Thursday, November 11

Gate duty at TCS (photo taken from the school's Facebook page)

This past week was my first week teaching at the school with actual students, and Monday and Tuesday were pretty hard. I got very little direction from the school about what I was supposed to be doing—and yet there were clearly specific tasks I was supposed to accomplish in each teaching period. So I’d get into the classroom and have to ask the Thai teachers all kind of questions, with varying results— Teacher Gib gives me a decent amount  of instruction, while Teacher Nid (who doesn’t speak much English) hardly gives me any. But both seemed maybe surprised—or at least unprepared—for my questions about, like, what math lesson I’m supposed to teach and how I’m supposed to teach it. I tried to keep reminding myself this was their first week back too, and that they didn’t have everything figured out yet, but I didn’t like feeling so uncertain about what I was supposed to be doing.

And there are long periods in my schedule where the kids are just doing their little Montessori tasks and I’m supposed to check in with each of them and make sure they’re doing the tasks right. Except I didn’t know the right way to do any of the tasks! I often just felt useless and stupid and awkward.

And I felt a little shy with the kids, which I realized was the LAST way to be with kids to make them feel at ease. But while I knew I had to be the one to be friendly and outgoing, it was hard for me on those first days, when I was surrounded by hundreds of kindergartens who were all at least a little afraid of me. I had to do “gate duty” on Wednesday—once a week each of the English teachers joins the Thai teachers to greet the Kindergarten students when they arrive. We go to the cars, greet the parents, take the kids out, and then lead them through the gate—making sure they do the temp checks and get hand sanitized. Which seems like the most chill task, but I knew very few of the kids who came in, and again, I just felt awkward in every part of the task. I imagined the Thai teachers judging me—like, how can she manage to look uncertain while opening a car door?

I also felt like I was not doing a good job setting boundaries with the kids, and I was afraid they were going to walk all over me (I didn’t correct this kid who was poking at my little demonstration at first because I can understand the curiosity, and then soon he’d gotten really disruptive and was ignoring all my attempts to get him to keep his hands in his own space). And that just made me feel terrible about myself—spineless and useless and weak and a coward.

And this was really the hard part—my own self-flagellation. I found I was using my own mindfulness tools as a stick to beat myself with. Like, I would have the thought that I should use my discomfort as an opportunity to learn. But then I felt like I didn’t know how to do that, so the thoughts quickly morphed into—I don’t even know how to learn from this discomfort! I can’t even learn from my mistakes the way actually strong and wise people do! All these years and all this meditation and I am just as scared and uncertain and self-hating as I was when I first arrived in Rome and felt awkward and timid with Francesca.

I felt like maybe I was in the wrong job and should find something that wasn’t so hard for me, but then I also felt like a coward and a failure to only seek out the easiest path.

So, that was Monday and Tuesday. Rough days! I came home absolutely exhausted to meet Roman, who also started teaching in person Monday and was equally exhausted. We didn’t even talk through our days in much detail—we were too utterly worn out. And could barely stay awake until 10pm.

Tuesday was the hardest day for me—not that I did a better job teaching in Monday, but the strangeness of the first day just obscured things my shortcomings from me a little more.

But, even though we didn't talk through everything in detail, Roman was very kind and understanding, and I think that helped me to trust in my own process a little bit. Wednesday was my early day (gate duty!) and I woke up, frustratingly, at 4am. At 5am, I finally got out of bed, and meditated in my office. I was still having fears about how hard the day might be, but I think it opened something up in me a little bit. I had the realization that I don’t have to figure out what I’m supposed to learn from my discomfort right now. It’s not an analytical process. All I have to do is sit with the discomfort and allow myself to feel it—and the fears underneath it. 

Which is why I’m sharing this now—some of these feel like my deepest darkest fears (I’m timid, I’m spineless), but practicing a little self-compassion can help me see them as just thoughts. And sharing them helps defang those fears a bit. So, lucky you, in reading this you get to be part of my process!

Anyway, I also texted with Michelle quite a bit, which was great—she had practical advice as well as helpful reassurance that, you know, of course I’m not just immediately good at teaching—no one is, and it’s a lifelong learning process.

Although Wednesday’s gate duty was awkward, I talked to Nick afterwards and he also said I’d get into a groove—he said you start to develop a Rolodex of activities to have the kids do and ways to keep them engaged. I was definitely feeling better. And I also had thoughts on how to do better at my job—plan out my lessons more, establish some classroom guidelines so we could all get on the same page, and just make an effort to be more outgoing with the kids.

And Wednesday went much better. We sang Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, and then I used those vocabulary words to set some guidelines about eyes on the teacher, ears listening to the teacher, mouth closed and hands in your lap. So now I feel like we have some common language around my expectations and I can use that when they get rowdy. And, overall, I just took my time with the lessons a little more.

Thursday went even more smoothly—I planned out my lessons more and I just felt more relaxed with the kids. And they started to get more comfortable too—following me around and trying to get my attention. And suddenly saying hello to all the kindergarteners I passed in the outdoor hallways became easy.

I know things will still be challenging. I am gonna have to pull my own resources together—friends, family, online teaching videos, etc, and I’m gonna do some planning outside of class time, since—at least at this point—I’m not very good at thinking up activities or tasks in the moment. I imagine I’ll have times when I feel badly about my abilities as a teacher again. But I am just writing this all out as reminder to myself that even if, in a moment, I don’t feel like I have any internal resources—well, maybe I can just stay with my feelings and see if that changes in a minute, or an hour, or in a couple days…