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Japan has taught me that my worst enemy is myself - an important lesson to learn, indeed.
Seeing all these new kids around reminded me of how much time I spend at my desk and how little time I spend talking to students. Taking intiative to talk to people has always been hard for me, and I had the same problem as an RA. I like people and I like talking to them, but I get easily intimidated, I don't like awkwardness, and I often just don't think to do it. I largely am a wallflower, especially in large groups, so I tend to avoid active networking.
So, as of last week, not only did I have stress about changing my behavior, but I had the stress of not doing it for the last 8 months. If anything upsets me, it's when I've personally known about a problem and haven't done anything about it. I'm pretty hard on myself that way, even if I know it's only because I'm battling my nature and even if no one has judged me for it yet. My own acknowledged failure is the worst kind.
I got really angsty with all the internalization of this guilt, until finally one of my ALT friends gave me a pep talk on gmail chat. He just goes out and shoots the breeze with his kids all the time. He told me that if I just march out there and don't ALLOW them to feel awkward, eventually we'll push through it, even if do totally unnatural things like just walking up and asking what their favorite foods are. Yeah, it's awkward, yeah I stress about how to respond because I always have to pretend not to speak Japanese, and yeah their spoken English is painfully limited - but I'm thinking too much. This isn't who I want to be or what I want to be doing but I DO know how to fix it.
So I went. I walked around after school poking my nose into classrooms and stopping kids in the hall. I asked them if they liked high school, I asked them what they had for lunch, and I told them "good job!" while they were cleaning. I even walked around outside a little and chatted up the kids doing sports. This also led to an English conversation with a teacher who coaches soccer and had been dying to speak English with me but I had no idea because he didn't bring it up until last week.
I ended up having some hilarious conversations. While some of the kids literally ran away or pushed their friends in front of them when I made eye contact, I laid some major foundation for relationships. Afterward I felt really, really good. I stopped after only about 20 minutes because the kids cleared out and/or the clubs started, but it still felt like an overwhelming success and I probably talked to about 20 kids and made passing comments to many more.
I'll start slow. There's no reason I can't be the person I want to be.
Seeing all these new kids around reminded me of how much time I spend at my desk and how little time I spend talking to students. Taking intiative to talk to people has always been hard for me, and I had the same problem as an RA. I like people and I like talking to them, but I get easily intimidated, I don't like awkwardness, and I often just don't think to do it. I largely am a wallflower, especially in large groups, so I tend to avoid active networking.
So, as of last week, not only did I have stress about changing my behavior, but I had the stress of not doing it for the last 8 months. If anything upsets me, it's when I've personally known about a problem and haven't done anything about it. I'm pretty hard on myself that way, even if I know it's only because I'm battling my nature and even if no one has judged me for it yet. My own acknowledged failure is the worst kind.
I got really angsty with all the internalization of this guilt, until finally one of my ALT friends gave me a pep talk on gmail chat. He just goes out and shoots the breeze with his kids all the time. He told me that if I just march out there and don't ALLOW them to feel awkward, eventually we'll push through it, even if do totally unnatural things like just walking up and asking what their favorite foods are. Yeah, it's awkward, yeah I stress about how to respond because I always have to pretend not to speak Japanese, and yeah their spoken English is painfully limited - but I'm thinking too much. This isn't who I want to be or what I want to be doing but I DO know how to fix it.
So I went. I walked around after school poking my nose into classrooms and stopping kids in the hall. I asked them if they liked high school, I asked them what they had for lunch, and I told them "good job!" while they were cleaning. I even walked around outside a little and chatted up the kids doing sports. This also led to an English conversation with a teacher who coaches soccer and had been dying to speak English with me but I had no idea because he didn't bring it up until last week.
I ended up having some hilarious conversations. While some of the kids literally ran away or pushed their friends in front of them when I made eye contact, I laid some major foundation for relationships. Afterward I felt really, really good. I stopped after only about 20 minutes because the kids cleared out and/or the clubs started, but it still felt like an overwhelming success and I probably talked to about 20 kids and made passing comments to many more.
I'll start slow. There's no reason I can't be the person I want to be.
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