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    Students in Class 1 and 2 did really badly in the quiz last time. So at the beginning of the class, I "preached". I said: " You did badly in the quiz, so badly that I even became excited over those who got over 60. You are adults. You know what you are doing. I don't know what's going in your mind. Just hope you can bounce back soon. And the bottom line is that you shouldn't lower our expectations of ourselves, or else you will go from bad to worse. Once you lower your expectations of yourselves, teachers will lower their expectations of you too. That's a vicious circle."

    Their poor performance seemed to well justify my preach. So I was quite firm in uttering those words. After a second thought, I felt guilty. Those words are for me rather than for them. I have talked about being strict and tolerant. As time goes by, I become more and more tolerant of myself. The other day, I got together with Ling, Shan and some girls. They asked me did I make some mistakes while giving lessons. My answer was a definitely yes. I reasoned that even native speakers made mistakes while communicating, let alone we teachers--just English learners. There was not any guilt in me at that time. Every mistake seemed so justified. Then they said the mistakes they refered to are those knowledge-based ones. Without hesitation and guilt, a yes again. They were amazed at my definite answers. I was a bit confused. Am I wrong?

    I have always been demonstrating my motto that: Teachers are human too. We are not saints. We are not Mr. or Ms. Know-It-All. We make  mistakes. We are ignorant sometimes. So I feel quite easy when I make mistakes. I just try to make as few as possible and try to correct them afterwards.

    After that time, I become conscious of my errors. Then amazingly I find that in fact I make many mistakes during teaching process. Sometimes they are oral while sometimes written ones. Sometimes they are minor while sometimes they are major. Sometimes they are Chinese while sometimes they are English. All kinds of mistakes. This discovery scares me. And what scares me more is my attitude to mistakes. I am so tolerant to them, to myself. I always assume that that is that without doing thorough research. So for a majority of mistakes,they can be avoided if I can be more careful. Now I can't say that I try my best to commit fewer. I am not. I take it for granted that we do commit mistakes. I am to blame for this attitude.

    Just like Phelps, Chen Guanxi who are public figures, we can't commit mistakes under certain circumstances. Though we are not famous like they are, we are role models to a certain part of people like they are. It takes many things to be a role model. It is tiring. But since you are a role model no matter for one or one thousand, you need to act like one.