Yesterday I was paralyzed, thrown into a state of complete procrastination and inaction by fear. You see, I don’t know how to leap over the chasm between being a great TESL student and being a wonderful, seasoned teacher. Somewhere in between those two, I have to face an interview and the first few days and weeks on the job. The thing is…I don’t go into anything half-cocked. I’m either 110% prepared or I don’t attempt whatever it is.
LINC classes are not taught from any book. You are not handed a curriculum or syllabus. Everything is customized for each new group of students coming in off the street with their particular set of needs, which you determine by conducting a needs assessment in week one. After the NA is done, you sit down and put together a curriculum for that level using the Canadian Language Benchmarks and companion tables as your guide. You use authentic materials as much as possible, though supplementing to some extent with photocopies from a variety of books and workbooks found in the teachers’ resource room is also acceptable. Using authentic materials means that if one of the needs is for students to learn to communicate during a visit to the doctor, you might bring in or adapt/simplify a real medical form taken from a real doctor’s office and teach students how to fill it out.
Unlike a teacher who has been at this a while, I don’t yet have a file cabinet full of lessons I’ve used in the past, trusty stand-by activities to get me through the next day’s teaching when I’m having a brain dead night. The thought of how on earth to survive the first days of teaching is terrifying to me.
My mind has been driving me crazy with dreadful scenarios of both an interview wherein I cannot claim to be ready for those first months and with visions of those first weeks in months when I am–God forbid–not yet the world’s most amazing teacher. There is another voice in there somewhere, mind you…the one that tells me it’s all going to be just fine. But I’m not talking to you about those (wonderful, peace-filled) moments right now. I’m talking to you about what happens when I freeze up.
My day-long paralysis got me to worrying. I cannot afford to let days slip past while I take no action on this job search. The clock is tick-tick-ticking and I have to get a move on unless I want to be homeless two to three months from now.
Last night I dreamed about my (late) second ex. It wasn’t the kind of super realistic dream of the recently departed that feels like a visitation. In fact, Pete in my dream didn’t even look all that much like the real Pete. Since I have never dreamed about him before, it left me wondering why.
As I always do when I feel a dream is important enough to stop and ask, “What is your message for me?” I remember what my Jungian analyst would have asked me during a session: what is Peter’s essence?
While I showered, I found my mind drifting back to that question. Peter was very into control, we can say that. And then there was that crucial point in our marriage, the one that would make or break it. Since I was having a great deal of difficulty living in such tight quarters with someone who insisted on having the television on 12/7, I had suggested we try moving out of the Independent Living project into a house of our own. This would mean relying on Outreach Services rather than having attendants upstairs in an office at his disposal throughout the day. Granted, given his level of disability, this would have been a scary and risky move. But if we also had a live-in, I said, we might be able to make it work. Pete wanted little part of any such discussions. Finally, as our marriage was disintegrating, he admitted that he had not wanted us to move into our own house because if our marriage did not survive, he would have to go on a very long waiting list to get back into the project site he had helped found. He might get stuck in one of the other sites that was less enculturated with the Independent Living philosophy of which he was such a strong advocate and avid cultivator.
I thought about the dream. What part of me was like Pete? With special reflection on my paralysis of yesterday, what part of me was sabotaging my continuing to move along with this calling?
He had been unwilling to take a risk. It was too scary, too unpredictable, the possible losses outweighing, in his mind, the possible gains.
Mmmmm, I thought as I stepped from the bath tub, that’s what my dream is telling me. Pete in the dream wanted me back. My inner control freak wants me back.
Just acknowledging this didn’t immediately free me from the previous day’s feeling of inability to move forward. I still did not want to work on my teaching resume or pick up the phone to let the coordinators know I’m back in town and ready to be on the supply list. So I just nodded to that part of me, acknowledged its presence in the room with me.
In a while, as if handed to me by angels floating just above me the whole time, memories came back of the things I had learned and taken so to heart while reading Callings this summer. Oh, right. I’m not in this alone. The Universe is in this with me. I’m not expected to have every detail figured out already. That’s why they call it a leap of Faith.
Right.
Remembering this gave me just enough of a nudge to take the next little step. I spent the day working on the teacher resume and contacting my references.
The end of a day of action–even a small action–feels SO much better than the end of a day with no action. I’m still frightened, but I’m frightened and moving forward, not frightened and standing still.
