Gratitude Day 4: I'm Thankful For Failing My First Teacher Training Assessment

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So this is a rather interesting story, somewhat of an Asian/Korean/Hindi drama. Its rather preposterous come to think about it, but here goes. I was in my final years of teacher training and I was going through one of the assessments. The assessment required me to conduct a lesson in class.

I was assigned a supervisor to evaluate me throughout the duration of the assessment. My supervisor did not like me from the very beginning. This was something that I could not understand, I mean, I am a very likable person. I am the life of the party, rainbows and butterfly follow in my footsteps. Ok, jokes aside, I could sense the hostility with that supervisor of mine the first time we met. I wondered why he was not happy with me.

That being said, our talks were professional, so I assumed that it was just me being paranoid.

The Failure

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It was my first evaluation and my supervisor was evaluating me along my mentor at school. All went well, it was a good class until at the end, during the discussion, I was slapped with a fail. I was surprised, everything went well, the lesson was pre-approved by him and the students were responsive, I saw no reason how I was failed.

Upon further discussion, it seemed that I left out a small detail in my execution of the class and in his opinion, I deserved a fail for that. I disagreed, commenting that even if that detail was not carried out, I should at least get a low pass but not a complete failure. He disagreed and ordered me to keep my opinions to myself as he left the office.

I was taken aback but had no choice but to accept the results. I assumed this was just one off but it happened a second time. This time, my supervisor even brought up the issue to the school, filing a complain about my performance, claiming that I was not doing a good job and should not be allowed to continue with my internship at that school.

The Drama

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Naturally, I had to live with the problems but little did I know that there was a story behind all of this. I wouldn't have known what was going on until I vented about this to my parents. My dad was particularly curious and he asked for the name of my supervisor. When I mentioned his name, my cool, collected father nearly choked.

He stood up from the dinner table and left to the study. He returned with a yearbook and opened it. He opened it to the page where all of his classmates were and pointed to a young boy. I thought that the fates were playing a joke, I could not believe my eyes as the boy standing next to my dad was my supervisor. They were apparently classmates and they were rivals in studies.

So here comes the speculation because my father would not deny nor confirmed this part, there may have been some bad blood between them either because of a girl or exam results, nonetheless, I started to understand the hostility. That being said, I could not possibly bring this up with my supervisor. He was on a war path and the day came where he met with my mentor and principal of the school to complain about my performance.

However...

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This is the part where I am thankful for. I started to believe how bad I was in terms of my performance. Especially when I was asked to accompany my supervisor as he was commenting on my performance with the principal. I sat there with my supervisor as the complains were dished out. However, my principal and stopped my supervisor halfway through his assessment of me and stated that they were very happy with me. The principal stated that as much as I was not up to par according to my supervisor's assessment, my mentor and students were and if my supervisor was not happy, he is free to say whatever he wants to. However, they are more than happy to employ me.

I was grateful that the principal and mentors were very happy with my performance. As for my supervisor, well, he tried really hard to prove that I was performing badly. Upon finding out that the principal and my mentor did not share his view, he got up and left. The best part was that despite me failing that particular assessment, my other subsequent assessments were enough to give me enough marks to get a pretty decent final score.

To this day, I still don't know what the backstory between my father and my supervisor's rivalry was all about, that being said, I am thankful for hearing about it and to know that I am being appreciated. If not for being failed by that supervisor of mine, I wouldn't have found out about what my principal thought of me or what an interesting past my dad had.

Nominations:

For this challenge, I will nominate @marxrab, @robertandrew and @Howtostartablog.

What are the rules of this challenge?

• Write a post about something you have to be positive about today - this could be anything from being thankful for your current situation, someone being nice to you, being thankful for your friends and family, or even being thankful for the opportunity you have been given here on Steemit - just keep it positive :)
• Do this for 7 days in a row if you get nominated
• Mention three people who should do this on each day.
• Tag it with #7daypositivitychallenge and include these rules at the bottom of your post
  (Tip: You need to put the # in front of 7daypositivitychallenge or it will not let you use the tag.)
• Include a picture of something positive (related to your story if possible).

Thank you @lymepoet for nominating me! You can find the original challenge post here:
"7 Day Positivity Challenge" by @conradt

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