“We look back on our life as a thing of broken pieces, because our mistakes and failures are always the first to strike us, and outweigh in our imagination what we have accomplished and attained.”
―Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
What helps you to remember your successes in the midst of mistakes and failures?
I’m sure I wasn’t the best kindergarten teacher in the world. I was relatively unprepared for the job but during the times after WWII, teachers were in great demand. I was mentored by a fine experienced teacher and then was responsible for one class of my own. Imagine! 44 kindergarteners in one class! I moved to another school the next year and continued as a kindergarten teacher. One day, before the winter holidays, there came first grader Tommy Brown and his mother, from the earlier school where I taught, bringing me three colorful handkerchiefs as a present! I used those hankies until they were almost in shreds. It was so touching to me to be remembered that way, and thinking back, I guess I wasn’t as poor a teacher as I once imagined.