The Secret to Teaching

“Here’s the secret to teaching, [as] with anything else: If you blame yourself for the mistakes, you can only get better. If you blame the outside world, the kid, the person you’re working with, if you blame them, you’ll never get better. So, you’re, Why did I fuck that up? What can I do better? If that’s the driving energy, you come to the next day revved up and ready to go, Let’s see if this works.”

— Ed Burns, co-creator of The Wire, in Jonathan Abrams’ amazing All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire. (Page 228)