How to Deal with Being Inadequate

It's been a while since I've written a diary-style blog post. Recently I've been sticking to maths and the odd bit of teaching and learning. I decided after finishing my NQT year that I would no longer discuss my CPD publicly, for the sake of my readers more than anything: reading somebody's moans can't be interesting. But then again I suppose most people wouldn't find absement interesting either.

But this week I felt the need to write something that is somewhat more personal. It's been a bad week for this QTpi. I've experienced something that I knew would probably come eventually, although I'd hoped it never would: I have had a lesson observation graded "inadequate".

In case you didn't know, I'm somebody who likes to do well. I liked getting A*s at school. I didn't like getting anything else. So it bugs me that I'm no longer a straight A student. I have just received my first ever U. I don't know how to respond. This does not compute. Syn error. 404 page not found.

I don't want to talk about what went wrong in the lesson, or anything like that. It's personal, and besides, it wouldn't be interesting. But I do want to talk about what happened after I received my "Inadequate".

I felt sad. Annoyed. Frustrated. Victimised. Like a failure. And after 10 minutes of all that (I'm a fast thinker), I started to just feel glum. What an amazing word glum is! It sounds exactly like the feeling. Glum. It's almost impossible to say glum without slumping your shoulders and sticking out your bottom lip.

This glumness, unfortunately, has lasted all week. It has hovered around me like a bad smell. I walked into lessons thinking "what's the point? They're obviously not going to learn anything anyway". And this made me so sad. I love my students. I want them to learn. I'm letting them down.


Things people tell you when you get an inadequate:
-It's not you who's inadequate, it was the lesson.
-It was only one lesson out of thousands of good ones.
-It only went badly because you were nervous about being observed.
-It happens to everyone.

At any other point in my life I would have said that those four things are all true. However, in my current state of glum, they all seem like the kind of cruel lies that parents tell their children (I ate my crusts religiously for years and my hair remained as linear as ever).

Taking these cruel lies one by one:
-You are what you teach, hence I am inadequate.
-All of my lessons are exactly like that. Hence I am always inadequate.
-I never get nervous. Literally never. Unless fire is involved.
-It does not happen to everyone. I can name someone it has never happened to. She is an outstanding teacher and her hair is nice and curly too. I bet she never had to eat crusts. I hate her.

As you can see I have reverted to my fourteen-year-old self.

So if these nice things my colleagues have said (I do appreciate it guys!) have failed to make me feel better, what will? The answer is this: time. That's it. I just have to get back on the horse, and stay on it for as long as it takes to forget I ever fell off.

Maybe one day I will be able to look back at this observation and learn something from it. At the moment I don't even want to read the feedback sheet. I'm not in the mood for learning from my mistakes. I'm in the mood for focusing on what I'm good at. Like integration by parts, and matching my shoes to my dress. My colour co-ordinations and calculus will always be outstanding.

Have you ever been told you're an inadequate teacher? How did you cope?

Emma x x x