The serenity prayer for teachers

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference."
      American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr^[1] (1892–1971)

Most teachers I know are very good at the first two.

The problem is the third: knowing the difference between what you can change and what you can't.

Case in point: attitudes

"Group 3A is just lazy."
"Wow, level 2 works really well!"
"Maria is really smart."
"You always have to explain things 3 times to Mario, and even then he manages to misunderstand."

These are things you CAN change, and usually it starts with your attitude.  Maybe group 3A doesn't work the way you want them to for a reason.  Maybe your mistake with Mario is explaining thing: he might do better if he's left alone to figure them out for himself.

Case in point: class management

Have you ever seen, even if only on TV, classes where the teacher asks a question and all the kids raise their hands excitedly?  Is that what you think your class should look like? 

It won't and it shouldn't because learning is messy. 

Sometimes I open a book (well, my ipad) on the bus, read one sentence and it inspires a whole chain of thought.  By the time I come back to Earth, my ipad is asleep and I've reached my stop. 
Now, imagine the scene if I were in class:
Teacher: "What do you mean you've only read one sentence in the last 20 minutes?"
Me: "But I understood it REALLY well!"

This is one of the things you CAN'T change.  People learn in different ways at different times and we have to respect that.