleagues give advice, keep
my philosophy in mind when making decisions.
Squirrel: getting easily distracted from the
lesson through my own doing or through barely disguised student manipulation.
Jumping on the Negative Pity-Party Bandwagon to Nowhere:
self-explanatory.
Seeing ALL the Kids in the Pool: not preparing for the kids who need a lifeguard because they don't get it.
They're almost Adults: assuming that somehow a 16 year old would not have the mentality of a
16 year old.
The Kids Don't Like Me: Trying to be every student's friend instead of
being a role model/leader.
Lesson Plan B: not being prepared when the lesson ends too early or when the technology craters.
The Anything & Everything Volunteer: the school will be okay if I'm not on every committee they
offer but instead focus on one that I'm passionate about.
I TOLD THEM: not
understanding the difference between students who were taught and students who
learned.
Get-em-out-the-Door: slow down, take a breath, pause, pay attention.
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