Everything is figurable. You can start before you are ready.
I don’t debate with people who say that they are waiting for the right time. Waiting must have worked for them. Waiting for the right time does not work for me. This is why I work on something even if I don’t have the confidence to do it. I start on something, big and small, even if I don’t really know how to make it happen.
I know that I will be able to figure it out.
I was hired to teach two months before my college graduation. I wanted to have a job. I wanted to earn my own money. But I was no way the best teacher. I had no idea how to teach.
But I knew I will be able to figure it out.
I asked myself what could be the simplest information my students need to understand in order for them to make sense of all the rest. I see learning as building ladders, not just covering topics.
I found myself spending three hours a day at the library learning ways to teach algebra. (Remember, I was an AB Political Science student — and math is not something we were known to be good at). I learned how to make learning cooperative. I employed games in the classroom. And many of the veteran teachers thought I was not teaching at all.
This is why some of them asked the principal to kick me out. Good thing my students saved me. They ALL passed the exams crafted by my math coordinator with flying colors. The veteran teachers could not believe that half of my students got 100%.
Whatever happened to me may not happen to you.
But believe me when I say that everything is figurable.
When I started teaching, I was not only figuring out how I could survive a day in the classroom. I was figuring out how I can teach simple principles in algebra that when my students learned them — all the rest will become easy to them. I want them to win — and they won.
There’s another advice that may help you.
You don’t have to figure it all by yourself.
I found it that whatever challenges you have, thousands of people have the same challenges too. And there are those who figured out a way to solve their challenges.
Ask for help. So you can figure out solutions to problems faster, ask for help.
Those people can be your mentors. And you can model your solutions after their solutions. You don’t have to solve every problem by yourself. People may not have all the solutions you need. But their solutions can form as build blocks to yours.
I hope this helps you today.
Jef Menguin
