Festina Lente

The title of this post is Latin and it means "make haste slowly."  It is something our Program Manager, Alissa, told us yesterday during a session about American culture and the different ways that foreigners adapt to a new culture.  Her explanation of this quote can be summarized as follows: don't worry about being so good at your work that you miss out on all the experiences on the way.  She also said some wise things like: be humble; have fun; don't be too serious; be open; and be patient.

It was a very simple message and was only a small part of the entire presentation, but it really hit a chord with me because it was exactly what I needed to hear.  As it gets closer to the time when we all go to our sites and begin teaching, I have been questioning whether I will make a good teacher.  Our TEFL trainer asked us to send to create a semester plan, lesson plan, and a rubric, all of which will be useful for us, but I think some of us were stressed out because he gave us a deadline (Friday night- tomorrow- by midnight).  Also tomorrow is our language exam (Peace Corps wants us to be at intermediate low before we go to our sites.  It’s also our last day with our host families, which means we have to say goodbye and pack up.  This weekend will be the last few days we volunteers can spend together as well.  In short, we have a lot on our minds and there is a lot of pressure on us to do a good job.  Personally, the worst of the pressure comes from me because I am such a perfectionist and I will do my best at whatever I have to do, especially if it’s something that other people will see.  I found that during model school I spent so much time preparing each lesson. 

Basically I was feeling super stressed and doubtful.  These words were therefore very meaningful to me.  I did not join the Peace Corps to be stressed out and working all the time. I want to develop relationships with local people and do fun things with them, all the while learning about their culture and sharing about my culture.  Plus, as foreign teachers we are actually expected to be “fun” teachers and some schools don’t take their foreign teachers very seriously.  This is a learning process.  I may be teaching at a university but that doesn’t mean I have to be a professor or expert.  I think also I was trying too hard to conform to other teachers: I download lesson plans and semester plans off the internet and find myself mimicking them just because I feel that as an experienced teacher, they know what they’re doing much more than I do. 

Today however I worked on all my TEFL stuff and finished all those pieces in about 4 hours.  What helped me a lot was closing the other people’s materials and just brainstorming the things I am interested in.  That made it much more exciting and I felt productive and proud with my results.  Then I just organized it in a logical manner and then varied the way the students will practice what they learn.  This was for my Listening class, by the way.  Some of the topics I am most excited about are: having the students listen to a Dr. Seuss poem and identifying the made up words, listening to an audio book of one chapter from Harry Potter and summarizing what they hear and guessing what will happen next, and what I called a ‘craft dictation’ (basically two students will sit back to back and one will read off a list of instructions on how to make something and the other student will make it based solely on what they hear. I’m going to do that around Christmas time and have them make snowflakes).  Those were all my own ideas and I think they’re pretty awesome, if I do say so!!!

Of course, this isn’t the end of my planning. I know that once I get started I will have to make adjustments based on my students’ levels.  But at least I have a general idea of what I want to do this semester.  After tomorrow, all 70-something of the new PC China volunteers will move back to the hotel we were at the first week. We have sessions all day Saturday and Sunday, but come night the time is ours.  We are going to live up our last few days together! Then Monday we have a ceremony when we officially swear in as Peace Corps Volunteers and agree to accept all the responsibilities and challenges that come with that.

Every day I will try to remember Festina Lente.  I am looking forward to many great experiences!