The Brats

7.06.10 By Sonya Crocker

When I was in fifth grade, I signed up to play on my best friend’s summer softball team, the Brats. This is how the first day of softball practice went: I would see the ball, put my glove out to catch it, and, every time, I would miss the ball by a foot or two. My performance did not improve over the season, and my coach never let me out of the outfield.
Not surprisingly, I quit after that summer. And since the Brats, I have strategically avoided all other ball-related sports, focusing instead on running and dancing. This seems to be a natural human response—to shift away from the things we do poorly, and toward the things we like and do well. Though I haven’t had any regrets about ending my short softball career, there is something to be said for failing at a task and sticking with it. At the very least, it builds resilience.
For better or for worse, I got all of my missed opportunities to “build resilience” this year in BTR. Afterall, teaching is the profession of trial and error. Each student has a different learning style, temperament, and history, and learning objectives can be taught in a dozen different ways. Though I anticipated making mistakes, I was not prepared for the failure that comes with the learning curve of a new teacher.
I have tried my best all year to plan quality lessons, and with some success. However, I have had my share of lessons that Ann Stern would sort into the “Not Yet” pile. At the beginning of the year, after an unsuccessful lesson I didn’t know what to do. I mean, what do you do when you’ve tried your best and your plan fails? I felt defeated, but quitting was not an option—this wasn’t a seasonal league—so I had to figure out a way to deal with the defeat.
Luckily, I have extremely perceptive and helpful mentors. They would quickly pick up on my disappointment, and work with me to turn the situation around. They would often discover strengths in the lesson that I had overlooked, and help me brainstorm creative solutions and next steps. This focus on strengths and solutions made me feel more confident and capable, and eventually gave me the ability to work through discouragement on my own.
Now that the school year has ended, I am starting to think about September. Who will my students be as individuals and as learners? What units will I teach? What kind of classroom community will we create together? Next year, like this year, I’ll make plenty of mistakes, but failure doesn’t feel as threatening to me as it did a year ago or a decade ago on the softball field. Though I prefer wins to losses, I’ve learned a lot from failure—the power of collaboration, hard work, resilience, and hope.