“The victims of injustice in our world do not need our spasms of passion; they need our long obedience in the same direction – our legs and lungs of endurance; and we need steady stores of joy.”

- Gary Haugen

“Travel is little beds and cramped bathrooms. It’s old television sets and slow Internet connections. Travel is extraordinary conversations with ordinary people. It’s waiters, gas station attendants, and housekeepers becoming the most interesting people in the world. It’s churches that are compelling enough to enter. It’s McDonald’s being a luxury. It’s the realization that you may have been born in the wrong country. Travel is a smile that leads to a conversation in broken English. It’s the epiphany that pretty girls smile the same way all over the world. Travel is tipping 10% and being embraced for it. Travel is the same white T-shirt again tomorrow. Travel is accented sex after good wine and too many unfiltered cigarettes. Travel is flowing in the back of a bus with giggly strangers. It’s a street full of bearded backpackers looking down at maps. Travel is wishing for one more bite of whatever that just was. It’s the rediscovery of walking somewhere. It’s sharing a bottle of liquor on an overnight train with a new friend. Travel is “Maybe I don’t have to do it that way when I get back home.” It’s nostalgia for studying abroad that one semester. Travel is realizing that “age thirty” should be shed of its goddamn stigma.”

Shantaram

"Every human heartbeat is a universe of possibilities. And it seemed to me that I finally understood what he'd meant. He'd been trying to tell me that every human will has the power to transform its fate. I'd always thought that fate was something unchangeable: fixed for every one of us at birth, and as a constant as a the circuit of the stars. But I suddenly realised that life is stranger and more beautiful than that. The truth is that, no matter what kind of game you find yourself in, no matter how good or bad the luck, you can change your life completely with a single thought or single act of love ... For this is what we do. Put one food forward and then the other. Lift our eyes to the snarl and smile of the world once more. Think. Act. Feel. Add our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world. Push our brave hearts into the promise of a new day. With love: the passionate search for a truth other than our own. With longing: the pure, ineffable yearning to be saved. For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on. God help us. God forgive us. We live on."

Growth - Goodbye Qilin

Sometimes, the best part about being a teacher is noting the growth of students rather than being proud of your excellent ones. Of course, there is something to be said about how amazing it is when a student scores 100% or writes a mindblowingly insightful essay or composition. But there's also a glitter of amazing when a student who couldn't speak English or was too shy to even try in September casually wishes you a great summer and good luck with the future as you wave goodbye.

In September, I had a handful of students who were excellent. Some would say these students were even beyond excellent. They were top-notch. They were the cream of the crop and the best of the best. Then, there were kids who teetered on excellence. Then, the kids who had issues escaping the bubble of very good. Then, the kids who were clamouring to escape average or good. All of the kids were good. All of the kids could speak English. It was just about allowing them to take the risk to learn more and speak because they live in a world where perhaps this risk is not as rewarded or praised as it should be.

Enter one of my students who would perpetually straddle the average and good line. In September, there were a few occasions where she broke down in tears because she had done so badly on a test. Badly = 75%. She was scared to speak to me or ask for help. In fact, the times when she was really forced to communicate with me: telling me about a doctor's appointment or asking me about what her grade was, she'd ask one of her friends, a top student, to translate instead of trying to communicate by herself.

For some reason, I was drawn to this kid. Some teachers are programmed to love their top students and I, myself, can't say that I don't love my top kids. But there was something so charming about her and so honest about her desire to work hard and do well and I really wanted her to do well. So we worked. We worked and worked and pushed as hard as we could amongst the other floods of homework she faced with Math and Chinese and Biology and Geography. I'd help when I could, but mostly it was about pushing her to speak, ask others for help and to ask me for help when she needed it.

I think the breakthrough came at around February when she found communicating with me about homework and English was easier behind the veil of QQ, the instant messaging system here in China. That catalyst to communication allowed her to start communicating with me so easily in person. The more she talked to me during class breaks and forcing herself to talk to others in English during these breaks, the better her spoken English became.

Now, I'm not going to end this post by saying she's a clear 90% kid now. She's not. In fact, she's made a little improvement, but not so much that it'd make the September version of her proud of her classroom progress. She, however, is not the September version of her anymore. She's the July version of her and this version of her is confident where September wasn't. Who knows how long it'll take for her classwork to catch up with her newfound confidence. Maybe it won't. But all I know is that when you're thrown into the real world, people don't really look at the tests you took in school or whether you got a 78% on a test. They're going to look at whether you're confident, work hard, and try your best. And by golly, this July version of her's rocking all three of those attributes in spades. So maybe her test scores didn't grow as much as September wanted to, but this girl has grown over the past 10 months and I count myself lucky to have witnessed and been a part of it.

As a teacher, I think the most important thing for me to reflect on at the end of the year is growth, especially in an EFL/ESL classroom. How much did each student grow? Take a step back. DID each student grow? How did they grow? If you can answer yes for every student, then you've done a hell of a great job.

I'm happy to be leaving my class knowing that all of them have grown: some by a lot and some by a little. I'm happy to be leaving my class with them knowing that I care about them and I won't forget them. I just hope that they continue to grow next year, not just as language learners because that's boring. I hope they grow into young men and women that they can be proud of. I hope that they can look back and reflect on the children they were and launch themselves into the people they want to be.

Various degrees of comfort

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. 

Or something like that. People keep posting that quote on tumblr superimposed on beautiful scenery and high school graduates continue to revert to it for their yearbook quotes that, unbeknownst to them, will only be seen twice: once during the summer and once again on the eve of their high school reunion. While this continues to be a cliche, I find phrases or statements similar to this tend to become cliches because A) they're true and B) because it helps them reflect on the life they live or the lives they want to be living. 

This school year began at the edge of my comfort zone. Being admittedly still young, I didn't really know what my comfort zone was. In fact, my comfort zone kept changing because of dire, silly mistakes or because I was too lazy to make one for my myself. I guess those mistakes ended up making my move to China easier. What made it even easier was that I thought I had someone to rely on and 10 other souls who, like me, were getting out of their comfort zones for various reasons. 

Now that the year has ended, I've made a strange, comfort zone for myself that consists of an air conditioner, a couch to potato on, a bed, and numerous friends to engage in conversations and times that verge and merge on ridiculous, intelligent, useless but always fun. I think I've made a comfort zone for myself that I've become so familiar with that I'm nervous to go home and take a step into my old one or to the lack of one. 

Reminders for next year: 

a) take more photos

b) journal more

c) don't piss off the air conditioner.