A few years ago, when I had just started teaching German as a foreign language, I taught intensive courses, each level only being taught for 4 weeks. This was at a large language school franchise, that has schools in several European cities, who offer cheap courses, pay their teachers badly, but are in high demand with students. Anyways, it was a good practice to gain first experience, which I am grateful for. After having taught different levels for a few months and having gotten to know all the perks of teaching, such as the positive energy and gratefulness from students, classroom group dynamics, and shared laughs because of common mistakes, I started a new month with a new group. This group was just one level above beginners and 12 out of the 15 students had already taken the previous level together. I thought that would certainly be an advantage, for group dynamics, people would already know each other, thus not being too timid when it came to speaking in front of the group, and so on..
Well, I was wrong.
While a few individuals really wanted to learn and progress, the majority of the group just seemed unhappy with my style of teaching. They hardly spoke to me, never had questions when I asked if things were unclear, and two persons in particular frequently disturbed my class with clowning about.
At the beginning of the second week of the course I had a better feeling in general, having felt more interest coming from that group. On my walk home the office called me and asked if I could come back to have a chat with me. When I sat there and listened to the secretary telling me that a bunch of my group came to complain about me after class that day, I was devastated. I just could not understand what had happened. I felt mobbed. It felt unfair. I was relieved when the secretary agreed that it probably would not make much sense for me to continue teaching that group. I could not picture myself stepping in front of that class again, with my head held high. Walking home I called my friend and cried while telling him, I was so disappointed I questioned the whole teaching thing. Maybe it’s not for me, I thought. Maybe I was just lucky with all the groups I taught previously. Maybe they were just being very kind in telling me that I was a good teacher, that they progressed a lot through my courses. I doubted everything I did and considered letting things be.

The same day in the evening I went to yoga class with one of my favorite yoga instructors and in the first few minutes she talked about being open to new things. She said that if there were new students who did not know her yet, she’d appreciate them to just go with the flow (quite literally), let things happen without judging, since every teacher had their own style of teaching, no class is ever exactly like another and just because styles were different it did not mean that one of them was better and the other worse. She said she knew and understood quite well that people had preferences when it came to instructors and their respective teaching styles, but that it was just fair to give new people a chance as well.
I sat there on my mat, my head still way too much in the dark cloud, and yet I could not help but smile to myself. Without going too much into detail I just thanked the instructor after class, this time more than usually, because to me it seemed, she spoke straight from my head and into my heart, putting things into perspective. I walked out of class thinking much higher about myself, being sure that I wanted to pursue my teaching job and that I would not let a bunch of kids take away the joy I felt in doing it.

A week later I took over a different group and everything went as I knew it from before. Students were respectful, we laughed together, they worked hard on their tasks and thanked me very much after the last week, telling me they hoped I would teach them the following month in the next level, too. In the hallways I would still encounter students from the group that “fired” me and I always held my head high, smiled at them and greeted like the civilized polite human that I am.