I Believe . . .

I was always addicted to learning. Perhaps, I would say I was even a little obsessed, to the point that my mother was called in for a conference when I was in the first grade because I cried in class when I got an 89 on a spelling test (spelling is still my weakness, and I am thankful for advancements in technology that help me not to look silly all the time). I cried, not because my mom and dad would be mad at me or because the teacher would make me feel ashamed in class, but because I had disappointed myself. In my six year old eyes, a B was a failure, and it wasn’t something that I was willing to accept. In hind sight, this was an event that set me on a wild, turbulent ride on the roller coaster of life whose tracks were laden with beautiful moments of failure.

I believe in failure and the power it holds to change us for the better. Not that I’ve always seen it that way, because trust me, I have not. In fact, I’ve fought failure every step of the way, and when it would rear its ugly head, I found myself trying to deny its presence, only to discover I should have been embracing it.

My story begins in high school. English had always been my best subject. I felt comfortable with grammar, reading was something I did for pleasure, and writing was my passion. I made it through seventeen years of people and teachers telling me I was successful and very good at English. I liked feeling that comfort. Then, I met an English teacher who turned those feelings upside down. In front of an entire classroom, she told me that I was “really stupid” when it came to poetry. I looked at her dumbfounded, and she then went further into depth about how inept I was in my ability to analyze and write poetry. I’m sad to say, but I reverted to my trusty old tears, and I cried again. This time I wasn’t crying because I was disappointed in myself. I was crying because someone else, who I respected, was disappointed in me. Even sadder than that, I believed what she said for next four years.

Flash forward to my senior year in college. Despite my lack luster poetry skills, I still pursued a degree in English in college, but I avoided poetry class like the plague. To finish my program and get certified as a secondary English teacher, I was required to take a class that exclusively focused on poetry. I had avoided this class too long because now I was forced to take American poetry with one of the most difficult professors in the department. I had no other options. The time had come to face my demons, and my belief of my abysmal failure was engrained in my head and heart. I was destined to fail, and if you couldn’t tell from my first grade self, I was obsessed with grades. This professor only gave out two A’s a year, and since I was grossly inadequate, I was setting my GPA up for a bomb.

I walked into that classroom with my head hung low, and I didn’t say a single word for a half of a semester out of fear of further failure. Yet, I listened to him every class, and he made poetry sound so beautiful and exciting. He made me love Walt Whitman and made me feel like I knew Langston Hughes. When I handed in my first paper that I shamefully wrote, I knew I had failed before I even got a grade. When I got the paper back, it said, “C-/D . . .maybe you should see me”. My heart plummeted. I hadn’t seen a grade like that since Calculus. I agreed with him; maybe it was time to see him. I told him my story and my fears of poetry, and he said I was failing myself. He said the saddest part of the story was that I was weak enough to let someone make me feel that her interpretation of my failure defined me. He said to me failure was the great birth of something new. It was the force that propels us to be better or more than we could have imagined, and just like that, my icy shell of failure started to melt. My next paper, I worked harder than I thought physically possible and analyzed deeper than I think I ever should have. I wrote a twenty one page paper on a Mina Loy poem that took up the space of half a page. When I handed that paper in, I knew that even if I failed, it didn’t matter. I would never let someone’s perception of my failure or my ability shape my belief ever again.

Flash forward to the end of the semester: I got an A, but it was an A that taught me about how out of failure, authentic success is born. In addition to that, my love of poetry bloomed in that sixteen weeks and continues to grow as I teach my eighth graders the very same poems from Harlem Renaissance poet that changed my life forever.
My high school teacher and my college professor collectively and very oppositely taught me that failure is beautiful. It is deep, profound, and suspect to interpretation. Failure motivates me and makes me human. It asks me to be more than I ever wished for, and it tells me that perfection is less than I ever wish to be. Perfection is boring; failure builds character. I hope to continue failing and growing for the rest of my life.

In my classroom, I push my kids. Sometimes, I push them a little too hard but only because I know that those moments are defining who they are becoming, very much like my college professor knew. I also carry the belief that words cut like a knife, and very much unlike my high school teacher, I am sensitive to the way I speak to my students. My job is to foster their dreams, not to dash them, and I take that job very seriously. I believe in believing. Believing and showing that you believe is perhaps the most powerful tool a teacher can arm him or herself with. Kids have amazing instincts, and they can sense a phony from a mile away. They can also sense it when you really expect them to achieve more than they think is humanly possible, and the truth is, they’ll go to the ends of the human world to show you that your dream of possibility is plausible. That’s the awesome thing about kids; they can shut off with the blink of the eye or ignite with passion and fervor when sparked. It keeps you on your toes.

At the end of last year, my honors students took part in a reflective Socratic seminar. They told me the most valuable lesson they learned all year was that failure measure your success, and failure makes them normal. They told me they can’t wait to keep failing so that they can become better people. These were the same kids who cried when they failed a comma quiz, the same kids who use to argue with me between a 95 and a 98. It was a defining moment in my career, and it’s an awesome moment to take part in when a bunch of perfection seekers realize that it’s more about the journey than the destination.