It's So Hard to State our Strengths But We're Experts at Listing our Faults...

Day 5 of the Attitude of Gratitude Reflective Teacher @TeachThought Blog Challenge...


It can be very confronting when we're asked what our strengths are. We don't like to 'brag' or show off.  We're often incredibly skilled at discussing our faults though - and often at length. Why is this?  We are very good at encouraging our students to state their strengths so why do we find it so difficult to 'practice what we preach'?

The blog challenge this month is all about celebrating what we do and finding the positives.

I'd hope that two of my strengths are resilience and the ability to learn from being wrong.  I've blogged on the last one before back in 2011.  That reflection was triggered by watching a very inspirational TED Talk on the power of being wrong / of failing and I've included the video again because it's always a good reminder for me when my perfectionist tendencies get too out of control!



I think being able to say that you're wrong and learn from mistakes is one of the key strengths we all need.  I know I've learned so much more from being wrong than from being right - not always easy lessons but they've played an incredibly important part in helping me to constantly improve in what I do as a learner and as a teacher.

Resilience is also something I've worked on - and I've not always been very good at this.  I can be oversensitive and take things too personally and I used to find it difficult to bounce back from hiccups or roadblocks as I like to think of them.  I am my harshest critic!  Over the years this has improved and the last year taught me that you need to be resilient to deal with these roadblocks.  I've always bounced back from any challenges but it's sometimes taken a while.  Working incredibly hard on this area has benefited not only me but more importantly - I hope - those around me.

#reflectiveteacher #edblognz