“You are not the only superhero in your student’s life”
This was one of my reflections during the two-month training period. It is not my job to save everyone. I cannot save everyone. But that does not mean that I do not try my best. It is doing my best, but always remembering this: I am not in this alone. There are hundreds upon thousands of teachers fighting alongside me. I may not be student A’s superhero, but some other teacher will be. I can only do my best within my locus of control.
Just last month, one of my ex-students committed suicide. It makes you wonder: Could I have done more? Did I reach out to him enough? Could I have prevented it? Did I miss the signs?
It’s easy to fall into self-doubt and depression after these incidents. Even if this incident didn’t happen, I have been questioning myself constantly whether this was the right decision. It is not easy facing failure on a daily basis, to experiencing apathy and ignorance day-in day-out.
It was my idea for our training camp to be themed “Superheroes in the Making”. But after four months, the dire realization is this – I am not the only superhero in my students’ lives. I may not even be a superhero at all.
Maybe I’m not cut out for this.
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“And why do we fall, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.”
They say, “True greatness and leadership, comes with owning and embracing failure. Because only when you accept responsibility for your mistakes can you learn from them, pick yourself up, and come back stronger and better than before.”
At Stanford University, Steve Jobs spoke about firing from Apple. He said, “The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it.”
It’s painful to keep reminding myself – I signed up to face the toughest of toughs, and to risk facing failure at every single step I take. But every failure I encounter is pushing me away from conventions, and into innovation. In the class where almost all my students failed the subject, the syllabus no longer mattered. The focus changed from “How can I help them pass the exam?” to “How can I help them succeed in life?”.
Maybe these failures will do me good.
Tis a painful journey, but the light may be just beyond the horizon.
