Seemingly every day I teach, I realize something I am doing that I need to improve, correct, or completely reimagine. It might be my choice of words, the tone of my voice, my sounding exasperated, how I sequenced the material, my choice of examples, my rushing the process, or any number of other flaws or blunders on my part. When that happens, I can only get upset that I didn’t realize those issues years or decades ago! It is frustrating to say the least. But when that happens, I try to remember the words of C. S. Lewis: “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” It’s true that I can’t fix what I did in the past, but I can learn from my errors and make sure I don’t keep repeating them. For each of us, we can “change the ending” of our teaching story every single day.
Peter Loel Boonshaft, Director of Education
KHS America
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