well, we're a month into my little adventure here, so i think it's about time a revisit my reasons for coming here: the life experience from the adventure of world travel as well as my professional development as an educator. unfortunately, for varying reasons, these factors have been quite underwhelming in my first month. first, there's the adventure of world travel. since i still don't have my stupid visa (until october 8th), i'm still unable to leave the friendly confines of macau. macau's fun and all, but being that it takes less than 20 minutes to get from one side to the other, it doesn't take that long to get the full macanese experience.
second, is my professional growth. i was approached after my freshman year at iwu and asked whether i would like to get my middle school endorsement as well as my secondary endorsement. i had just spent the semester observing a 6th grade class and had gotten a good review from my cooperating teacher, so the ed department asked. i promptly responded, no. why? because i am thoroughly not a fan of that age group. i've been a day camp counselor before, and the headaches with that age group (painful immaturity and general annoyance) were plenty to make me decide i never wanted to deal with them for an extended period of time again. i'm not saying i accepted this job in macau under false pretenses, i just thought i would be teaching high school students. miscommunication i guess. oh well. too bad.
the thing that has bugged me the most about teaching these kids is i feel like half the time i'm talking to 5 year olds, or a dog, or alien, or a 5 year old dog-like alien, because i have to dumb down everything that i say so that hopefully it can be absorbed by students. i have this huge problem with stupidity and ineptitude in that, well, i hate stupid people. i can honestly say that the few human beings that i hate to the very core, i do so because they are just that dumb in that they simply "don't get it" no matter how much you try to explain something to them. i'm not saying that my students are stupid by any means, not even close. i would never say that. but when you tell somebody in the only way you know how in the easiest way you know how and they still don't understand it, you can't help but feel like you're talking to a stupid person, because if they spoke your language, they would have to be stupid to not get it. on the other hand, i referenced the dog earlier, which i think is the decent analogy. you can yell at and get mad at a puppy when it pisses on the rug, but in the end, it just doesn't know any better yet, so it's useless to get mad. as an english major and as somebody who wants to pursue his masters/phd in english, dumbing down my rhetoric to a neanderthalean level is not appealing to me in the least. but, the kids have to learn and i have to teach them, so i have to fight through no matter how many times the kids "piss on the rug."
a friend told that this experience will make me a more patient teacher. perhaps. for this situation, my patience is growing. it does no good to do anything else but be patient. i'd go nuts. i'm just fairly certain that i don't want a teaching job that requires this extended level of patience. i ultimately want to be an educator that extends and grooms knowledge and skill, rather than trudging at the level of building the base of that knowledge. the base is certainly important. without the base, there is no extension to be made. to get to the top you have to trudge through the trenches first though. i guess this job is just my first trench. and hopefully one that will be parlayed into one of those other jobs i eventually seek on my way up the ladder.
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