euthanAsia

There us a dog who lives in a cage right next to my house. Usually, I ignore the beautiful golden retriever, as it lies there, lifelessly bored out of its skull--I have never once seen its owner take the animal out of it's tiny living quarters (nor do I know who owns the creature, for that matter. Sometimes, if the retriever's up on its feet or looking in my direction, I make friendly woofing noises, letting it know that I notice it & that I recognise it. I don't really know if the dog cares or not, but it makes me feel like I'm at least somewhat engaging the poor creature.

Today, I came home, and after a particularly depressing weekend, I decided to go say 'hi' to the dog in a bit of a more personal way. Man, was this dog ever glad to see me. He sprang up from his catatonic stupour and started sniffing and pacing and panting, being all excited-like with his wagging tail--even jumping up against its fence to try and get closer to me. Then he started whining. I knew that he wanted to get out and have some fun with me, but there was no way for me to release the dog. After a good minute of the dog's excitement of human interaction, he seemed to calm down, sit by the fence and just pant gleefully, knowing that there was someone there watching him and being right next to him.

I was saddened that I had to leave. I went inside my house to grab my school keys & get some of my belongings that were locked in a room. When I hopped back outside to go & get these things, I looked at the dog in his prison: back to the catatonic stupour, yet this time it almost appeared that the dog was even more depressed.

I immediately had an overwhelming sense of compassion for the dog. Here he was, trapped & isolated in a cage that he didn't want to be in. He desperately wanted to get out, to have fun & to be with people. Then, when someone comes along & pays him a bit of attention, his hoped get raised to the point of ecstasy--someone noticed him! Someone wanted to be with him! Someone wanted to pet him & be his friend! But it was all for naught. The would-be friend quickly abandoned the poor dog and walked away, having better things to do that evening.

I bet that if I had got in that dog's head, it may very well have thought: "Why did you even bother coming over here at all? All you've done now is made me just that much more aware of my wretched prison."

* * * * *

This weekend, I had the "pleasure" of going on a PD day retreat with my fellow staff members. It was meant to be a spiritual retreat--a time where were were supposed to get reconnected with God & to build relationships with eachother. The intention was to encourage and strengthen us as individuals & as a "team."

All it did was make me all the more aware of how trapped I feel.

I was for 36 hours exposed to an opportunity where I could hang out with people, where I had no obligations toward school, marking, lesson planning, students or anyone else. I had a taste of freedom. It was delicious.

I was given the opportunity to have time to spend with God--something that my superiors wanted me to take advantage of. I was amazed.


We were asked to share words of encouragement about each other at one of our sessions. A lot of words were said, and all of them with good intentions. The only things that got said about me were that I was a good worker, that I strove for excellence and that I seem to accomplish what to others would be an impossible task. I was told that people wished they could be as diligent as me; I was told that people respected my efforts.

Now, don't get me wrong. I appreciate their words. I know that they were doing their best to encourage me. However, I wasn't encouraged. I do not define myself by what I do or by how much I accomplish. Work is work: it's a necessary evil of life. Granted, I live my life by the motto: "Whatever you do, do it with all your heart, working as if unto the Lord," but I don't desire to be defined by my workingness.

Later that night, we as a staff were all gathered together to hang out on the beach where we were staying with the intention of getting to know each other better. I sat down by one group of teachers, and half of them got up & left, because the sand was too dirty there (granted, it was rather gross). Those who remained didn't bother to acknowledge me, but instead, started to talk in whispered voiced. Another teacher came and sat down nearby me, but didn't say a word. I think he was in a contemplative non-talking mood. Myself, tired of being ignored, decided to try the other side of the group, hoping that there would be more of an interaction over there.

Walking around the highly-engaged group of people, busily chatting with each other, I was certain that when I sat down I'd be able to squeeze into a conversation or two. I think, though, that I must have some sort of social disease, because as soon as I sat down, the conversation that was going on tapered off to silence within the next minute. Those who were talking slowly turned themselves inward, engaging me with naught but their backs.

I think that my co-workers think I'm a workaholic. The sad thing is that I would much rather be hanging out. All they know of me is that I sit in my classroom, slaving away so that I don't drown in schoolwork & so that my students don't end up being grossly under-schooled. I think that they've defined me by this presentation of who I am. What they don't know is that it kills me a little bit each time that I have to say "no" to hanging out with people in light of my insurmountable responsibility. But, why bother trying to form new relationships when the people that you always hang out with are right beside you on this beach, right? It's much easier to talk with someone that you know and much easier to build a relationship once it's already founded. Of course I was left on the outside. And it made me feel like crap.

What was the point of going to a group hang-out session if no one wants to hang out with you? Why bother trying to build relationships if you're already on the "don't bother" list? How do you engage people if they make you feel unclean?


I hate my cage. Part of me wishes that I had never gone on that stupid "retreat"; all it's done has been to make me all the more aware of my current situation. It's better to never have been made aware of what was on the outside if you never can take part in it. Leave me to rot here until my penance is up, if all you give me is hollow shimmers of something greater. At least then I won't have to think of what I'm missing.

Post Script

An interesting quirk about speaking English in Thailand:

Last night, myself, Jon Fairbridge & our visiting friends from Canada went down to Khao San road to hang out. We stopped into the Starbucks there to caffeinate ourselves sufficiently for the evening. As I handed the barista my Bangkok Bank card, she asked if I lived in Thailand.

"Yes I do," I said.

"What do you do?"

"I am a teacher. I teach English."

"Where?"

"At an English school in Nonthaburi."

"Really? I am from Nonthaburi! Close to Nonthaburi pier," she said.

"Wow! And you work all the way down here?" I asked--Khao San is easily a half hour taxi ride away, about a 300 baht round trip.

"Yes."

"How come?" I wondered, since there was a Starbucks at the Central Plaza mall on Rattanathibet Road, not more that a 15 minute's walk from the pier.

"River taxi," she said with a smile as she busily worked behind the counter finishing up my drink.

Ahh, English as a Second Language! She spoke excellent English, with barely even any accent, but my question skipped right over her comprehension level due to this, perhaps our most irregular interrogative structure! In any other language, "how come" would have meant, "How do you come here" (as it would in Thai), but in English, it doesn't mean this at all.

It's amazing, the idioms that we take for granted, isn't it?

Learnage

Things that I've learned about myself so far this year:

• I'm pretty sure that my calling's not to be a Math teacher. I feel remarkably gifted in & rewarded by teaching--just not by learning math (and maybe not teaching high school students).
• I'm pretty sure that my calling is much more directed toward full-time ministry with a primary focus on outreach, as opposed to the outreach being a tacked-on thing. Three years ago, if you had asked me if I was going to pursue a life of full time ministry, I probably would have told you that you were out of your mind. Interesting how things change...
• Language barriers suck. I think that we (or me), as North Americans, largely miss out upon the mission field where we could have the greatest impact: next door. I myself have been made extremely aware at how poor of a steward I have been with the time I could be spending with the seeking / hurt individuals in my home community. Whenever I get back to Canada, I'm hoping that this will change.
  

Re-Leaf

It probably has been close to two weeks since my last, "cliffhanging" update, where I communicated a great deal of frustration, disillusionment, discouragement and exhaustion At the end of my letter, I said that something inevitably had to change--and that that change would have to happen quickly. Well, it did.

Thankfully, the change did not come as a heart attack, a car accident, a nervous breakdown or as some random tropical disease. It came as a realisation. A realisation that I myself am nothing; that what I do in my own strength amounts to little more than a pile of dust in the light of a broader perspective. I have been working my tail off for the past five and a half months, trying my best to do my best and be the best that I possibly could be--that's kind of who I am. Yet, despite all of my vigorous efforts, all of my sleepless nights, all of my work-filled weekends, I never felt like I was ever going to meet the expectations that were had on me--whether they were real expectations from my employers, perceived expectations that I thought (and maybe still do think) existed, manufactured personal expectations or any countless other benchmark that I was aware of. I always was feeling like I was falling short: other staff members would be having evenings & weekends free, making extra money tutoring or helping out / volunteering in non-school ministries and pretty much enjoying life while I felt as if I was rotting away in my classroom, pouring over my lessons, struggling with my work & with the content (teaching yourself the finer points of linear algebra is a bit tough--especially when you're expected to be teaching the same material to students the next day). I was discouraged, despairing and beginning to get depressed. But then, I realised something. I realised my real station in life--how much my own individual actions actually make a difference.


The Story

It became blatantly obvious to me on the second Monday of teaching after we had come back from our semester break. I had just burned my weekend away, sitting in my classroom pouring over minute details of trigonometric identities for grade 11 math and quadratic transformations for grade 10. I had planned these amazing lessons, where I was going to introduce the concepts to my students in many exciting, engaging ways, but as a result, I didn't get a chance to mark the grade 10 homework assignments. "No problem," I thought, "Most math teachers get their students to mark assignments in class. I'll just allot some time in one of the classes this week to do that, and we can all review together the more difficult questions." It was an excellent idea, I thought.

The week started, and when it came time for me to dazzle my students with amazing teaching & learning techniques... They wouldn't even pay attention. My Grade 11 students (a class size of 3) were just "not in the mood" to learn: One refused to sit at a desk, but instead, lay down and began to sleep; another student chose to play with a Rubik’s cube throughout the class; the third decided that it was more advantageous to stare off into space instead of learning math. When I asked what was going on, they balked my inquisition. Choosing to switch my teaching approach for that day, I asked them to take out their textbooks and turn to the section that we were studying. None of them--not one--had brought their textbook to school that day, nor had they bothered to bring notebooks or even paper to class. Joy.

So, grade 11 was a failure that day. All of the work that I had poured into trying to engage the students was for naught. Hopefully, Grade 10 would be better. Well...... It wasn't. A homework assignment was due that day, so instead of collecting them, I thought that I would get the students to mark their own. It was a fiasco. Only 2/3 of the class even did the homework, and when it came to marking, half of the students refused to even look at another person's work--making excuses ranging from "I don't understand this math" to "I cannot read their writing" or even "I cannot find their homework" (when it had just been handed to them to mark). After sorting out their logistic protests, the whining ensued. "Why do we have to mark someone else's work?" "What is the point of this?" "How are we going to learn from marking assignments?" and, my personal favourite, "You are just lazy, Mr. Daniel. You're making us do your work because you don't want to do anything!"

I was dumbfounded. Crushed. My students accused me of being lazy and not doing work, when they themselves couldn't even manage to sit down for 20 minutes on the weekend and finish their homework assignments. They called me lazy; when I had just spent over twenty hours on the weekend coming up with ways that would help them learn the material better. I couldn't believe it--and what's worse is that a bulk of the class all grunted in assent with this last vocal attack.

There's a limit to how many pearls you throw to swine before you realise that they're just going to poo in them anyways. That day was my breaking point, and on Tuesday, I decided that, instead of giving them my dazzle, I would give them a satisfactory instruction performance--no extra work, no sweating through how to make this information more accessible, no lateral thinking exercises in how to make abstract mathematics more concrete. I would just lecture, review and coach.

They didn't even notice a difference. Not a single one of them. The rest of the week was devoid of Math-o-lympics; free of games, mind-challenges; missing the pictures and the puzzles and not one of them even blinked. The good students were doing just as well; the struggling students were still struggling at the same rate; the hellions were still as hellionish as ever. Why had I been working myself to death for something that the students didn't even appreciate?

That same week, I was given a written notice that I had failed to submit lesson plans for the next week on time. Every Thursday, our lesson plans for the following week are due. I have never been able to come close to meeting this deadline, usually just squeaking in my lesson plans my Sunday at 11pm or Monday morning. This week, when I had been totally demoralised by my students the last thing I needed was to be told that my efforts, again, were not good enough. So, I rebelled.

Instead of trying to do my best to get my lesson plans in as soon as possible, I decided that I wouldn't even do any of my lesson plans until I had a reasonable amount of time to do them--which ended up with me completing lesson plans the night before I'd be using them. Did the world end? Nope. Did my performance as a teacher suffer, when my lesson plans were completed the day before the lessons instead of the week before? Nope. In fact, they probably were better (or at least more efficient), since that way, I could tailor each day's material a bit better in response to what had happened in class that day.

As a result of these events, I've decided that striving for excellence while here at GES is an unattainable goal. Despite all of my efforts, nothing is good enough for anyone anyways, so why should I bother working myself to death? Experimenting with being "adequate" as opposed to being "spectacular" has shown me that the amount of difference that "spectacular" makes in comparison to how much work, stress & time it takes to "achieve," is just not worth it. Am I going to go the extra mile to try & teach students who would rather sleep, rather talk, rather play games or rather spend their parents' money on whatever their hearts desired than making an effort to learn (especially when they know that they can buy a passing grade from our school)--especially when they accuse me of being lazy? Nope. I'll help the students who want to learn; I'll help the students who even at least make a bit of an effort. Am I going to lose sleep over missing manufactured deadlines and administrative make-work projects? Heck no. I don't have the energy or remaining stress tolerance levels to even try to play that game.


The Results

So, I've changed my approach. I'm learning to take work a bit more lightly, which allows me to get more sleep ( though I still am needing 2 Red Bulls a day just to make it to 5:00 without passing out in front of my students). I've actually spent time with people & have had conversations for what feels like the first time since July! We'll see how this whole new approach works out.

We have a PD weekend next week. It's supposed to be a spiritual-retreat dealie, which I am earnestly looking forward to. I haven't had uninterrupted time to spend alone with God & honestly pursue Him in months. Pray that there would be an opportunity to do just that.

Kand, my 10B student who chose to follow Christ, transferred out of GES at the beginning of the term to go study in Australia. Pray for her, that she'd get connected to a good set of Christians over there--I doubt she even knows where to look for them.

One of the biggest problem-students in my classes, a girl named Soda, is beginning to realise how horribly lost she is in school. She has about a 40% average in both Math & Chem., and that's completely due to lack of effort. She's an intelligent girl, but her attitude towards school, authority or anything that stands in her way of getting what she wants when she wants is rotten. On Friday, she asked me for help--the first time this year--and it was clear that she hasn’t learned a thing since the beginning of September. As a result, I'll be spending some tutoring time with her in the mornings before school to try & help her catch up. Pray that this would be an opportunity to reach into her life & show her Christ. It's the brazen, unruly students who typically need love the most, as often times, they act the way they do due to a severe deficit of love.

I've been asked & have begun to adapt and produce Shakespeare's The Tempest, which will be performed by the student body (hopefully) by the end of the school year. Pray for wisdom, guidance and for help from my associated staff members to pull off this gargantuan project.

That's all I have for now. If I continued, your eyeballs would fall out & my schoolwork wouldn't be getting done.

Peace.