Nobody is perfect - Ask our counsellor Q&A column

[The following column written by me appeared in the Deccan Herald Education supplement on April 26, 2012]

Dear Madam, 
    
I am a BA final-year student. My aim is to become an English teacher. I come from a poor family. And I have never been able to score more than 80 per cent. Exams make me nervous and I lose confidence.

I am confused about my future as I don’t know whether to pursue a Master’s in Arts or a B.Ed degree. My questions are:

-How can I gain courage and confidence?
-What is good for me, MA or B.Ed?
-How can I leverage my  growth opportunities in teaching?

Sanjeev M A 

Dear Sanjeev,
Your questions about getting more opportunities to grow in teaching are probably better answered by those who are currently in the field of education, or career counsellors. As far as doing an M.A or a B.Ed, again I am not the best person to answer this, but my guess is that if you really want to grow as a teacher, you would eventually need to do both. And if you want to teach at the college level, you may even benefit by doing a Ph.D. What I am going to address in this column is the lack of confidence that you are faced with.

Confidence is a function of your ability to feel strong about yourself. You can do this by recognising your strengths and weaknesses; by gaining strength from your strengths and accepting your weaknesses so that you can overcome them or live with them, whichever you choose to do. We lack confidence when we believe that we should be a ‘perfect’ person that we are not, and that everyone else is. When we recognise our strengths and accept our weaknesses, we feel more capable and confident about facing the world. We need to realise that no one is perfect, not even the person we idolise. And, just like no one is perfect, neither are we. So we are not worse off than anyone else.

Only when we are able to accept ourselves, are we able to feel confident about facing the world. So
do some introspection and identify your strengths. If your mind is pre-occupied with the fact that you don’t get the marks, you will never be able to truly concentrate on what you are trying to do. All the best.