Learning from our Teachers

They say that a great teacher doesn’t teach you, they lead you to discover things yourself. I believe in this completely and have had luck to have had many great teachers in my life, not just in the classroom. They have each taught me something different, and the greatest lesson is not usually the one apparent on the page in front of me.

My first two teachers of influence were my primary school teachers. Mrs Dobbs and Mr Harding taught me to love learning, and to always be inquisitive about things. They taught me to find answers for myself and never be happy with mediocre. They demanded the best, and by setting standards high you can achieve high.

My Highland dancing teacher, Mrs Hawke, taught me that kindness is inspiring. Students want to please their teacher, and even more so when that teacher is someone that they admire and love. Likewise my second piano teacher taught me that praise, patience, and kindness motivate a love and passion for of an activity, whereas my first piano teacher taught me that negativity does not.

But one of the biggest influences in my life was my first swimming coach, Roly Crichton. He taught me to fight. At times I truly hated him. He used to set me impossible goals. We would do relays, but I didn’t have anyone else on my team and had to swim the whole thing myself, and the other team got a head start. He used to pit me against boys twice my size and tell me to beat them. He used to set me long sets on impossible times, used to tell me that even though that was the fastest I had ever swum it wasn’t fast enough. He used to make me race every event in a carnival just to toughen me up. He used to yell at me, and I used to yell back. It wasn’t polite, it was passion and frustration, and those things drove me to be better. And it worked. As long as I believed it was an impossible task I wanted to conquer it. Mostly because I knew that he believed I could do it, therefore it wasn’t impossible. And this has been a theme in my life ever since. Tell me something is impossible and I will try and find a way of doing it. He used to say that they might be bigger, stronger, more experienced, have trained for more years and hours in better conditions, but you are tougher. And when it comes down to it, there are two people, in the same pool of water, and the tougher person will win. And I didn’t think this was impossible, I believed it because he believed it. This strategy didn’t work with all the swimmers, but it did with me. Thanks to him I swam in competitions around the world, met amazing people, won medals in Europe and Australia, and discovered a love of other cultures and people that is still driving my movements now.

Somehow, today I am a teacher. I need to learn this lesson again, but in a different form. I need to find ways of inspiring this level of motivation in my students. This time around the pool of water is a bit bigger – I have every type of student imaginable, and all of them will be inspired through different forms. Somehow I have to tap into all these different forms and utilize these internal motivations to produce achievement and success. And this means learning all the lessons I learned before from a different perspective. Teaching really is about learning, and although some may say this is an impossible task, that just inspires me to find a way to overcome it. 

Life clouds the judgement

I am a believer that if you keep your eyes and heart open life will show you the way. This approach has always worked in my decision making in the past, but maybe I have used up all my good luck and now it is just serving to confuse me.

As most of you know I am struggling with the decision of my future. It is no secret that I love living in Chile, but also no secret that I don't have the financial means to visit my family and friends in NZ and Aus as I would like to. Nothing new here. But everytime that I think I have finally made a concrete decision life comes along and changes my mind, and everything goes murky again.

Last Tuesday I was taken flying with my boss (Jo) by one of our students. It was an incredible cristilline day and we flew 2hrs south along the coast looking at all the towns and vacationers going about their relaxing days. We arrived at the holiday house of the student, landed the plane and were picked up by the caretaker. After inspecting the very nice house we went by jetboat to the restaurant and ate prawns for lunch, followed by a quick dip in the house jacuzzi while sipping on Baileys (me in my underwear because I forgot my bikini!). Around 6pm we got back in the plane and went back up the coast, flying low over any of the interesting towns on the way to get a good photo. I was dropped off at home in the BMW around 9pm. Yes, it was an incredible day and I was so lucky to go. The best part was that the student was genuinely excited to take us and treat us like queens. He was happy to have people that really appreciate these things and don't often (ever) have a chance to experience them. He is completely down to earth, as was demonstrated as we acted as a bus for every person walking to town when we were returning to the plane. I simply don't mix with these people in NZ or Australia. I don't know anyone who has a plane, let alone someone who would want to share what they have so freely. And this warm open attitude is something that I recognise at every level of society here, and something that will make me rethink (yet again) where I want to be in the world.

And here is a picture of me in the plane!

Resolutions

It's the time of year when we traditionally make resolutions. I have almost given up on this practise because I am horrible at keeping them. I do however like to set myself a challenge for the year. I don't have to set this challenge at the start of the year - sometimes it becomes clearer as the year goes on, but I need to complete something every year. In '08 I walked 100km for charity, in '09 I quit my job and moved to South America. I also walked the Inca trail. In '10 I learnt Spanish (an ongoing process which started the year before and continues, but 2010 was my year of breakthrough) and in '11 I read 50 books in a year. You might wonder what lies before me this year, and I can quite honestly say I don't know. The challenge hasn't yet become clear.

Every year I say I am going to write more on my blog, and every year I fail. Life gets in the way. However, it recently occured to me that this blog serves as an interesting chronicle of my time here in Chile. In the beginning the posts only thinly veil an underlying sense of panic. They improve around the time that I start to make Chilean friends and are filled with a sense of wonder and elation by the end of 2009. Life is good, and shiney, and exciting and stimulating. Coming into 2011 things become more negative. The earth starts shaking both voluntarily and from the stampede of Chilean students, and it seems that somehow everything becomes covered in dust. My last post of the year in 2011 sums up neatly what I now feel for Chile. I am comfortable here, and everything has lost its shine. I don't know if this is a sign to move on, or if my erratic chase of adventure leaves me missing the point of it all. When I am making a decision I try and weigh all the pros and cons. And when this fails I fall back on writing a list of three things I know to be true. So: I know that I have amazing friends and an easy life here; I know I love my job; I know that I haven't seen my family in two years because I don't make enough money to buy a plane ticket. And that is the thing that is going to provide my challenge for 2012.