Teacher’s Mindset: The reflection that changed my life
Introduction — Reality vs dream
When I was an undergrad, I worked as a part-time gym instructor. The pay was low, only $8 per hour. But I enjoyed the job a lot!
I enjoyed motivating the gym members and seeing them improve. Some members told me that they used to dread going to the gym. But because of my motivation, they started to enjoy exercising!
The impact and the positive feedback made me like the job. I finally understood this saying: “Find a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
Fast-forward, and I became a teacher. I thought I could motivate the students to work hard, and I thought students would tell me I had impacted their lives. But when I started teaching, I did not see what I expected.
First, my classes were mostly challenging. I did not know how to motivate forty students! When I saw two-thirds of the class unmotivated, I really did not know how to start.
I thought I could motivate one student at a time, like the . As such, I tried to talk to one student after every class. It was tiring, but I thought the hard work would pay off.
However, after one year, none of them had changed. In fact, their learning attitude became worse!
I was also put in charge of the water polo club. The attendance was so poor! Again, I tried to talk to individual students. I wanted to understand why they were so unmotivated.
They told me the training was too tough. I replied, “No pain, no gain!” Then, they said this, which I could not refute: “All players from other schools learned water polo when they were very young. How can we catch up with them?”
I had many dreams when I entered teaching. But those dreams did not match the reality. I wanted the same enjoyable experience as I had as a gym instructor, but I became jaded after a few months!
After six months, I started looking forward to the end of the day. I thought, “At least I could go to the gym and do something I like!” I also thought that maybe I should not set my expectations too high. I should just teach those who are ready to learn.
The month-long reflection
At the end of one year, my head of department (HOD) had a work review with me. He asked, “What do you think you can do to change the students?” I responded with nothing but complaints.
I told him that I hope the school could assign better players to the water polo club. I said we needed players who wanted to learn. Not those who could not swim! The HOD told me he would try, but those were all the students we had.
I felt it was okay to complain. Most teachers complain about students anyway! It is not that I never tried. I talked to the students. And I talked to their parents. I also asked other teachers for advice. But nothing worked!
I realised teaching was not something I loved. To me, it was just work that I had to do. I only felt happy teaching obedient students. The rest of the students would only spoil my day.
However, after the work review, I felt something was wrong.
I used to tell everyone, “If there’s a will, there’s a way!” But as a teacher, all I did was complain. I asked myself, “Do I really believe I can? And have I really been finding the way?”
It was during the school holiday, and I felt I needed to change. I thought I had had enough of complaining. As such, I bought a book titled Believing in Yourself. And I spent the whole week reading and reflecting.
I wonder if there is another way to impact these students. Have I been doing it all wrong? I kept thinking about the unmotivated students. And those who were always defiant towards me.
Then I thought about the water polo boys. How to change their perception about practice? We were so far below the other schools. Would I be lying to them if I told them, “Hard work will pay off?”
I thought the least I could do was to convince them to go for training. But what should I say? Should I tell the boys to enjoy the improvement? But if I were them, would I even buy into the idea? And would I enjoy the improvement after all that pain?
However, everything I read told me to believe in myself, block out negative thoughts, and not let anyone tell me what I cannot do.
The more I reflected, the more critical I became about my negative thoughts: “How do I know I can’t?”, “What makes me so sure that I have already tried everything?”, and “Have I tried what everyone is NOT doing?”
I began to believe the outcome is a result of my own belief. If I believe I can, I can. I will start to find the way. And I will start looking for opportunities.
People told me to be realistic. But what is realistic? Does it mean to just try my best? And what does best look like?
What if the students can be motivated? And what if my water polo boys can actually be champions? 99% of the people said they could not. But what if these 99% of the people were wrong?
The positive self-talk
I told myself that if I join teaching because I want to impact life, then I must impact life. I should not be merely going through the motions. If I am, I’d rather quit.
Yes. That was exactly the target I set. I gave myself two years to find joy in teaching. If I could not, I would quit. And in those two years, I must do whatever I can to find joy.
This reflection became a month-long reflection. But it felt good! Suddenly, I had a target. Suddenly, there was something to look forward to. After convincing myself that I could do it, I began to look at what I could do.
From a radio programme, I have learned that if I truly want to change a behaviour, I should first find out how the behaviour was developed. One way is to brainstorm a hundred possible reasons.
So I listed down the WHYs: Maybe they were scared of failure. Perhaps they needed a sense of belonging, so they joined the crowd. Or perhaps they did not even believe they could learn.
After I understood why they were not motivated, the next step was to motivate myself. I must believe that I can motivate them. And I must constantly tell myself that I will motivate them.
So I set a goal. The goal was for everyone to be motivated during the lesson. And everyone helped one another. I knew one-to-one “convincing” did not work. From my observation, those teachers who gave good pep talks seemed to motivate students better.
Therefore, I thought I needed to improve on my pep talks.
It felt daunting to think of giving a pep talk, but I told myself, “I can!” I imagine giving an inspiring pep talk to them. And after that, everyone became motivated, like those motivational speeches I watched on YouTube.
For water polo, I set a goal for the team to reach the podium, which means at least fourth place. The thought gave me lots of anxiety, but I told myself, I can and I will!”
After all, I have heard of underdog teams proving everyone wrong to become champions. If they can do it, so can I. I just needed to have the will and determination.
As I continue to give myself positive self-talk, I begin to feel the person who knows best is myself. I realised the more I believe in myself, the more I think critically. And the more I knew the answer.
I had a vision that after every water polo training, I would give a pep talk, and students would become motivated. I also imagine that the more I talked to them, the more motivated they became. Then, they worked doubly hard.
The imagery practice motivated me a lot. Similar to how an Olympic swimmer going through an imagery practice before the swim. I got fired up just by thinking of the scenarios. Suddenly, all those “unrealistic” and “impractical” ideas became possible.
When the new year started, I started giving pep talks. To make my speeches inspiring, I wrote them on my phone. And I edited them a hundred times. After all the editing, I realised the script was so long. But I thought I should just give it a try.
I was surprised the students were quiet. It was also the first time I saw students’ eyes staring at me. The more I practised, the more I knew what to say. I realised my pep talks were more engaging when I put myself in their shoes.
For example, I would tell the students that many people tended to judge their potential. And that they do not like it! Then, I said, “That was my goal! I want to help you prove that they were all wrong!”
In water polo, I said I would make them a “Champion”. And I remember saying, “I don’t care what you think, what your parents think or what your teachers think. I will make you a champion!”
I like to tell the story of David Copperfield. When he was a young boy, magic was only used for parties. At that time, nobody believed a magician could be rich. However, David Copperfield thought otherwise. And he went on to be the richest illusionist in the world.
I wanted the students to believe they are way better than they think. Just because everyone says they cannot, it does not mean they will not.
To get more buy-in, I had many conversations with the water polo seniors. I told them I wanted to change the team and prove everyone wrong. I asked, “Will you support me?” When they replied, “Yes! Yes!”, I knew I had made one big step.
Whatever I say to myself, I say to my students
As I saw more motivated students, I realised pep talks were not a waste of time. Each time I tried to convince the students, I was also convincing myself. When the students and I become motivated, everyone wins.
My PE students did not become motivated overnight. But they definitely saw improvement. That was when I was able to tell them, “See! What did I tell you? If you believe in yourself, you can!”
Similarly, my water polo students saw lots of improvement. They started to believe they actually could win! That was when I saw the opportunity — I asked the seniors if we could increase the number of training sessions. They supported the ideas!
Fast forward, in PE lessons, my students were motivated. They are also very helpful to one another. My water polo team also did very well, winning the championship twice and finishing on the podium multiple times.
Whatever people say I cannot do, I have proven I can. Every child really can learn, and wants to learn. I still fail occasionally, but I know if I continue to believe in myself, I will find the solution.
Conclusion — Believe in that dream
I am glad that I did that reflection. And I am glad I set myself a goal. If not, I might have been jaded long ago. I might also have quit teaching.
I used to think activity time was important. If we spent too much time talking, they could not attain the learning outcome. However, if we see a class of unmotivated students, where everyone judges one another, can anyone learn?
Students do not come to us motivated. It is our job to motivate them. When things did not go well, we tend to look for “the strategy.” But the longer we teach, the more we know there is no such thing as a “magic bullet”.
We can motivate them through an exciting task. But the next minute, you see them unmotivated. Learning is emotional. They need to feel they can, and they need to believe they can.
It is not easy to convince students that they can. That is why the first step is to believe WE CAN. If the classroom environment is unsafe, we must believe we can make it safe! And if the students are not motivated, we must believe we can motivate them!
It is easy to say, “No matter what I say, they will not be motivated!” But how do we know we cannot?
A dream is something we cannot see. If we can see it, it’s not a dream. It may look unrealistic or impossible. But we must still believe in it!
