I do not Know Everything

I do not know everything and I will not pretend like I do. I am however willing to go and learn and I am willing to ask my students for help. When I was in school there was nothing that annoyed me more than a teacher who refused to ask for help be it form students or colleagues. Once in a science class a teacher wasted a whole period because he would not admit that he did not know the material well enough. I believe it was something about cells and I was really looking forward to that lesson. While my primary goal as an English teacher is to help students learn the mechanics of the language and to have some knowledge of, if not a love for, various novels from England and America. That is my primary goal. My secondary goal, which I feel is just as important as the first, is to inspire confidence in my students. Knowing everything about anything and being willing to talk about it until you are blue in the face is not confidence. In fact I do not believe anyone on this earth is capable of retaining so much knowledge! Confidence to me is the ability to ask questions and to ask for help without thinking any less of yourself for it. We live in a society that prizes confidence and the ability to do things quickly and sufficiently with minimal instruction. The person who asks for help is sometimes viewed as less capable and I do not believe this is right. I want to establish a feeling of security in my classroom. It should be a safe environment where students are free to ask questions. If I am not making sense I want to know about it. If I get a really good question about a piece of literature that requires me to go back to the book, I will say so instead of making something up off the top of my head. I am even more willing to say I don't know the answer and ask the class for their input. I want my students to be able to do the same thing. To ask questions and admit that they don't have all the answers. I know I don't so why would I expect it of them?