Tags
agreements, ecuador, efl, esl, joy, meditation, teaching abroad, transformation., travel, writing, Yachay
I usually end my class 10 minutes early, which goes against what my boss suggests, but I think I’m at a point where I know what works best for me and mine. As we approached the 10 minute mark today, a student asked if we could do meditation. You see, I’m doing research on meditation and writing. I do a five-minute session and then have my students write. Two classes like it; one doesn’t like it nor singing songs at the start of class (and you know they won’t tell me what they want to do, right?)
I surveyed my four students and realized it was just the one student who wanted to meditate. So we did because you never know what someone is going through and how a five minute restart, recharge can help him or her push on to bigger and better things.
Today, we focused on “joy.” I free styled the session ,but it went well. I could hear him breathing deeply and profoundly. This made me meditate, too. The morning was rough because sometimes I have to deal with people who don’t know how to find joy in one’s self, which leads them to acting out. And this is when the 4 Agreement comes in handy because I must remember “not to take it personal.” Yet it is difficult not to take people yelling at you and making ludicrous claims at you in a personal way. Life is weird at times. The mirrors placed in front of you — I see certain people and I think “you are who I used to be and who I will not be again. You are a reminder, a benchmark, a symbol of the joy I now have.”
After meditating on joy, I asked my student what joyful experience he had thought of. He said when he scored high on the national examine to enter college; then, he added college is hard. We talked a bit about the challenge of college.
In these past few weeks, I have spoken a lot about my days as a Bruin (Go Bruins!). The challenge of being in college and not knowing what is going on and trying to figure social interactions out– college is a blurry memory of a former self. Hopefully, his days at Yachay will be similar in his future– a blur of a man in transition, in transformation.