You know those moments that you find yourself in when all eyes lie upon you and your bright red face, but there is nothing you can do about it? This happens to everyone, even to some of Pennridge’s most loved teachers. Whether it’s accidentally tripping up the stairs or mistaking a random car for a taxi, we’ve all made a complete fool out of ourselves at some point in our lives. It happens to everyone, and that’s why you should stop beating yourself up about yours. Even if that moment was so awkward at the time, the reality of it is that whoever witnesses your stupid actions probably forgets all about them since they’re too busy obsessing about their own past mistakes. It quickly turns into a funny memory.

One study by researchers at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois says there’s a quick way to move past life’s most terrible moments. This was done by studying the behavioral and neural mechanisms when asked to recall such a memory. The goal of this is to start focusing on everything about the memory except the way it made you feel. “Sometimes we dwell on how sad, embarrassed, or hurt we felt during an event, and that makes us feel worse and worse. This is what happens in clinical depression- ruminating on the negative aspects of a memory,” lead researcher Florin Dolcos wrote.

Kim Reese, who teaches honors pre-calculus, AP calculus, and personal finance, has an embarrassing story that took place in the Pennridge parking lot. About ten years ago, Reese was ending her day of teaching and started to head home. As she was backing out of the parking lot, she heard the unmistakable sound of a collision. She quickly scrambled to look at what she hit; it was, teacher, Kevin Harris’s car! As she went to investigate the scene, she realized that she had ripped off his bumper, and as a result, her car was locked with his. She recalls that “no one saw, but I did go back in and talk to him,” leaving her car in that position. It is all a past memory now that both teachers can laugh about.

However, part of being a teacher is that you usually have a small audience always watching your moves. Rebecca Wildrick, who teaches Spanish, has a story that took place many years ago, in 1997. One day when Wildrick was teaching a small class at the old lower high school building, she stood up to hand out some papers to her class. After she was done handing them out, she felt her chair behind her, or at least she thought she did. But as she went to sit down, she soon realized that she was heading for the floor. As she hit the floor, she said she “immediately started laughing hysterically.” At first, all her students were concerned for her and asked if she was okay, but they soon laughed off the incident together.

No matter what embarrassing situations you find yourself in and how bad they seem in the moment, just remember that no one will remember in a few short days. At Pennridge High School, these small moments happen all the time, even with our favorite teachers.

Source:

Institute, Beckman. “New Study Suggests a Better Way to Deal with Bad Memories.” 18 Apr. 2014, https://beckman.illinois.edu/about/news/article/2014/04/18/761c6b08-90e1-4b31-b57e-bdb0ff868aba.