"Enthusiastic" thoughts on enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm : what we struggle to create in our classroom and what we crave to see in our learners' eyes...More often than not, it doesn't require much effort to transmit it to them, as long as it exists on us.

For some reason, mostly deriving from observing myself and the teachers I happen to know, I tend to believe that all of us share a considerable amount of enthusiasm.It is the way we apply it to our lesson that differentiates us. Our ability to instil it in our classroom atmosphere, based on our personalities and individual differences varies , but still, teaching English in a classroom and especially to young learners almost never loses its "edutaining" character.

It is not therefore a matter of having it or acquiring it , after a certain point, but a matter of making it last. Enthusiasm, by nature, belongs to the elements that at some point fade away and need constant boost. And by enthusiasm, I mean OUR enthusiasm, not that of our learners.

Teachers have proven their ability not to lose faith in what they do, and this is a period in history when this suggestion appers to be more true than ever before and proves itself every day. I am observing teachers, under the current circumstances facing all kinds of difficulties. Having to work away from their families, not being financiallly rewarded for the work they do ( although for true educators this has never been the case), not having the ability to use necessary equipment at the schools they work due to the current economic problems institutes face, and many more. However, they still enter their classrooms in the morning smiling, having done much personal work at home, teaching with an energy that seems not to be recharged by anything. And I cannot help but wonder, what maintains that enthusiasm.Is it possible that there will be one morning when all of this will eventually fade away?

Don't let me be misunderstood, I am not describing the majority of Greek teachers or Greek reality at schools. Those of you who have seen teachers being indifferent and lazy, don't think that I am on a cloud not realising this side of the coin also exists. Of course I do, and I have also seen it happening. However, the truth is somewhere in the middle, and enthusiastic, conscientious and hard-working teachers with passion for what they do are found everywhere.

Given the obstacles then, the cold, difficult winter mornings, the deprived of heating classrooms and the total and unacceptable disorganisation that prevails the system, enthusiasm is the only thing left to help us do what we love.

And it is enthusiasm that gives the feedback to itself and constitutes the reason that keeps us going and moving on. It just makes a circle over and over again. Do not miss any chance to regain it, then. If you feel it is lost, or it is about to be lost, quickly hold its hand and do not let it go...Enthusiasm is the key to everything. It is the reason to do what we do and at the same time the reward when we have done it. It is everywhere, before the lesson, during it and after it ends. It is the end and the means at the same time.

Stability versus change : terms we love to hate?

September gets close to its end and after a different summer, we all go back to our daily routine...no matter how smoothly or not this happens, it constitutes a fact that we cannot deny and the best we can do is become familiar with it and provide all our energy to making the most of it.. How soon, however, will the  " need for a change " arise? We have all heard ourselves uttering the all-time-classic-phrase : " I need a change", " I'm sick and tired of daily routine, work pressure (or unemployment pressure perhaps) makes my days look all the same". 

The sun rises every Monday morning and and as it never disappoints us, it sets every evening and it doesn't take long until Friday comes. And it is on that Friday evening that we think: has one week flown away? I'd been so busy all week that did not have time to realise...and that's when we start believing we need a more exciting weekdays-life and start seeking for the desirable change.. My question, nevertheless, would be...how deeply do we wish for that change and how much do we really want it if we let weeks go by just like that?  Are we ready for it and if so, why don't we just become that change?

Our need for change, is reflected everywhere and our lesson would not escape that. Are we making sure we bring change into our class or have we adopted some kind of routine that makes us , and many times our students, feel comfortable with it? How come when there is a change in what we have to do, a strange kind of discomfort suddenly appears? Are we so susceptible to change as we like to believe? Are we really, that much dissatisfied with our lives, lessons, relationships... or us asking for a change and never making it real is just mere moaning for nothing?

All I'm saying is that changing a slight, apparently trivial detail of our day can make a huge difference...and not doing it but just asking for it only confirms the fact that we are just happy the way things are. If we are dissatisfied with the progress of our learners, why not try a different path or approach? If we are not happy with the palce we live, the friends we have, the people around us, the way we address situations, why not make a try to open a new door to a new approach to everything? How easy is it for routine to become a comfortable room where we feel somehow safe, although not so happy about it? And does that room not have a door? It is not posssible because we have entered from somewhere, so there must be a way out. 

I keep hearing people craving for a change and when that change is ofered to them , they start having second thoughts. And that's when I start wondering:  Do they really need that change they ask for? Or , in reality, they get  a little scared of changing and leaving the known paths that the current situation offers? Obviously, I then thought so about myself, my students, my school, my life. Everything sounds so obvious but it turns out that for somε people it is not.And I can not come to any conclusion apart from the one that tells me that if you really want it, just stop analysing every little detail and do it.Do not stop starting journeys then. Journeys only have to offer as long as we make the decision to sign up for them. If they don't turn out well, you'll just find the way out and open a new door. It doesn't need much strength. And if you find it hard to open a new door, you can always knock. Let life surprise you and,who knows...there might be someone there to open it for you!

Tools for educators or educators as tools?

     It's the beginning of a new school year and teachers all over the world start the ride of searching for new tools and equipment. All of us open our drawers, clean our bookcases, surf the internet, willing to explore and discover new useful links, learn about newly printed coursebooks, find out what are the latest trends in teaching, refresh our approaches and get ready to open our hands and give a big hug to our students that will open the classroom door on the first days of September. 

    And it is while I am searhing for my listening-activities-CDs, in front of a laptop looking for esl links,next to a pile of handouts and arts and crafts that a phrase I recently heard from a colleague keeps coming to me : "There was a power cut at school this morning, so I got totally out of track, I could not practice anytrhing I had planned to."  In answer to my question of what it was that she had planned to do,she said she had prepared a lesson based on a song and she needed  a CD player so the learners could listen to it. So simple but ruined as there was no way for her to play the song without electricity.

   I could not hide my surprise to the fact that the solution to what she considered as a huge problem seemed so obvious to me. "Why didn't YOU sing the song? " I asked. " Me? Sing the song? But...But..."...Too many "buts" appeared. "Buts" about her voice that is not so nice, about the fact that no music would be heard and many more. And it is because of all these "buts" that I cannot help but wonder : When are we,teachers, going realise to that the only tool we need in order to teach effectively is just ourself?

   Sounds selfish? Perhaps..but it is ourself offered to our learners, our skills used in such a way to facilitate the learning process that can make a difference. Our own skills, no matter how well we use them. That is, we don't need to have the voice of  an opera singer to sing in our classroom,nor the dancing abilities of Michael Jackson or John Travolta to dance in front our students and help them enjoy the activity. Our students will forgive (or will not even care about) some cute clumsiness they may see in us when we try to become fun for them. All they probably want from us is to be authentic,really believe in what we do and , most importantly, give our own special something to our lesson that is found in our personality and nothing that is non-human can give.Each one of us is unique and have their own special something.As students detect it, they can become really happy if we give it to them.

  My feeling is that we should start relying on ourselves a little more and start asking ourselves to use skills that our learners need. We can sing, dance, paly music-not necessarily with an "official" musical instrument, playing music can be clapping hands on a rythm and knocking on the desk with our pen- use our facial expressions and body to pantomime vocabulary, dramatise a story and so many more. It's all on ourselves. WE are the tool and we should be willing to make use of ourselves, trust them and rely on them, in the same way we rely on flashcards or websites and videos. I'm not saying not to make use of the latter, of course, but why so much reliance on everything else but our own abilities to become an alive and (hopefully-not) kicking visual aid?  

  In view of the new school year, then, let's refresh our tools and materials from all kinds of resources, but let's give ourselves a chance. While looking for tools outside, let's take some time to wake up some skills from inside. 'Cause it's about waking them up, not creating them. They are there, and always have been. We were just too busy looking for teaching tools everywhere else that did not hear them calling.

New post, New post...

That's the trap you fall into when you decide to become a blogger: you start feeling an obligation to continue posting even if you do not feel inspired or you don't feel you have something important to say. But there it stands, on the top right side of the webpage, the request "new post" trying to make you write again. It reminds me of the familiar-to-all-of-us facebook question "what's on your mind?"  proudly presenting itself every time I log in, trying to convince me that I need to share with my friends what is in my mind and that they will be intersted in reading it.(doubtedly though). And how come every time I read this question my immediate response-thought is "what do you care? It's none of your business".

At first it seems like a stable point of view but then the miming tendency gets to work. Being bombarded by everyone else's posts, thoughts, beliefs, comments, reports on where they are and what they do, you start feeling like an alien, thinking if everybody else does it, why not me? How many cases do we all know,including ourselves, of people creating facebook accounts, refusing to post photos and personal information at first, but, as time goes by, smoothly and naturally they just forget about it and feel like "sharing with the people around them"...so what? they say...everybody else does it and it's fun. 

While this may be true for (some) people aged 25+, not the same can be said for teenagers and children at a very young age. They do not even face the dilemma of keeping some privacy because they do not even realise how far the term "public" goes...And let's face it, social network users are of some unconceivable age numbers like 8,9..With parents working all afternoon or parents being busy in front of a computer screen, it's a one way road, most travelled by, that is convenient for everyone. It keeps children busy, gives parents the freedom to be involved in what they do and time flies in a pleasant way for both sides. The more time children spend on the internet, the more they post, they publish comments, pictures, add personal information, interests, locations, dreams (dreams? that's a whole other story,probably in another post).

Even so, the outcome is the same. Children, teenagers, adults,elderly :-) keep posting their lives, our lives on the internet. Whether done with some second thoughts or done immediately does not matter in the long run and does not qualify as resisting the temptation. Nor is this a problem-solution conversation as it is not a problem for everyone and for those that it is, we can always turn off our PCs. I wonder why we don't do it and start living a little bit.

In any case, the last thing I would wish if I were a child, is all my childhood memories to be consisting of likes and pokes. On the same basis, would we like to get older and have conversations like " ..Remember when you posted that awesome photo on facebook and got 30 likes? ah...the good old times!" :-) Not so unlikely for a great number of people, especially younger! At least, let's hope they'll be doing it in person with a glass of wine and a bite to eat, not just cables and screens.

Anyway, just fullfilling the need to create a "new post", because I may have not mentioned it earlier, I belong to that generation aged 8+, trapped into the labyrinth of continually posting. Fortunately, it's still daytime and the sunlight shows the exit.

Thoughts on motivation and wherever they lead to..

What is it that motivates us to learn? And how does this "magic moment" in time come when the learning process is accelerated by us, ourselves, while maybe some time earlier we felt we hadn't been making much progress, information is too much or too difficult or even boredom to try hard was keeping us behind?

It seems we have all experienced that, on our students and on ourselves. While stability or a silent period seems to be prevailing, there comes the moment that changes everything. To whom does that motivating hand that gives the push belong? Where does motivation that brings about the desired result come from? What is it that managed to "unlock" and unblock the brain and helped it process the input,use the feedback effectively, acquire the knowledge and put everything taught into practice?

Even the slightest, tiny, apparently unimportant thing can qualify for that. It can be a person,a teacher, a fellow-student,something that a person said or did, even something watched on a video that clicked and made everything work.And of course, the right timing.

As teachers, we should not underestimate the power of verbal language and how what we tell our students can make a difference to them, even if sometimes they don't seem to be paying attention. Not only that, though. It is also non-verbal language, what we do not say  that can be proven to be of crucial importance. How we lead our lives, our attitude, the way we address problems, the way we behave to others and to ourselves, even the way we dress, no matter how silly it may sound, have the power to influence a learner. Our motivation to learn, our thirst to learn from everything will give them a reason to become thirsty too...

There so much to it that one could be writing for hours and make it confusing for the reader. All in all, I think it is our acceptance of ourselves, with all the flaws and merits that will make us accept the others and be able to non-verbally say to our students that it's ok to be different. They will get the message because acceptance or judgement are felt without being expressed, they juat float in the air. But again, to accept others as they really are, we have to accept ourselves first. Constantly trying to be the best version of us will give incentives to our learners to do the same and vice versa. Cause it is never a one-sided relationship. It is interaction. They learn from us and we learn from them...fortunately!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DXL9vIUbWg