No effort without error or shortcoming
Or, someone is crying in my classroom and I don't know what to do about it.
A few weeks ago, when it was time for my 10th graders to hand in a test, one of them buried her face in her hands and began to cry. Hard. I grabbed a box of tissues and sat down nearby, trying to look sympathetic. Even though I'd been in her shoes before, I had no idea what to say.
Seeing a student in tears — especially during a test — feels terrible. Not only is emotional support one of the explicit duties of a teacher, but of course I genuinely care about them, too. And how could I not? I spend as much time with my students as I do with my own children.
She was the first to break the silence. "I studied so hard," she said. "But I couldn't figure out the last question."
Her conclusion reminded me of a time when I had hit a wall at the end of a test. It came at the end of one of my favorite courses in college: group theory. Just as my chemistry courses had revealed the underlying structure to our physical world, group theory illuminated the underlying structure of the math I'd been learning since elementary school.
I took careful notes, which I still keep on my bookshelf and look through when I feel like reminiscing. I spent hours on homework, even formatting it in a markup language called LaTeX so that it looked like it belonged in an academic journal. I wanted to prove myself worthy of that beautiful subject. But when I took the final exam I came to a problem I didn't know how to solve. Maybe I wasn't worthy after all.
I handed in the paper, trying not to make eye contact with the professor in hopes that she would forget me and my mediocre abilities. Then I walked around the building until I found a place where I could be alone. Sitting on a bench in the basement with my fists clenched, I didn't know if I would cry or scream or both. That was my shot to prove myself, and I'd blown it.
In the moment, that exam was my entire world. Nothing else could have been more important. But by evening I'd started to move on. I remember being relieved to see my results a few days later, but apparently the exact grade wasn't important enough for me to commit to memory. What I do remember was pouring myself into that course. I remember caring, and struggling, and becoming a better mathematician, regardless of whether I could answer that final question or not.
While I could've shared this story with my student, I don't think it would've made her feel any better. She didn't need to hear that things had eventually worked out for me, she needed to hear that they were going to turn out okay for her.
"What if I fail my DP exams?" she asked.1
"You'll move on," I said. "But I don't think you're going to fail your exams. It's obvious you care about doing well. You're going to learn to channel that energy into doing better next time."
When I first saw her crying I felt like something had gone wrong: her preparation, or my teaching, or both. In retrospect, I wonder if these kinds of lows are simply part of all grand endeavors.
What if someone said they wanted to be a grandmaster in chess without ever feeling disappointed in themselves after losing a match? Or that they aspired to compete in the Olympics but couldn't stomach second place? I don't know about you, but I would think their heart wasn't really in it. That they weren't ready for the highs — and the lows — of learning and growing.
It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that all negative emotion is the enemy, that tears are always a sign of failure. But they don't have to be. They might just be a sign that someone cares enough to try.
The title of this post comes from a speech that Teddy Roosevelt gave at the Sorbonne in 1910.
These exams represent the culmination of the International Baccalaureate program, and like the SAT, can play a critical role in determining where a student attends university.