Hi Guys,
Thought you might like to see this video of where I am today!
(Here’s the programme we’re working on over here: 海外インターンシップ)
P.S. Today is the last day of the vol. 8 special offer, and also the last day before the full Download Pack goes up in price again at midnight. If you haven’t picked them up yet, today’s the day!
Looks like landscape from a certain famous trilogy from Peter Jackson – meet any little people with big feet carrying a ring whilst you were there?
I love your blog. You inspire me. You just look like you enjoy this career choice so much that it is now your personal life too. I lose faith easily working here in Mexico in our small, one room classes where I’m over-crowded and limited to what “they” allow. I KNOW so much that I can do to help (even in the small, crowded class rooms) but I’m held back by others who are 1) jealous of my knowledge no matter how nice I am (I even try to give ideas to others to take credit for themselves!) or 2)greed that keeps anyone from wanting to spend money on materials. I spent over $2000 USDollars on materials including your CDs, a projector, reading books, English board games, transparency games, building my own smart board, DVDs and more!!! Parents fight for my class…they all want their kids in my class and it clearly shows why, yet I get no help…worse, no belief in that change can help. Teachers sometimes want to use my stuff…but they won’t return my things and say some excuse (I lent it to someone else or lost it or keep forgetting to bring it back).My boss won’t even buy me an eraser for my board. Students have to bring me pens even!! Sure, I can teach without materials, CDs, technology, but blah…so can everyone else. I have exciting things to share. I KNOW you must run into similar issues…yet, look at you. You really know how to keep hanging in there and as a result you have this positive outlook on life and keep visiting more places, spreading GENKI. Wish I could.
Thank you for the nice words!
Don’t worry we *all* have people around us like that! And I guess it’s fighting against that that keeps us going! 🙂
In the class we just focus on the kids there, they’ve got you so give them 100%, like it sounds you are doing, which is great!!
Then outside class, think how you can help change things. It’s always a case of one step forward, two steps backwards (or is it the reverse! 🙂 ) but by setting an example, sharing ideas or just teaching the kids so well you will change things!
As we’ve seen many times on the blog, education around the world is at a really critical point where everything has to change (even Seth Godin has just written a new book about it!) so we all have to keep going and keep resisting the nay-sayers so that they don’t win!
And, like I mentioned in Africa the other day, even if we only reach one kid in one class, that makes all the hard work worthwhile!
P.S. Also have a look on the forum for lots of support from fellow teachers!
Hi Richard!
Thank you very much for your support. With your blog and all the nice people who write in here I don’t feel alone.
Thank you everyone!
Let’s keep learning while teaching.
I’m inspired by your blog. I’ve been teaching for more than a year in Korea and I could relate to your experience. I’m a certified teacher from Canada. After graduating in 09, I wasted quite a bit of time looking for the job I wanted, so I decided to jump on board to Korea. As a high school math teacher, I thought teaching English to the little ones will be a piece of cake. I consider myself to be one of those born to teach. I’ve been teaching for nearly 10 years, either one-to-one or groups of students. However, being in Korea, I have developed respect and admiration to all those elementary teachers out there. It takes lot of preparation and energy to teach them. At times, I spend 90% of my time just preparing for them. It wasn’t the case with high school students, long as I knew the content, had some plans and knew how to execute it, I was good to go. Recently, I’ve come to understand the cultural impact and specific ways to teach younger students. I’ve noticed that most of my kids get excited over songs, so I incorporated some in my classes. This was for grade ones and twos. Now I am going to teach grade threes and fours and need a song to begin and end the class. I like the ‘How are you?’ song and hence the reason I’m on this blog. One more thing, I like what you said about reaching one kid in one class. At times, it is what keeps me going. Thanks for the remainder!