Not organizing
extra-curricular activities with my students has been one of my biggest
complaints so far in China. At times, I
shied away from getting involved in work outside of the classroom because I was
afraid that I would become a burden for my students. My unease at organizing extra-curricular
activities stemmed from having difficulty in understanding language, culture,
and a desire to have as much free time as possible to myself outside of
teaching.
The first two
objections took some time and effort in ameliorating. At first glance, the third objection should
have taken me the least amount of time to change since it related to attitude;
however, overtime the more I contemplated my problem the more I felt
puzzled. In the end, I decided that the
last reason was the most ridiculous for me to accept; was I not in China to
work with others? I recently concluded
that this feeling of sadness is attributed to my sometimes rocky relationship
with self.
At times, I have
not loved myself which has effectively helped to direct me towards despairing
roads of personal torture. It is a sad
truth that confiding more to one's self and less in others helps to increase the
severity and duration of one's malaise. Unfortunately,
when one is feeling quite depressed they rarely want to share their true
feelings with others. Likewise,
depression becomes a self-sustaining leviathan once the process of cutting-off
contact with the outside world begins.
When I returned
to China I knew that it was time for me to step out of the shadows of my former
self and assume the role that I always had wanted to lead in life. As is the case in any situation there were
several reasons for me to feel this way.
One important reason was that I had just spent six months at home and
felt rejuvenated. While at home, I had
done a lot of thinking and was able to thoroughly construct a curriculum around
the project I had in mind.
Another
important reason was being with my family while dad battled cancer. Experiencing a scare with cancer has the
effect of teaching people to value their time on this earth. I knew that time was waiting for no one and I
needed to act in order to direct my life down the path I had always wanted it
to take.
Finally, my language
skills and cultural awareness had matured to the point where I knew that I
could handle the extra work without putting any extra burden of responsibility
on my students.
Before I left
for China I had great conversations with a couple of my Chinese mentors. One of them was with a personal friend who I
have assisted in consulting affairs in Tianjin, China. I really enjoyed hearing my friend's
perspectives and encouragement regarding the project I was proposing. This friend is a Chinese-American who was
born in China before immigrating to the United States. I really valued my friend's input into the
project since they had gone through the Chinese education system growing up in
Tianjin.
I also had the
opportunity to ask a Chinese alumnus from Saint John's University about his opinion
on the project. There advice and
guidance helped me to consider unforeseen problems and obstacles in the way of organizing
a successful project.
I was taken
aback by the level of support that both of my Chinese friends showed me during
our discussions. Both of my friends
argued that it was important to get more students involved in extra-curricular
activities and volunteer work in their free-time. I was also warned that I would experience
difficulties in organizing my volunteer project. I was told that my students would first
regard the volunteer work as an assignment and probably have little enthusiasm
for it. My friends also argued that
giving my students the opportunity to choose their own projects might be too
liberal of me. Many of my students would
not be accustomed to having this much freedom of choice. Finally, my friends emphasized that is was critical
that I do as much work as I could in guiding my students in the right direction
during the project.
I also had the
opportunity of mentioning the project to Professor Richard Bohr before leaving
for China. My Chinese history
professor's opinion was that the project was a great idea, and that it could
possibly lead to a service learning component being added into the college's
permanent curriculum. We talked for a
while and both shared the goal of getting the CSBSJU fall semester abroad
program involved in the program as well.
In that way, CSBSJU students could meet more friends on the campus, be
engaged in the Chinese community, and find a good person to practice speaking
Chinese with too!
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