"What kind of a teacher do you want to be?" this is a question we have been asked many times in our 6 weeks in TESOL. This is also a question I never thought I would find myself pondering. In life I thought about "What kind of musician do I want to be?" or "what kind of a mentor do I want to be?" and maybe even the occasional "writer" or "photographer" or on the days I was really feeling confident "race car driver" or "stand up comedian" (which the 2 things I have never been but a girl can dream right?) However I never thought I would ask myself what kind of teacher I would want to be.
Growing up school was particularly hard for me. I have a couple learning disabilities and that made school my least favorite place to be in this entire world. Why would I want to spend my days in a building where I had to read words that never looked like they were supposed to, and solve math equations completely wrong even though I did the equation correctly. Dyslexia is no joke my friends, and it truly ate away at my academic confidence.
Now don't get me wrong, I had a couple teachers who took the time to get through the school day with me and I will always be thankful to them for that. But even with the care and time they gave me, school was still a source of some deep rooted insecurities growing up.
It wasn't until my CIT summer at camp Firwood where I realized I was an excellent people person and figured I could just spend the rest of my life working at camp and being a people person! However God had something even bigger than that beautiful plot of land I call home in mind for me.
After (barely) graduating high school my loving parents gave me 2 options. 1. go to Ywam and do a DTS or 2. go to collage. I was finally out of high school there was no way I was gonna go back to another 4 years so Ywam it was! As most of you know Ywam in Kona was a wild ride and by the end of it I was on fire for God and on my way back to Bellingham and back to the last place I ever thought I would be, you guessed it, school. I had a new passion ignited in me by small brown eyes that had melted my heart in south east Asia. I was going to get a degree and go back over seas and save the world! But even then God had different plans. after one year back at Whatcom community college chasing after a degree that I thought I wanted, I started getting the feeling that my path was changing soon. Some twists and turns got me from a day care job to a nanny to a barista and volunteer at a discipleship training course in north county. After a while I stopped being stubborn and went back to Ywam but this time to Montana. I fell in love with the DTS department and you would think that would have been it for me but again, God had other plans. TESOL was a department that I completely respected, but never wanted to be apart of. That is until I went to Taiwan.
In Taiwan we spent hours and hours in class rooms with students who were hungry to communicate with their new foreign friends, and their new foreign friends were hungry to teach them more than just english. But even with the tools they had to teach english, there was still so much more they didn't know. So of corse they looked to me their fearless leader, their wise counsel, their guide in a strange and complicated experience. I had nothing to offer them. So the next logical step was "I need to learn how to teach english so I can help my students teach english!" And that's how I ended up here.
"What kind of teacher do you want to be?" A question we have had to process many times.
I have come to the conclusion that I want to be the kind that multiplies other teachers. I want to be the kind of teacher who is never done learning how or what kind of teacher they want to be because there is always going to be something new behind the next corner. I want to be the kind of teacher that is always changing yet consistent in the way I value each student, wether ESL (english as a Second Language) or DTS (Discipleship Training School).
I'm sure I will have more answers as I continue to process this question and process the needs around the world. But I do know this will stand true no matter how long I get to walk this journey, and its that I want to be the kind of teacher who is never done growing, never done discovering, and never done learning.
Growing up school was particularly hard for me. I have a couple learning disabilities and that made school my least favorite place to be in this entire world. Why would I want to spend my days in a building where I had to read words that never looked like they were supposed to, and solve math equations completely wrong even though I did the equation correctly. Dyslexia is no joke my friends, and it truly ate away at my academic confidence.
Now don't get me wrong, I had a couple teachers who took the time to get through the school day with me and I will always be thankful to them for that. But even with the care and time they gave me, school was still a source of some deep rooted insecurities growing up.
It wasn't until my CIT summer at camp Firwood where I realized I was an excellent people person and figured I could just spend the rest of my life working at camp and being a people person! However God had something even bigger than that beautiful plot of land I call home in mind for me.
After (barely) graduating high school my loving parents gave me 2 options. 1. go to Ywam and do a DTS or 2. go to collage. I was finally out of high school there was no way I was gonna go back to another 4 years so Ywam it was! As most of you know Ywam in Kona was a wild ride and by the end of it I was on fire for God and on my way back to Bellingham and back to the last place I ever thought I would be, you guessed it, school. I had a new passion ignited in me by small brown eyes that had melted my heart in south east Asia. I was going to get a degree and go back over seas and save the world! But even then God had different plans. after one year back at Whatcom community college chasing after a degree that I thought I wanted, I started getting the feeling that my path was changing soon. Some twists and turns got me from a day care job to a nanny to a barista and volunteer at a discipleship training course in north county. After a while I stopped being stubborn and went back to Ywam but this time to Montana. I fell in love with the DTS department and you would think that would have been it for me but again, God had other plans. TESOL was a department that I completely respected, but never wanted to be apart of. That is until I went to Taiwan.
In Taiwan we spent hours and hours in class rooms with students who were hungry to communicate with their new foreign friends, and their new foreign friends were hungry to teach them more than just english. But even with the tools they had to teach english, there was still so much more they didn't know. So of corse they looked to me their fearless leader, their wise counsel, their guide in a strange and complicated experience. I had nothing to offer them. So the next logical step was "I need to learn how to teach english so I can help my students teach english!" And that's how I ended up here.
"What kind of teacher do you want to be?" A question we have had to process many times.
I have come to the conclusion that I want to be the kind that multiplies other teachers. I want to be the kind of teacher who is never done learning how or what kind of teacher they want to be because there is always going to be something new behind the next corner. I want to be the kind of teacher that is always changing yet consistent in the way I value each student, wether ESL (english as a Second Language) or DTS (Discipleship Training School).
I'm sure I will have more answers as I continue to process this question and process the needs around the world. But I do know this will stand true no matter how long I get to walk this journey, and its that I want to be the kind of teacher who is never done growing, never done discovering, and never done learning.
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