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Melina... Tioman

Rathlin


Whimbrel

I am struck by how much energy I have when I am not teaching. Yesterday, apart from hoovering and laundry I sorted the house and the garage. Teaching is SUCH a tough job. I don't care what ANYONE else says, but as a teacher, you really are someone who is stretched to the limit of endurance. It is a job for marathon runners - and you feel the burn as it were inside you on a regular basis. BUT the thing about being a teacher is that you work with these kids and these kids are the future. Essentially you work with the future and really - you see how malleable they are. The responsibility is ginormous - to give and show, but not to impose. And it is vital that this happens. Not imposing...

After this I am going to sort out the garage finally. It was great getting things sorted...

Have i always been drawn to children? Not in a sentimental way I think... but teaching has been in my DNA. I am a third generation teacher and it seems strange but even now, I do feel a bit shy when it comes to standing in front of people and talking. 

What is the biggest learning thing I have discovered as a teacher? There are no bad children - literally - no bad children. It is all about anxiety and coping with that anxiety. Once everything is framed in that way then we can try to understand how to alleviate the anxiety. The other thing is about honesty. We have to be honest about what is taking place with the child. If we are not honest then we can just shut up shop and go home. 

Only with honest, love and courage can we develop a structure, a support for them. You do not get a tree to grow by causing it pain. At some point it will snap. Plus human beings are not trees.

We aren't trees... 

I was also thinking about how all children all over the world go through the same stages of development. It is amazing right? All over the world we have the same trajectory. The type of language, the cultural norms - these change, but children remain the same. That same openness as babies and children, and then the same crazy as teenagers, and then the same way of falling in love and being alive in life... it was interesting in Beef that they said that Western therapy does not work with Eastern minds. I have to agree with that. It makes sense. Therapy is based on values. And values fluctuate and change. 

This is why essentialist ideas have no truck with me. I do understand archetypes - that is different, but essentialism which reduces people to things which they cannot change - and a conforming idea of what a norm is - I cannot be having that.

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