Discouragement: Case Study

Q1: Some corps members say that teaching is the hardest thing they've ever done. There are moments when plans don't work out perfectly and where, despite having worked extremely hard, you might not feel good at your job. What concerns do you have about taking on this experience?

I am most concerned about managing the constant barrage of discouragement. Anyone who knows me, or meets me for a short time, would agree that I am a people person. I love working with people, whether collaboratively or in a position of leadership and from past work and volunteer experience, I know that at times this can push me to discouragement more quickly than others. But, thanks to those same experiences, I have had practice managing expectations, coping with
I served in a ministry home housing twenty boys who formerly lived on the streets, many of them with histories of addiction and abuse. In Honduras, I witnessed firsthand how heavily factors outside of a child’s control could influence their life chances. I also learned that the minuscule or sometimes nonexistent evidence of my work in the lives of these children did not detract from its significance. In the corps, I will not be able to change the life circumstances of my students or overcome the fact that society has made their future success incredibly difficult to achieve. But I will be able to serve with the perspective necessary to help my students realize their fullest potential, and accomplish all that they are each truly capable of. Q3: Describe your most meaningful accomplishment within the past 4-5 years. What did you accomplish? How would you measure your success? Why was this accomplishment particularly important to you? What were the greatest challenges or roadblocks you faced? To what do you attribute your
When you make it to the office you see Mrs. Walker, Drew's mom, and she is not very happy. You invite Mrs. Walker to your classroom. She shares that she is upset that Drew is failing your class. She explains that Drew and his siblings stay with their grandmother on the other side of town when she works over time and that he takes his siblings to school and then takes the city bus to and from school; therefore, he has a hard time getting his homework done in the evenings. You know that homework is a critical part of fully developing the skills in your class, and Drew is already in jeopardy of failing. 1. What is your impression of Mrs. Walker? Why do you think that? 2. How would you approach this