I like to think that the greatest fear of man is the fear of failure.
Source
I held my phone in my trembling hands, watching the drama unfold before me with an expression of horror displayed on my face.
It was like my tongue was stuck to my upper palate and my teeth seemed to be ultimately glued together. I could hardly even get myself to blink.
Drops of sweat rolled down my back in trepidation as tears formed in my eyes.
This is the end of my career, I thought. No one is ever going to listen to what I have to say about writing again.
The messages didn't stop.
You should have dropped this message in her DM, not coming to embarrass her here like this…. One of the students wrote.
Thank God you pointed it out, we would have been busy celebrating rubbish….. another one said.
I turned my mobile data off and covered my mouth with my palm to silence the sob that was growing strong in my chest.
It was all my fault.
How could I have forgotten the definition of something so simple?
I had been contacted 2 weeks ago by my close writer friend, Martins, for a Virtual Beginners writer's workshop he was planning to organize. According to him, one of his guest tutors told him she would no longer be available to take the class so he wanted me to take it in her place.
I was excited and nervous.
It wasn't going to be the first time I was holding a class online but this one was different. I was going to prepare a writing curriculum myself and teach according to it.
I accepted the offer especially since it came with little pay and got to work immediately.
The class soon began in earnest. Since my class wasn't scheduled for the first day, I was privileged to attend the first 2 classes, see how the tutors engaged the 220 students, and go over their notes to be sure it wasn't clashing with mine.
The third class was mine. I was nervous all evening especially because Martins had already started posting reminders and introductions, causing the students to anticipate the session with me.
That evening during my session, I went over the moon.
The first topic I treated which was “Creativity: the foremost tool for writing”, captured the hearts of the students so much that I couldn't stop taking questions till past 10 pm.
Martins even sent me a direct message saying my teaching was “Fire”.
I had a class the next day too where I was talking about “Creative writing genres”. This is where I made a huge mistake.
The class itself was just as amazing as the previous one but during the question session, a student asked the difference between “Satyr” and “comedy”. There, I made a blunder.
I defined “Satyr” as comedy and defined “Comedy” with what I thought it was, instead of the contextual meaning.
I didn't realize I had made a mistake until one of the students in the group highlighted the reply I gave and said “This is wrong” then went ahead to give the proper definitions of the two terms.
That was what led to the ruckus in the group.
While I was still sobbing in the toilet, my phone began to ring. It was Martins. He had sent several messages to my DM but I wasn't responding.
“Treasure, you made an honest mistake….”
“But no one is ever going to listen to me again”
“You don't know that. Just come online and address the situation. Apologize for the mistake and assure them that you've been teaching the right thing. I have done that but the students are asking why you are not saying anything. It's giving them the impression that you've really been teaching the wrong thing”
I wasn't feeling up to posting anything on the group that night and I told him so.
“Just lock the group. I'll know what to do by morning” I said.
I hardly slept a wink that night and when I finally did, I had a terrible dream where everyone was yelling at me.
The following morning, as early as 5 am, I composed an apology and sent it to the group, then announced that I was dropping the tutorship.
I could see that 14 students had left the group because of me already. I didn't want more people to leave.
I didn't turn my mobile data on till the end of that day and when I did, I received nothing less than 50 messages from both students and 2 other tutors.
They all said almost the same thing which I will summarize as; “We love your courage. If you think you can go on with teaching us, we would appreciate it”.
I took up the courage to continue the class that evening. 7 other students left when I was introduced to the group but I wasn't too bothered because Martins said, “Let them go, they don't value the money they paid”
I am still scared of sharing the knowledge I have about writing to date but so long as I double-check whatever I have to share, I go ahead to face that fear knowing that I would not share the wrong thing.