I failed the subject I teach

In high school, if anyone had told me I'd become a Spanish teacher, I would have dismissed them as delusional. It simply wasn't plausible because I didn't only fail Spanish once, but twice. And, just for good measure, freshmen year I failed Latin too. School had taught me that I was a language flunky. Even English felt beyond my grasp as I was in speech therapy from pre-school to 4th grade and failed numerous spelling tests. I failed Spanish in elementary school because I had very poor sound recognition and was still trying to learn how to listen and pronounce words correctly in English. I flunked Spanish in middle school because I hadn't a clue what a verb or a noun was and I could do the exercises the teacher assigned without understanding, or learning, anything. When I got to high school, the only thing I had already learned was that I was a failure at languages, in general, and in Spanish, specifically. To suffer through a 3 year language requirement for graduation, I tried my hand at Latin. Having no sounds whatsoever to help me anchor the letters into my head led me down yet another path to failure as I struggled with undiagnosed dyslexia. I studied and studied and studied and I just couldn't make any of it stay in my head. I earned a 50, the lowest grade possible, on the final exam.

No one likes to be a failure. When I returned to Spanish class after failing Latin, it was almost physically painful. I think half the tears I've shed in my life are caused by feeling dumb, incapable and just plan stupid when confronting language. I hate looking around the class, as I struggle to read and comprehend the first few sentences and my classmates are already done. But now that I'm working on my fourth language, I have a little more patience with myself.

Yes, that's right. I now speak four languages, requiring two distinct alphabet systems, and I've taught three out of the four languages. And in case that wasn't confusing enough, I work in my fourth language.

Some students get excused from second language requirements because "they can't learn another language". I think the truth is more likely that schools don't know how to teach language to those students. It's a blame shift. I think we also try to save our children from experiencing failure. Of course, experiencing failure is not "fun," but learning to bounce back from it is an important life skill we so often rob our children of.

Every day I teach, I ask myself a very critical question, "As a student, could I have learned in this classroom?" It's the guiding question to my reflective practice. I firmly believe that as a teacher, it is my job to teach in a way every student in my class can learn. I plan classes guided by Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences and Bloom's Taxonomy, aiming also to challenge all my students. I think about the insane amount of repetition I require to learn a language. And for students who truly want to learn, but are failing, I work with them one on one until I can figure out a way to explain it so it makes sense to them. This commitment has not only helped my individual students but has made me a better teacher.

Is that to say no student fails in my class? I wish that it were true. I tell my students that I'll meet them halfway. If they want to stay after school and work with me, I will. If they put in extra effort, so do I. No matter how amazing and passionate the teacher, the person who is responsible for learning is the student. I took responsibility for my own language learning and eventually did much more than my teachers ever asked of me. I did this because, as a challenged language learner, I require much more than most students. My struggles and failures have made me into a more compassionate and patient teacher.  I am so grateful that my parents didn't try to shield me from failure by getting me excused from language class but rather found me the learning environment I needed. My professional success is born directly from my failures as a student.