The Question Remains

I'm sitting in the departure lounge of Sydney airport, waiting for a flight that will take me back to Wellington and New Zealand.  I've flown down from Brisbane this morning after taking a six day vacation staying in Byron Bay.  It was a gift to myself, a present to say thank you, you did it.  It was a chance to recharge my soul after a hard slog through the first half of my post graduate teaching diploma. On Monday, the hard work resumes, university commences after the break that marked the end of the first trimester. Four papers completed, one seven week school placement successfully negotiated, four examinations passed.  The grades are in.  On Monday it begins again. Still I wonder, is this really me?  Is this truly my life's purpose?

How is it ever possible to know the answer to the question unless you try?  I loved my first school placement.  Absolutely loved it. The kids were amazing; we shared some amazing moments; I helped them to learn; I taught lessons in mathematics, French, and social studies; I helped out in PE (physical education), took groups for reading, and assisted in all other learning areas of the classroom.  I recently returned to the school after a few weeks away and the children were very happy to see me, exclaiming that I was the best student teacher ever.  Heady praise indeed.  I try not to think about how many student teachers these eleven and twelve year old's have actually known.  It doesn't matter.  The fact that they told me such things is the most important.  It tells me that we connected, that whatever I did in the classroom and outside in the playground, down in the city at the ANZAC memorial, on the park at the girl's football tournament, at the ten pin bowling alley, and at the trip to the zoo, it must have worked.  It must have been good and it must have been right.  

Not every student told me I was the best but one of those that did was one of the students with whom I had experienced a real difficulty in making a connection.  He often seemed closed off, reluctant to work, apathetic and lethargic.  When he spoke to me and made his proclamation I was absolutely stunned and taken aback.  Perhaps his view is the one I treasure the most because it was the hardest won, even though I wasn't fighting to gain it, just trying to be the type of teacher that I would have wanted. 

It was not an easy placement and I experienced many difficulties.  For example, lessons that I had meticulously planned infrequently didn't quite work out in the way that I had envisaged. Time was a major factor in this - there was never enough of it.  I wanted to take my time, to explore where the children wanted to go, because I wanted to respect their opinions, their desire to ask questions that I had not thought would occur, and to take the lesson into areas that were of interest to them.  Now that I think about it, maybe that was as important as the lesson itself.  Learning occurred in a different way but it was still learning.  We were never off topic, more often just taking a tangent, a minor detour that changed the scenery but did not necessarily alter the overall journey.  For me, learning needs to be a two-way street.  I am a strong believer in the views of William Glasser and Carl Rogers, their views resonated with me deeply, I intrinsically understood what they meant, how they believed the classroom should be maintained.  

Other problems occurred that I would not have envisaged.  One member of the staff expressed very negative views of the teaching profession that I found shocking and which saddened me immensely.  I had not been prepared to find people teaching that did not want to be teaching. I witnessed some incredibly poor teaching methods, students relevant and well-thought questions were ignored and dismissed, and I found that for every very good teacher, there was equally a very poor one.  It was an eye opening experience to what can occur and in retrospect, I am grateful for the experience.  Initially, I wanted to give up but I decided that the children needed better and I wanted to give them that.  I wanted them to see that not every teacher was the same.  I wanted to let them know that I cared deeply about them.  I hope I achieved it.

I raised the question, is teaching my life's purpose?  I do believe that it is.  It is not the classroom nor the thought of teaching that is my concern right now.  Now I am half way through the course, I know that the end is going to fast come into sight.  It is always the way of things.  Just think back to any two week vacation you've ever taken and you'll know that there is a significant difference in the experience of time between the first week and the time of the second week.  It is as if time accelerates the closer we get to the end, like we are being inextricably pulled towards the end, sucked into the vortex of a giant black hole of time.  With the end of the course comes my next big adventure. I will need to make a commitment to one place, something I have not done for ten years.  Perhaps it does not need to be like that. Already, I considered teaching overseas, using it as a means of travel.  Africa pulls at me, South America maybe, back to Central America perhaps?  

So, there is my decision.  I am going to finish the course and I am going to become a school teacher.  Another dream accomplished.  The dream that has been in my heart for many years.  Let's get that job done, let's get through the next five months, four more papers, and one more placement.  Then we'll see how the land lies.  Nothing is forever in this life.  That is the joy of making decisions, of being able to follow the heart.  You have to do what is in the heart today. Tomorrow, well, when tomorrow comes, then maybe we will find another dream, a new dream to pursue.  Until then, I am teaching because of one thing I am sure.  I was born to teach.

_________________________

If Only Every Day Was Like This

Today marked a momentous day in my life.  It was a day that I approached with a mix of excitement and fear.  It was a day that had been a long time coming, a day that I thought would never come.  That constant nagging thought, the long held desire of my heart, the incessant calling that would never leave me, that urge to fulfill a dream... Now there could no longer be any doubt, no more debate, no where else to run.  The day of discovery had finally dawned.  Today was my first day of placement for my school teaching experience.

As the children filed into the classroom, I sat on my chair at the front of the classroom and I began to wonder whether I could do it?  My fear began to rise.  I knew that at some point, I would have to get up and go and get involved, to engage with them, and to begin to get to know these strange alien creatures who I was going to be with every day for the next seven weeks.  How were they going to react to my presence?  Were they going to ask me questions that I would not be able to answer?  Would they make comments and backtalk me?  These children were older than I had ever expected to teach.  In the English state school system, primary school finishes at year 6 (age eleven) and at this point the children move up to secondary school.  Now I was faced with a mixed class of thirty two year 7s and 8s, who made up one class of a New Zealand intermediate school, which is classified here as primary.  When I had discovered this was my allocated class for the teaching experience I had been thrown, as it was far from my expectation. At 8:50am this morning, I was well and truly out of my comfort zone.  Theory is one thing, I love learning, I lap it up.  But practice?  That's a whole new ball game, it's what truly separates the men from the boys.  As my first manager once said to me, "Cometh the hour, cometh the man!"

I did get up and I did engage with the children.  The fight was only in the initial standing up because once I had done that, I really had nowhere else I could possibly go.  That was the moment when I knew I would be alright.  I didn't stand up because I thought that I should, I stood up because I wanted to engage with the students.  I was deeply curious and I wanted to help and to begin to answer my life's call.

Walking over to the first desk, I squatted down between two students, lowering myself to their level, and asked them how they were getting on and what were they were working on?  They replied and showed me their work.  We talked about it, I asked if they needed any help.  One of the students was working on a cryptic crossword and couldn't figure out some of the words.  We looked at it together and puzzled over it.  I could quickly deduce the answer but I didn't want to tell him, I needed him to find it for himself because that was the learning experience.  I asked him to look at how he had solved some of the other clues so that he could see the pattern, then I asked him to look again at the clue he was stuck on.  The light started to come on.  It was obvious.  He verbalised his thinking process and closed in on the answer whilst I waited patiently and nudged him to keep going with those thoughts, because they would lead him to the answer.  Bingo!  There it was.  So, we tried another one, same process again.  I knew that this was it.  This was what it was all about.

I moved on, spoke with other students, engaged with them on their work.  English literacy lesson came to a close and the classes split into academic levels for maths class.  My associate teacher took the higher level maths group and the topic for today's lesson was complex fraction multiplication.  The students were set some examples to work through and I got up and went to visit the desks.  The first student I talked with was having some problems, so we worked through one together.  He got it.  I moved on and found another.  She got it too.  I was making a difference.  The teacher put up a really tough one for them all to work on.  I was with one of the students who was having some problems with it.  We worked it through together and although I was 99.9% sure of the answer we had, that 0.1% remained because it had worked differently from the others, not following the same pattern.  I sat down and crossed my fingers that when the answer came I had it right because I couldn't face knowing that I had taken a student down a wrong turn.  And when the answer came and with some relief I saw that I had been right, the student got up and walked over and high-fived me!  What a moment.

The rest of the day was similar.  I kept making tours of the class, talking to the children, helping where I could or discussing their work with them.  My high-five guy kept giving me a thumbs up during the afternoon.  It seemed that he was extremely happy with our maths problem solving and I think because we also talked about books (he's an avid reader). I used the time to make observations, to try to learn names, to figure out how each student ticked.  

At the end of the day, as they were filing out, the high-five guy came over to me.  "Thank you for the help today Mr Smith.  You're really interesting to talk with."  I was almost speechless.  I didn't expect this at all but I sure did appreciate.  "You're so welcome", I replied, "See you in class tomorrow."  What an end to my first day.  These are the kind of days that remain with you for the rest of your life.  I'll never again experience another first day of teaching experience, but I know that getting through has been truly significant and a momentous occasion.  I'm sure that not every day is going to be like this.  There are going to be some tough days ahead and some frustrating moments to come.  For now though, I can look back on my first day and smile.  Maybe not everyday will be like this but as long as I follow my heart, then I know that they are going to come pretty close.

_________________________

There Is No Plan B

I'll be honest, I am an options guy.  Whatever it is that I decide to do, I always give myself an out, an escape route, an alternative, call it what you will.  I never let myself get tied down into a situation from which I cannot extricate myself when it's necessary to move on.  I'm committed just as long as it works for me.  Commitment has never really been my forte.  At least, that is one way to look at it, but that is not the complete picture, that is only one part of a greater story.

Let's talk about commitment.  Sure, I've never been married.  My relationship track history does not make for the most pleasurable of readings.  Actually, it would be a pretty short coffee break type of read if I'm  honest.  And when I say coffee, I don't mean Sunday morning lounging around on a sofa with the papers in a cosy, stylish cafe, with notes of jazz mixing with the aroma and the ambiance.  I mean more of a quick, blink and its gone espresso.  I've lived in more places than I care to think about.  I've had plenty of jobs and I've tried quite a few careers.  I know many people in many countries around the world, in some way, I have touched the lives of thousands of people, yet my close friends number only a few.  I can pack all of my belongings into a couple of suitcases that would fit into the back of a car.  That's my flee mentality right there.   

Then there are the things that I have deeply committed to in my life, like the pursuit of my dreams.  Hang on though.  You know what?  Thinking about it right now, I see something more than the pursuit of my dreams.  Suddenly, I see with absolute clarity my entire life history and the pattern therein.  My life has been about more than my dreams, my life has always been about my heart.  It is easy to confuse the two since our true dreams live within the heart, but there is more to the heart than only dreams.  

I have always been emotionally connected.  I never really understood this until quite recently.  It doesn't just mean my emotions are on the surface (although  they generally are), it means that I live through my emotions, I experience life through my emotions.  The heart contains our emotions as well as our dreams.  Our hearts are the windows to our souls, they represent the real, authentic you.  The connection that I have to my heart is incredibly strong.  It is truly my driving force.  Everything I have ever done, every decision I have ever made, has been because of my heart.  The voice of my heart is never quiet.  Sometimes it whispers to me, other times it's like a sonic boom that explodes with such force that tears form in my eyes as a way of releasing the pressure.  Oh yes, I cry a lot, both through laughter and through sadness.  There was a time when I was ashamed of this, when I turned my face to hide my tears, but not any more.  My heart really is everything to me.  In fact, my heart is me and I am my heart.  Our link inseparable.  Even my signature, unknowingly to me for many years until someone pointed it out, contains a heart shape.  I have needed to follow its calling, I could never escape it.  It has led me on some of the most amazing adventures, to witness some of the most incredible things, to meet the most wonderful people, and it has led me to the pits of despair, to complete and utter hopelessness, where only sadness and pain were to be found.

Yet, I would never change my heart, I trust it completely.  I am here right now because of it.  Everything I have ever done has led me to this point and my heart has been leading me here in its own way, showing me all the things I needed to see, teaching me all of the lessons that I needed to learn, leading me to the people that I needed to help me along the way, always guiding me towards the inevitable.  And here I am, finally after all of these years, faced with the inevitability of my life.

My heart is changing.  I can feel it. There has been a subtle shift inside that tells me that things are different to how they used to be.  My heart continues to speak to me and I to listen to its voice, but that voice is no longer urgent and incessant.  It is no longer driving me onwards to the next place I need to be, because I am in that place.  My heart is content.  Tomorrow, I am stepping through the doors of a school classroom for the first time as a trainee school teacher.  This has been my long held dream, the dream to which my heart was always leading me, subtly steering me and guiding me through the turmoil and turbulent waters, giving wind to my sail when the currents ceased, moving me ever on, inexplicably towards my destiny.

I am ready, finally ready to stop moving.  I don't want to move again because I feel that I have come home. It's more than simply that though.  I am ready to commit.  Fully commit to my life, to the life I have always wanted, and the life that I have been denying myself for so long.  I don't mind that it has taken me this long because I know deep down that I was never ready before, even though there were times when I wanted it so bad that I would have done anything to keep it.  I couldn't have kept it before because my heart would have moved me on, just as it did, it had to move me on, I understand that now.  Not this time.  Here I am, tomorrow one of the longest held and one of my greatest dreams turns into reality.  That is not the end because I have several more dreams.  Tomorrow only marks the beginning.  Without tomorrow, I will never realise those other dreams.  To realise those, I have to stop moving, I have to let go of my options, I have to stop looking for the escape route.  And you know what?  I know that I will because my heart tells me that now is the right time.  Commitment doesn't start with a 'C', it starts with me.  And just for once, there is no plan B.

_________________________