Come what may...

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers. -Khalil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)

Dr. Jacobs gave me this quote in the midst of the difficult times with my teacher. I had to read it through a couple of times before I understood exactly what it was saying. To put it into context for me, I think it means that from this situation, I may have to learn how to teach from someone I don’t think is a teacher I can look up to. I can learn patience from the impatient, softness from the loud, gentleness from the harsh, etc. Along with that, not only should I learn from this challenging situation, but I should also be grateful for it. After 3 1/2 weeks in the school, I'm doing my best to stay positive and be grateful for all of my experiences, even if some of them are not ideal.

I think that in life, we have many difficult experiences that we look down upon. It is usually only in hindsight that we are able to see the wonderful lessons that we learned from these experiences. It is also usually only in hindsight that we are able to be grateful for them. I actually feel blessed that I am able to at least try to learn from and be grateful for the lessons I am learning while still in the middle of this interesting teaching experience. I actually just realized that I titled my blog, "Come What May And Love It...in New Zealand." When I titled it, I thought it was going to be real easy to love everything here (and believe me, even though I'm not talking about much of it now, there is SO much that I LOVE here), but now I think it's even more appropriate because I will maintain that outlook on the positive and the not-so-positive experiences: Come what may. And I will love it :)

As a side note, today I was able to observe some Reading Recovery sessions. It is a daily 30-minute individualized lesson used for children under 7 years old that are not reading at their grade level. It usually takes them about 25 weeks to get them reading at level 17. It was really interesting for me because even in the short time I was there I saw so much success and potential progression with the student. It's so rewarding to see a student finally get it, finally have that "a-ha!" moment.