Understanding Another's Self Esteem

From 11/8/2007
Yesterday, I spent the day observing and then talking with a teacher. I have been spending quite a bit of my work days lately completing my regular fall observations on all of the preschool teachers that I mentor and she was my scheduled visit for the day. This particular teacher has a lot of wonderful abilities and works quite well with children. So I wasn't too worried about how her observation would go. However, she does have a very active and energetic class this year, with a few children exhibiting some difficult behaviors. But she really did handle it well.

Yet, one thing I've noticed about her over the past couple of years, is that she is continually making sarcastic comments about how she'll probably get fired soon, or maybe she should just quit while she's ahead... etc. As yesterday progressed, I heard quite a few of these comments. And even though she is actually quite funny when she's being sarcastic or cynical, it can start to be concerning too. So, when I met with her to review her observation, I decided to talk to her about her strengths and her level of confidence. I asked her to name one thing that she knows she's good at (at work). She took quite a long time and then finally said "Others have told me that I communicate well with the children." I told her that I totally agreed and that I think she's one of the best we have in that respect. However, I wanted to know what she felt about it, not so much what she's heard others say. She couldn't come up with anything. I felt quite sad for her.

I'm really quite confident in most everything I do and so it's a bit hard for me to comprehend not being able to find anything that I truly know I do well. I challenged her to start identifying on a daily basis things that she does well or things that went well that day and to start pushing the negative thoughts away. She said she'd work on it, but that it's the way she's always been. I'm going to start asking her about her strengths more regularly now. This was a good learning experience for me too... I need to focus on people's strengths more too, instead of what they're doing wrong.