Nymphenburg Palace in Munich is beautiful. Unfortunately for me, the place will always remind me of my overconfident display counting the swans in front of it. I had never seen so many swans gathered in one place! There were sixty of them! I counted every last one in video my friend recorded on his camera, and what did I boisterously declare at the end? "Fifty-nine... sixty! Sixty swans! And you want to know how many of them are female? Two!" Yea, those two gray swans were signets, young swans, which any person familiar with the 'Ugly Duckling' fable should know, but I had frankly forgotten. Now this seems a silly but rather small mistake, except that I had declared myself so confidently that no one actually questioned me until a few hours later. Turns out that if you speak with a loud authoritative voice people believe you. But if you're wrong, you risk misinforming others. Luckily, my friends were too discerning to let that one slide for long, so I looked like an idiot, but no one was confused about signets.
In teaching, an air of overconfidence can risk misinforming students, stifling their input, or even encouraging arrogance by example. Yet no confidence loses classroom discipline and student trust as it makes a teacher look incompetent. A balance must therefore be struck: be confident but careful. Certainty is risky. The single greatest was to avoid this risk and encourage humility in students is to ask questions. Even if you know what you're talking about, allow students to question you. Ask questions yourself that will allow students to engage with the answers. Student participation is key to establishing a confident yet humble example as a teacher. By encouraging students to question and engage, teachers appear interested in what students have to say without surrendering their authority. Teachers are guides to student learning, not facilitators. A teacher who embraces this philosophy will appear humble while still placing his or herself as a valuable resource to students.
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