I really love the days when its rainy, and my only agenda is to read articles for my master's and write and reflect. I'm realizing more and more how this time of my life is really important to me. I live in China, I'm working on my graduate degree, investing in myself and my future. While the nature of my program can be, well, isolating at times, I realize now that I'm actually never alone in this. My cohorts are doing the same thing! I think we are all learning right now that we need to create our own standards, our own set of expectations for ourselves, and also ways to reward ourselves. The victories I experience in my reading and writing are usually when I'm alone in my apartment. I'm learning that it is actually a beautiful process. Inwardly rewarding. Occasionally outwardly rewarding, if I decide to do a little happy dance.
I read an article today about "Learning to Become a Second Language Teacher" - and I felt as if someone was holding up a mirror to my experience here in China. I found myself in this article. It tracked the journey of 2 novices teachers, and the tensions they experienced within themselves and their teaching practice; what moments they grew; what situations caused them to reflect; tensions they experienced between themselves and the institutions they worked for. What really hit home for me, was their relationships with their students - how these relationships were challenged at times, and how they ultimately grew into better educators as a result of their interactions with their learners. As I read the various articles, I've actually started to write down key moments (the good, the bad, and the ugly...lots of the ugly.) in my own teaching over the past few years, on small pieces of paper. I'm still debating whether or not I'm ready to be this honest with myself if I choose to do a self study for my thesis.
Some of these reflections are just ramblings, but I was told to save absolutely everything I work on, so that is what I'm doing. I'm practicing sharing my work with others. So, that means you:
"Students stand up whenever I walk by. I tell them to sit down. They call me teacher. I say to them, "Just call me Jane."
"Because I work with students who are from a different culture than my own, and whose learning strategies are different from my own, why do I always feel the need to change how they learn? I feel like I am somehow responsible for changing them - maybe I'm the one who needs to be changed. I need to let them be my teachers."
"Wounded teaching."
"Hearing a coworker say "They (the students) just weren't listening to me." I don't know why, but this statement made me so angry. Like, I could feel the anger right down to my toes."
"Eating in my student's home, being treated for lunch, being given medication when I was sick...students in Japan became like my family. Why did I all of a sudden deserve this kind of treatment?"
"My first class in Osaka. I had no idea what I was doing. I wanted it to be finished as soon as possible."
"I live abroad. I've thrown myself into this strange place. I've chosen to be here. I've committed to this. I can't go back. No matter how bad things get, I tell myself, "I cannot fail. I cannot fail."
I think I'm just touching the surface of this whole experience, but I'm already beginning to see how much I've been needing to do something like this. Sometimes, I feel like this country can throw a person around. I think of all the things I can experience in just a matter of a single day, and its overwhelming. Sometimes annoying. All the time...eye opening. I wish some days that I could just have an average day of going to work, coming home making dinner, and going to bed. But, the truth of the matter is, my days are never like this. I can barely keep up with my own life sometimes.
I need to do this at this point in my life. Sitting at my desk, by my window, with my adult ed. articles, my journal, CBC radio2, my aromatherapy candles, and my giant pot of tea...I feel at home. Like, somehow I'm being brought closer to myself. One thing my advisor Maureen taught me is to value my experience abroad. Name it. Wrestle with it. Allow myself to question.
Funny, whenever I visit home, I've become so used to downplaying or discounting my experience in China. Like, trying to convince everyone that I'm fine and I've come to terms with my life here. I couldn't be farther from this. How will I ever reconcile myself with this country? Maybe never. But, I remember seeing this quote when I was at St.FX in the Spring, it said, "Sometimes we go halfway around the world to see ourselves." This couldn't be more true. I guess one of the questions I have as I move forward in my research...am I prepared to be this honest with myself?
