As a human being and as a teacher I have always strived for perfection, I believe I do that because I don't like disappointing people. As I write this article, I realize it's ridiculous to do anything just to please others rather than to make myself happy, so it's something I've got to work on.
I obviously know I am not perfect, neither as a teacher nor as a human being, but I HATE making mistakes, I punish myself when I make one. Then, I feel awful for punishing myself because I know better than this. I know mistakes are a part of life and are essential for any learning process.
I encourage my students to learn from their mistakes, and I try to make them understand that making mistakes doesn't mean they are dumb and that they are never going to learn. On the contrary, it means they are on the right path to learning.
A couple of years ago I created an online course on English for Traveling, and I uploaded some of the video lessons to Youtube. I got many positive comments, and in one of them, someone politely said I was mispronouncing a word. I checked the video, and it was true, I had made a mistake, and it was out there. I thanked the person who had made the comment, admitted my mistake and moved forward.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, I got a new comment, this time not polite at all about the mispronunciation of this word. I was mad about the comment because I had already been notified about my mistake and I had learned from it, but then I realized I had made another error: I should have corrected the video or even deleted it.
I thought about deleting the video, but it has over 20.000 views, and in my humble opinion it has helped more than made damage, so I didn't remove it. Instead, I have created a new video admitting and correcting my mistake. Now, I know this might not be the best solution, but it seemed like an opportunity, to be honest about my mistakes and hopefully help students understand they are totally allowed to make mistakes! What would you do if you were in my shoes? Would you delete the video and make a new and revised one?
If you got curious, here is the video in which I make this mistake.
And here is the video I have recently made correcting the mispronunciation.
I have to say I feel much better now about the whole thing and I hope people will understand though I am a teacher, I am going to make mistakes, and I promise that I will do my best not to punish myself for them and to learn from them.
