Free time kills me, keep me busy.

January 23, 2007

8:00 AM

This past week I had talked to my school and decided that I was going to take a few days to recoup from IST and to try and do some research for projects that are coming up (grants, summer camps, and events at my school). I did a little bit of this; but really, for the past week I kind of just treaded water. I did a little research, did some personal reading, and made a poster board for a lesson review at school. But overall, the presence of too much free time once again proved to do nothing but depress me and drag me down.

It was not until I made it to school yesterday and realized that I need to be busy, I need to be working to keep my mind churning. It was kind of sad, because during one of my lessons yesterday it suddenly hit, my dream of buying a house in the mountains of Colorado to escape and become a writer will never be possible. I would not be able to write anything. Complete solitude just bogs me down and refuses to allow my mind to completely get in motion.

Now I don’t know if this is a fault or a blessing; I wish I could lock myself away in my room for a few days and disappear with a collection of great poetry or have an entire grant proposal written. I have now resided myself to the fact that this is not who I am. Obviously, living in a small village in a small Central Asian country has its own forms of solitude. But still in the world of solitude that I am sometimes forced to live in my village, there is still inspiration all around. My host family, crazy as they may be, many times have dove deep into my heart and returned with a shared part of everything I am. Walking around the village and meeting people to see to the universal smile or seeing children running around in the middle of January playing soccer always gets my emotions firing.

And yesterday, I realized more than I have ever known before that teaching is my path. My four classes yesterday had their usual mishaps and realizations that the majority of my students did not retain the last quarter’s lessons (an issue that I have taken large responsibility for). But above all of the simple problems, I had an incredible day. For the first time I began to see into the hearts of my students. I saw beyond their short presence in my classroom and saw them for everything they are.

As the day wore on it hit me, these students are some of the best inspiration I have ever experienced. There is so much future in the souls of the children that I teach and it hurts me that I never took the true step back to look at them. I caught myself a few times yesterday staring at some of my worst students and smiling; I suddenly saw everything they are capable of and saw way beyond the borders of my English lessons.

It has crossed my mind a few times last quarter that many of these students will never use English once they finish school. Still, the realization beyond that thought never really set in. Yesterday it hit me in a very important way; these students are my teachers and I am theirs. No matter whether I am teaching them English, History, or Physical Education, I have a responsibility to them. I owe it to them to help them find what they all possess, but have not yet found the means to use to its full potential: their minds.

Sounds kind of cheesy, but I am no different that any other teacher on this planet. I have a set of students that show up every day. Some want to be in the classroom, others are there because they have to; nonetheless, I have their audience, and I may as well use it to impart upon them the lessons that were once given to me.

Of course, having to search within the lessons I’ve learned, in order to pass on to them becomes a lesson in itself. A lesson that forces me to rethink much of what I have learned, and thus becomes an inspiration to search deeper and beyond what I have learned. Searching within myself to teach is a journey that has so many unknown paths that teaching essentially becomes learning for me.

I still want to be a writer one day, but the world is my inspiration. I want to be a teacher one day, and my students are an inspiration for this. My inspirations, my driving forces, are part of the mural I live in everyday. When these inspirations take full blossom, that is when my mind has the courage to look beyond the mural to search for the painter.


To end, a quote from a recent book I finished entitled Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse:

“Discovering in every man that which distinguishes him from others is to know him.”