[Warning: This post is going to be very long, honest and potentially quite brutal...let's see how I go.]
So. I have neglected this blog for quite a while. Truth to be told, I am not one for articulating my thoughts and feelings in writing, let alone on a blog. I am and have always been a talker so this would probably be better in a video format. However, somehow, today I feel like I just need to get all my thoughts and feelings down on paper. I feel like it is high time I wrote a true and honest reflection, and not only the ‘sugar-coated’ updates that I have been posting on Facebook. More than anything else, this reflection is for me. I feel the urgent need to just pour out my emotions and to clear my head. A billion people are coming to observe me next week, the NAZIRs (I think that is how you spell it?), TFM, IAB, etc. and I need to make sure I am as clear-headed as possible lest I blow or worse still, suffer another anxiety attack. I don’t even know where to begin but let me try. So here goes…
These past 5.5 months have without a doubt been the most DIFFICULT 5.5 months of my life. I thought that doing IB whilst being a prefect, prefect treasurer, the international students’ committee vice-president and juggling a billion other clubs and societies was quite challenging. I thought that being the President of MUOSS together with committee positions in 3 other clubs and societies, whilst juggling university and my social life was at times difficult. I thought honours was the most challenging thing I had ever experienced, well parts of it at least, but this, this makes everything seem like a walk in the park. I am one of the most optimistic people I know, and yet I will be honest and say I have never complained, cried, swore, gotten angry, upset and just been plain negative so often in my life. I have cried in front of my students, my teachers, my principal, my LDO, my fellow TFM-ers, my boyfriend, my parents, and probably to lots more other people that I don’t even know about. For someone who does not have mood swings, well these past 5.5 months, I have gone through the biggest mood swings I ever thought possible. I never knew it was possible to have so many extreme highs and lows within a period of the school day. To be honest, I even fear that cancer cells are starting to breed within me.
Everyone keeps on telling me to lower my expectations, to relax, to be patient, to not care so much, to not worry so much about PGDE, what others think, etc. But what they don’t realise is that for a high-achiever and perfectionist, this is quite impossible. Everyday I feel like I am failing. Faiing my students, failing myself, failing TFM, failing the Principal, failing my LDO, my mentors. I feel like I am already trying my best, lacking sleep, getting so stressed to the point of suffering an anxiety attack, and yet, it is not enough. How do you live with these feelings of not having done enough? How do you live with the knowledge that perhaps you really are not that great as your CV portrays? You are really not that ‘transformational’ after all? You are really not able to make a difference in these kids’ lives???? What if, all I am doing is just setting up my kids for failure?! I do not know how to teach English. Heavens, English was always one of my least favourite subjects and yet here I am teaching it and trying to convince my students that it is the most interesting subject in the world. Worse still, I am teaching it in an environment where my students and I can barely communicate due to their weakness in English and mine in Malay, Tamil and Chinese. I feel like a duck talking to a pack of dogs.
Over the holidays, I told myself that I would start trying to detach myself. I would try to stop caring so much because I know that all that is causing is the deterioration of my health. I told myself I would take the initiative to be more professional and to ‘man up’. Yet, after doing quite well for 3 days, today, I gave a stern talking to 3 of my 4 classes. With the first 2 classes, I was still okay. I just wanted them to know that they had to improve their work ethics and take the initiative to study and complete their homework. However, by the time I reached the 3rd class, my final class of the day – 2 periods with my ‘most aspring’ class. Well, by the end of it, I was ready to showcase my bodycombat skills on at least 3/4 of the class. Don’t worry, I restrained myself and stuck to a stern talking-to. Yet, even after scolding them in English, Mandarin and Malay (which is really difficult and really takes the steam out of your words, especially given my limited vocabulary), a few of my students still had the nerve to laugh and talk about a completely unrelated topic. That was it. I could not take it anymore. I knew I had to leave the room lest I say something I regretted. I packed up my things, ignored the students’ calls and stormed out of the class 3 minutes early.
Talk about feeling like even more of a failure. I could not even stick to my own ‘objective’ for more than 3 days. How do they do it? How do they get under my skin like this? Why do I care so much for them? Even when I tell myself that I don’t want to care anymore? That I can no longer take the disappointment and heartbreak I feel everytime they don’t hand in their homework, don’t study for their spelling tests, talk in class, even after repeated reminders and warnings.
Then, one of the teachers said something very interesting to me. He said, “Sarah, this actually shows that you are meant to be a teacher. You are only so angry and upset because you genuinely care for the students and you genuinely worry about their futures.”
This stopped me in my tracks. Here I was, doubting myself as a teacher. I was doubting my ability to teach my students anything of use. I was doubting the impact I was having on my students, if at the end of the day, it was a negative impact or if there was even an impact to begin with! To be honest, I am definitely not going to continue teaching after these 2 years as business is my true passion and I really am not one made for the bureaucracies and paperwork of being a civil servant. Yet, I have always enjoyed teaching for the the joy you get when your students, especially the ones who are really struggling, have that ‘aha’ moment.
The truth of the matter is this. I have thought about quitting, countless times, more times than I can count with all my fingers and toes. I especially think about quitting when I have had a particularly bad day, when I miss my parents, my friends, my boyfriend, when I miss MYSELF, ME as I used to be, not “Miss Sarah”. I think about quitting when the pressure from the school’s administration, TFM, the government, PGDE, but most of all, from myself, gets too much to bear. In my moments of self-pity, I even think about quitting when I think about the money I could be earning and the social life I could be having if I were not in this program.
YET. And I am going to write this next section in capital letters (bear with me please), because this is the overriding truth of the matter.
I AM NOT GOING TO GIVE UP.
I am not going to quit on my students, on the school, and most of all, on myself. My parents did not raise me up to be weak, selfish and self-pitying. I was not blessed by God to have such a happy and loving childhood only to continue caring only for myself and not sharing my luck with those in need.
No, I am going to pick myself up and persevere. Somehow, I am going to get over this vicious cycle of self-pity, negativity and thoughts of quitting. Truth to be told, I have never learned so much in such a short amount of time. I have never been knocked down and had to pick myself up so many times. I have never learned so much about the world, learned so many skills, and learned the true meaning of ‘grit’ and being grateful for all that I have. Most of all, I have never learned so much about myself. It is really true what they say, that it is in times of difficulty that you learn the most about yourself, about who you really are.
I must say I have not really liked certain parts of myself that I have emerged these past few months. I never knew I could be such a complainer, a weakling, so negative and so emotional. But. I cannot stand being a mere shadow of my previous self anymore. I cannot stand carrying this negative energy around anymore.
So, I am going to take action from this day forward. It is time for me to grow up and man up. I am going to cut these parts off as much as possible. I am going to exercise again. I am going to try and adapt to this small town. I am going to make the effort to make friends and assimilate into this society. But most of all, I am going to continue caring for my students. I am going to pick myself up, dust myself off, and continue trying and doing all that I can (without killing myself of course!
). I am going to do my best to help my students be whoever they want to be and can be.This is my pledge because if anything I at least owe that much to my students and myself.
After all, isn’t this why I joined Teach for Malaysia in the first place? (:
Source: http://teachingchampions.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/reflections-after-5-5-months/
I salute your positiveness and strength. Be all well with you and your kids. ;)
