It's late August 1993, Dad put down his phone and looked at me. “So it's messed up, they won't let you repeat the grade and they'll throw you out of school.” That day, I decided to fly out of school. At the end of the second year of secondary agricultural school, I received three bullets — in mathematics, physics and Czech. On the first of September, I'm sitting at home wondering what kind of school will I go to? I remember a scene from grade school where the history teacher asked us where we wanted to go to school. “What? You want to go to high school with seven threesomes?” , She shook her head... Again, I give her the truth that I can't do it. At the end, they took me to my sophomore year of an auto mechanic's apprenticeship.
Haircut
It is the end of August 2002 and the energetic pensioner looks me intently in the eye and looks at me carefully. For a moment, time stops, and I read curiosity, wariness, distrust, and respect in her gaze. “You really had to learn math, didn't you?” says more or less amicably, though I sense an incredulous undertone. Simultaneously with the question, he hands me his lifelong preparations and mathematics textbooks. I stand as if in a dream, and my head is racing:”Is that even possible?” “Are you taking training from a teacher who let you drop two subjects in high school to take over as a new math teacher after her?” “Are you kidding me?” “God is really funny!”
Believe it or not, this is my real story. I spent sixteen years in education, of which the last five years as a school principal. Therefore, without exaggeration, I have always said that I have an understanding for even the weakest pupils, because I was one of them. I know what rejection means, scorn from my parents, classmates and teachers alike. Of course, that hurts the most from your dad and mom. I got the label “good, stupid and stupid” and I still lick my notional wounds. But nothing is black and white, and many factors have influenced my story, not least me. However, that's for a different story.
Honestly -- I often felt that I was not a good teacher and that I was failing. Questions were constantly going through my head: “Are you supposed to be a teacher?” , “Do you really know how to captivate children and convey to them what you would like?” , “How do I motivate them to pay more attention?” , “Does anyone here appreciate my work at all?”
In the headmaster's chair it was surprisingly the same many times, only in doubt I swapped teachers for students. “Am I a good director?” , “Am I even up to it?” , “How do I drag the teacher to my side?” “Is it possible for me to know that I am nervous?” , “How do I convince them of my vision?” , “Why don't they understand me?” , “Does someone have to constantly throw sticks under my feet?!” , “Another questionnaire from the Ministry, do I have a little?!”
The critic in my head did not put me to sleep, whether I was a child or a “big child” in the role of director. You are not a good son, a good husband, a proper teacher, a suitable principal. I kept hearing subconsciously, “You're failing, you're failing, you're failing...”
Out of the vicious circle of self-blame, feelings of inadequacy, inferiority, and God knows what else, I was helped by a profound acceptance that I don't have to live by the patterns and beliefs I adopted from my surroundings as a child.. I realized how much my current life is fundamentally influenced by the “truths” that I have not only taken from my parents for myself, about the world, and about other people.
If someone told me in 1993 that I was going to do grad school, I'd laugh at them. If someone told me that I would become a teacher and take over math classes after a teacher who let me fail, the turn “I would consider him a fool” is a weak reflection of what I would think of him.
My life lessons have taught me to value myself and others less. Many times we judge others and know nothing about their experiences and the struggles they have gone through and which have made them the people they are. We often give them different stickers that I used to get myself.
Once you accept the label that others put on you, you begin to believe in yourself that you are who they think you are. Therefore, let us not judge a person's potential by how it appears to us right now.
In the film Ratatouille, Chef Gusteau claims: “Anyone can cook“. After my experience, I say: “Everyone Can Succeed” . Along the way, you will meet a lot of obstacles and disappointments, but the effort to “fight your way through life” is worth it. I'm living my dream and in RainFellows and BrainBrush I do things that make sense to me.