Guilt

One day to go and I lost it.

I've been doing really well, according to my standards. I haven't lost my patience...not once, and haven't said anything bad or negative to any of my students the entire two and half months.

And just when I was about to say goodbye, I lost it. I ruined my personal record.

I was teaching them how to make a pop-up Valentine card. So I gave them a pattern and one by one, I taught them how to cut the pattern, just by tracing the pattern on the paper. I repeated my instructions four or five times to Margarita (she's one of the more capable ones, who follows instructions easily enough), and showed her twice how to do it (still, you have to take into consideration that instructions should be demonstrated and repeated), before I let her cut the pattern herself. She wasn't listening to me, just kept nodding and saying she knows how to do it, and how I'm so makulit.

And of course, she did it all wrong. And that's when I broke my record. I told her she didn't do it right, and we have to repeat. I could've asked her first if she followed my instructions, or if she had forgotten something, before pointing out the mistake, and I shouldn't have done it harshly like I did. She didn't mind, I guess she was used to people telling her she screwed things up. We all did our cards, and it was just another incident. But it burned through my mind. I can recall the number of times I made a mistake in class, whether in recitation or on a project, and how the response of the teacher either made me shrink further into my shell or bloom and be more creative.

I shouldn't have done that. Gah. Even if the teacher was there and she heard me, it was okay because my teacher is also like that. But that's just it. I don't want to be that kind of teacher. I want to be the teacher who allows them to make their own mistakes and learn from them, without crushing their spirit. I want them to try things without being overly afraid of making a mistake.

I don't want them to be like most of us, too afraid of rejection and making mistakes, that it just about curtailed all our creativity. I'm disheartened that I lost my patience. Maybe it's because she didn't listen to me that brought it out. Or maybe because I was frustrated. But that's just it. I have to trained myself not to be negative. To let them bloom on their own time.

Now I don't know how to make it up to Margarita or to the girls who heard me tell Margarita she didn't do it right. I don't know how to erase those words of negativity and encourage them again to create, make mistakes, and tell them that it is okay.