A Bit-Bigger-Than-The Peace-Corps Entry.
The waiting is not difficult. I know that things will happen and that, ultimately, the process should be over around my slated nomination time of June. I'm not concerned. I'm not worried. I'm focused on making the most of every second of what is left of my time here in Charlotte. However, I feel like I am constantly functioning under a deadline. This isn't new, what with 15 moves in the last 6 years. I'm constantly in transition. I find a strange sense of peace in that, usually. Through my whole life, the one thing that I have been able to count on is transition. It's always been the end of something...the end of high school, the end of study abroad, the end of college, the end of AmeriCorps. However, this is the one of the very rare times since my immigration to the States that I have been creating the end of something instead of having it imposed upon me.
My senior students are starting to find out that I am leaving. Am I a horrible person for abandoning them? Who is going to take care of them when I am gone? These people, who call me their daughter and their teacher, who use words of affection that I can't translate but I understand all the same...who have allowed me to be a part of their lives. We have all grown so much together...me in my ability to communicate and listen without words, to focus on their needs instead of doing it the way it is "supposed" to be done, to love, to love, to love...and them in their ability to trust, to believe in themselves, and to be held to expectations of mastery. They are amazing. Asa is reading. Rebeka is writing. Blao is manipulating. Hamdo is pronouncing. Vladimir is speaking. Pot is understanding. Bogdana is synthesizing. Aikush is growing confident. Milka is SMILING. Vladzimir is producing. Manuel is conjugating. Arturo is counting. Loc is trying, trying, trying. Eugenio is perfecting. They are all blossoming. Over a year of patient, tender, deliberate nurture...and they are beyond beautiful. How can I turn them over to a stranger? Can they adapt?
Have I prepared them for this?
Have I prepared me for this?
I've been reading ESL Teacher Trainer manuals and theory/pedagogy books as a sort of primer for what I might be getting myself into in Mongolia. I worry that I am not as qualified as the Peace Corps seems to think I am. I'm great at coming up with lessons on the fly, with little to no materials. I'm fantastic at making grammar accessible and making the classroom a comfortable, productive place to be. I have never thought about my methods. I have never studied the theory behind lessons and the current pedagogical approaches in the field. I know of them (TPR, for example) but have never evaluated what I am doing with regard to methodology. I do what is most prudent and relevant in my classes based on the needs of my students, the requirements of the class, and the resources available. I've always been more concerned with facilitating effectively rather than "properly." How do I teach something to other people that I am not well-versed in? Am I concerned about nothing? I'm just unsure of what to expect. I'd like to find someone else based in Mongolia as a teacher trainer but, at the same time, don't want to start counting my chickens. What if the nomination changes? I know I've talked about this too many times before...I really, really, really do not want to get more attached to the idea than I have to.
I'm just very unsure these days. Any time I try and talk to people about it, I get the same sort of response. Glassy, unfocused eyes accompanied with the obligatory vacant nod now and then. "Everything will be fine. How cool is it that you are going to Mongolia? So, where exactly is Mongolia? Do they have electricity there?" And so on.
I worry that I am not doing enough...and that what I am doing, I could be doing better.
