Amongst the teaching troubles of this week (kids not paying their full attention and some unwillingness to participate), I actually got the chance to grow closer to my team members. We went to pick strawberries this weekend.
Of course, this was a fun and joyous occasion, but that is not why I am writing about it. Through the experience of picking the sweet fruit with my team members, I felt revitalized about the program and my goals. Teaching has given me great mental fatigue this week and I felt dispassionate about going back to teaching for the next week. The constant smile you have on your face when it is the 12th time teaching the same lesson to a group of kids that do not always want to (or have the internet to) listen makes me feel like a car out of gas. I am moving on any inertia that I have built and am barely holding on until the weekend.
However, getting to get close to the in-person section of my team has made me refocus on what my ultimate goal is; I am not necessarily here to help these kids prep for their exams, but I am here to impassion them about English. Seeing the experiences and the way that my teammates talk about their kids have encouraged me in a time where I was starting to find teaching the kids meaningless. They were experiencing the same fatigue that I was, but our conversations while picking strawberries (team-building) made me also realize that we are a team; we are ultimately in this together and I can lean on them for support.
I hope to be able to go in with more passion having this focus in mind.