Learning from failure

            When she started crying, I didn’t know what to do.  My impulse was to cut the presentation short.  I wanted to reach out to her, to tell her it was okay and that she was doing a great job, and ask if she wanted to go on a different day.  I looked around the classroom and saw people looking at their phones, others watching the scene unfold and frozen like I was.  And then a single voice rang through the room on a particularly long pause for a sob that the speaker was trying their best to hold back, “You’re doing great job,” they said.  I didn’t see who had said it, I’ll never know who stepped in and did what I should have, but I was glad they did.  The speaker continued for a minute or so more, but their speech anxiety took over again and I could tell they cut their speech short.  Why didn’t I say something?  Why had I not stepped in and tried to save them from the situation?  Was it fear of what the class would think if I cut her off?  A general anxiety that others might try and fake their way out of having to complete the assignment. Or was it simply the uncertainty of how to help in the moment?

            This is the most uncomfortable situation I faced in the classroom this semester.  I have a natural desire to want to comfort and help others.  I don’t always succeed, and in fact have on occasion simply made things worse, but my general inclination is to help.  In this moment I froze, though.  I simply didn’t think quickly enough about how to handle it.  The worst part is, I had seen this before.  I had been in a speech class with someone years ago, who cried through all of their speeches.  At one point, running from the classroom rather than finishing the presentation.  The teacher had simply continued on unfazed and called the next person up to present.  Was I merely a product of learning by example?  Was I replicating what I had seen before?  So many questions I am still trying to answer for myself, but one thing is clear: One of my students was on point that day.  They did the thing I wish I had done.  And the class and that speaker was better off for it. 

            I try to be my authentic self, I try to foster an atmosphere in the classroom that allows everyone to feel safe and provides a space for them to speak about and question the material we are learning.  In this moment, however, I feel like I failed.  I feel like if I had been my true authentic self, I would have done more.  But instead I was trying to figure out what the best course of action for me as the teacher was.  How could I maintain authority and a sense of importance among my students in these presentation, if I simply was human and stopped the speech to allow this student to gather themselves and try again later?  And while I debated this with myself, one of my students did what I should have.  They helped, they reached out, and they gave relief to someone who was suffering.

            The more I thought about it, the more began to drift to the line of thought that, maybe as the teacher I had fostered the atmosphere where my students felt like it was okay to intercede and help each other.  By virtue of everything else I had said and done, perhaps I had set the stage for a student to reach out and comfort a fellow scholar who needed support.  I had made the classroom inviting and open enough that there was no fear in interrupting another person’s speech to provide support.  Then, I realized how egotistical that sounded.  I was taking responsibility for the kindhearted nature of another, and trying to insert myself into a situation in which I had failed to react quickly and appropriately.  But then, what is the appropriate response to the situation? 

It was then I realized, I needed to plan for this contingency the next time we did speeches.  I began to feel that I had done something to foster a positive classroom dynamic, and that although the actions of the student who interceded were not directly related, my classroom was a place where they felt comfortable being their authentic self.  Perhaps, I thought, it was better to get support from a peer than from the teacher.  Better to have the support of a fellow student, than be rescued by the instructor.  I will likely debate this situation for a long time.  I will have to study more, and get more experience, and it will probably be a tennis match in my head for a long time over how the situation played out.  I feel confident that there was, in the end, more positive than negative in the situation.  I learned about myself, and gained experience with a tricky and not uncommon situation, and so I am better off for next semester and the next time I have to grade presentation. 

It also helped with the next round of presentations we did in class.  I was more alert to what was happening, I was more attentive to their level of anxiety as they began speaking, trying to anticipate the need to get involved.  This made me more engaged as a teacher, more aware of the possibilities of the students might be facing as they spoke in front of the class.  It was also interesting to see that the students themselves were engaged in the speeches being delivered.  I was used to the fact that most people tend to zone out while others present, I was an undergraduate and have been guilty of it myself several times.  Did my construct of what I thought the classroom should be like have any impact?  I will likely never know.  I can hope that it was a little me, though.  I learned something about myself and what can happen when you are unprepared for such a specific situation.  Mostly, I am happy that someone was there to step in and do what I failed to.

Palmer, P. J. (1998/2007). The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher’s life. San Francisco: Wiley & Sons.