hmmm... why teaching? i think maybe, because... teaching is an amazing skill that we all innately own. and in turn, learning is also a skill we all hold. in all things, in all aspects, we are learning and teaching always thru living...

and language, wow... language can open doors, give opportunities, transcend planes of existence, make it possible for the world to communicate more fully, and above all, bring us all together to understand each other and our respective cultures and ideas. i think it is an amazing thing to give back to any community we decide to become a part of (which is what we do when we travel), and i do believe teaching is a positive way to do this.

i have been a teacher in hawaii, and now, i teach in thailand. i feel as if it is an awesome experience, and loving it. though it requires hard work thru all the lesson planning, homework correcting, creating ways to really achieve comprehension in our students, language barriers, etc., it is truly rewarding in so many ways. i am laughing with my students and fully enjoying my lessons thru most days. and yes, in thailand, i feel as if many of my students really do want to learn and will speak fluently very soon. they are also teaching me thai, so we get to switch the teacher-student role around quite often.

i am amazed at the world and how blessed we are when we decide to give a little back and see what can come of it. and i do believe this could be thru any number of skills, i guess that's the part we get to decide for ourselves. in what way do we want to give? for me, i feel as if teaching english in a foreign land is a way we can involve ourselves within cultures that hold teachers in such high regards, and grow from these intimate experiences with individual people who crave knowledge.

it may be a different story for others, but possibly so many of us are drawn to teach, because we know that at all times, we are both student and teacher in the same moment.

*if anyone needs info about teaching over here, tribe me up and i'll give you any knowledge i own*

much love, aloha
*j*

Who was pessimistic?

One person's pessimism is another's reality. Until a person has direct experience with rural Taiwan its impossible to really even conceive of it.

I have plenty of love in my life, just not from the people who I'm surrounded by most of the time :-).

And! The wonderful thing is that its looking like a sideline business is going to allow me to leave teaching and eventually go somewhere more suited to my looney personality. Patience.

And I wish I were the exception to the rule here, but talk to anyone who has taught here for 3-4 years or more (Taipei excepted) and you'll find very similar views. I really DO wish that I was a single solitary lunatic in the dark, but there are a lot of us. Taiwan chews up foreign workers then spits them out, just the way life is here.

What do you all think about the idea that English is arguably the language with the most ethnically and culturally diverse group of native(or virtually native) speakers on the planet? I would say this while at the same time liberally accepting some of the relatively "deviant" "dialects" that make up English. There is also a significant amount literature that has been translated in English that is not available in any other language. I'm just saying that the least you could say is that learning English can enhance the lives of those who do. Given that, you could say of ESL teachers that they do provide a service that brings joy and enlightenment to their "customers" which is more than you can say for a lot of professions out there. Obviously anyone who doesn't care about the quality of the job they do is a heathen and a jerkoff, be they an ESL teacher, architect or garbageman.