As a brand new middle school teacher, I thought I was supposed to know it all.
Kids would ask me a question and I felt like I needed to know every answer.
I needed to be the knowledge authority in my classroom, right?!
But the best and worst part of teaching sixth grade is that the kids would start to (respectfully, for the most part) call me out when I said something incorrect.
It took a few months, but I finally realized how ironically empowering it was to admit that I didn’t know something to my students.
“Mrs. Black, why did you say THAT part of the story is the climax? Wouldn’t it be THIS part instead?”
I figured out that it felt SO much better (and by the way, MUCH more effective for teaching) to say:
“Oh interesting! Why do you think that? I could totally be wrong!”
The discussions that comments like this would spur were AMAZING. And tons of class members would start to chime in with their opinions, too.
Real learning would occur.
I loved it.
And I feel like right around this same time at the beginning of my teaching career was when I started to adopt this humility into my personal life, too.
Instead of thinking I had the right answer in my marriage, or in my church callings, or in other decisions that I had to make, it was so much more empowering to recognize that I COULD be wrong.
Replacing pride with humility one little step at a time has brought nothing but peace to my life.
In a gospel context:
“Humility enables us to have broken hearts when we sin or make mistakes and makes it possible for us to repent.” —Elder Steven E. Snow
I have found that it’s actually so freeing to acknowledge that I’ve been wrong.
I’m not perfect at it at all.
There are some sins that I want to cling to, like an insecure middle school teacher who insists they know the right answer.
“How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me?” (Exodus 10:3)
I hope I don’t take too long, though, to loosen my grip on those favorite sins, those rationales, those prideful tendencies.
Humility is much more freeing than pride.
Happy Studying!
-Cali Black
