“How are you so patient, Ms. Thorup?” is a question that I’ve gotten more than once. The funny thing is, I don’t think of myself as a patient person. I certainly don’t have a vast reserve of inner calm and peace to draw on. I often get frustrated and angry when things don’t work out the way I want them to. I have noticed that the longer I teach, the less I feel frustrated with my students, but I don’t feel like it’s because I’m more patient.
If you look up the definition of patience, it says “the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.” For me, that implies the ability to control one’s emotions. With my students, however, I don’t feel the need to control my emotions at all. I simply don’t get frustrated.
I used to get upset. Students talking or not doing their homework or doing whatever it is that teenagers do used to drive me to tears. I couldn’t understand how they could be so rude or lazy or inconsiderate. With time, however, I learned to see things the way my students saw them. A student talking out of turn wasn’t trying to be disrespectful; she was just excited to talk to her friends. A student who waited until the very last day to try to get his grade up wasn’t lazy; he just had a lot of other classes and activities to worry about and hadn’t mastered time management yet.
Eventually all those little things that used to frustrate me turned into opportunities to teach and build up my students. Now when I encounter a challenging situation with my students, my first reaction is usually curiosity. What is the real problem here? What am I doing that isn’t working for this student and what can I do better? How can I help?
Through this whole process, I don’t see myself as more patient. I see myself as more understanding. The better I understand a situation or a person, the less I need patience.
Of course, maybe that is patience after all. Maybe the ability to face adversity without frustration can be developed in multiple ways.
Whatever it is, I’ve been thinking about the idea of patience a lot lately because right now in my life outside of school I feel very impatient. As I think about how I deal with my students at school, I’m realizing that maybe I need to use that same process with other parts of my life. Maybe things won’t frustrate me so much if I seek to understand why they happen. Maybe if I approach other areas in my life with more curiosity and optimism, assuming the best and actively looking for opportunities to improve and serve, I will find the peace and calm I need.
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
Victor Frankl