Thomas Alva Edison said, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

I truly believe that nobody can be successful without going through a variety of challenges and hardships in life. Going through difficulties builds the confidence in our abilities and our thoughts. Without enough faith in myself, I would never cross the hardships I will face and instead, I will stutter and shiver from fear of committing mistakes.

A big football field, a class, and a cafeteria; that’s how I imagined school when I was a student till I came to BTC to learn how teachers must dedicate their selves to teach their students.

Teacher Ammar Alearibi is young and teaches English in an elementary school in Bahrain. When asked, “How can you describe your first year of work? ” He replied, “Terrifying”.

Every day he would open the door of the class with a broad smile on his face and a ton of enthusiasm, but once the period finishes, he closed the door to allow the deafening silence to dominate his brain as he thinks of the next period like a colonel thinking about war.  

As a woodpecker hitting him with his beak, the idea of being unable to control the students' behavior consistently kept popping in his head. With desperate hope to improve his classroom management, he often wondered if they would respect him, should he scream or hit them? But he knew that it's not the correct way to manage the students' behaviour.

He started trying every technique like a doctor who works to cure his patients.  However, it’s incredibly depressing when you give everything and still fail to achieve your ends.

Being unable to manage the classroom negatively affected his students who started underperforming due to the lack of emotional safety. The teacher thought of his job as the most miserable one in the world and he doubted becoming a teacher ever.

A year has passed since then.

Today, Teacher Ammar does not look back at failure as a result, but as a choice that he never made. Now he can stand in front of thirty students and make them stop talking without saying a word.

He did have techniques to use, but he didn’t have faith. To gain their respect, he devoted his time to speak with his students about English and link it directly to their life by talking to them about the importance of learning a new language such as English.

It was a glorious victory that the teacher achieved because of his faith, which changed the teacher's thoughts about his job.

Today he enters his classes with a ton of confidence, enthusiasm, and readiness. Without an atom of fear, he uses his positive relationship with the students to manage the classroom.

By learning how their little brains function and process the world around them the teacher realised that teaching is an extremely unique and exceptional profession.

To have the courage to not stop trying is the lesson I would learn from teacher Ammar. It's not a mistake to fail once or twice or even a zillion times. But not believing in your abilities will cost you more. Knowledge is power and time is money. However, courage is the most crucial characteristic you will ever need to cross any challenges.