It was one of the last days I was teaching at this very well known university in Japan. My first period class, that day is an Environmental Science class. I teach Introduction to Speech for 1st year students and Introduction to Persuasion and Debate for 2nd year students.
They are first year students (like freshmen) but they vary in age from 18-20. Anyway these students are golden, predominately a class made up of 20 guys and 3 girls, we always have so much fun! They are very creative and I would have them create roleplays that they always ran with and came up with hilarious stories a lot of the time which involved me.
After a summer of Yoga and meditation I had a vision of myself inspiring students and their hearts started to glow red. This vision kind of jolted me into really getting my shit together teaching and I realized I have this amazing opportunity to connect with 400 bright young people a week. This is when I decided to really do something to inspire them.
The first homework assignment of the 2nd semester was "What is the biggest problem in the world? How are you going to solve it?" This being an Introduction to speech class I had them go home and research their solutions. They astounded me with full on presentations (which is amazing giving their english ability) about What things they were concerned about. This lead to a class discussion and we brainstormed simple solutions and bigger overall solutions they could do.
Being the good teacher that I am, I didn't want to bombard them with discouraging themes that would make them fall into a depression or worse yet make them not want to come to my class. So I followed this lesson with a fun "Please bring in the lyrics to your favorite song, and tell the class what you think it's about." This created a fun atmosphere, unto which that class I brought in songs from The Blow, and The Gossip, and Johnny Cash had them try to decipher lyrics. They loved it.
The following lesson was right after Obama was elected, so the question of the day was "What characteristics make a good leader? What is the benefit to the people they are leading?" Example: Honesty-- People can trust what their leader will say is true. Charisma- People will be more likely to like their leader. Intelligence- People will be able to trust their leader can make intelligent decisions. Creative- People can trust that problems will be approached in a new way. Etc.
Anyway at the end of this discussion I said to them, "This exercise has happened for two reasons, The first reason is because it's important for you to understand which characteristics make a good leader, so when you are old enough to vote (voting age here is 20) that you will know what to look for. Does your current Prime Minister have these qualities? They all shook their head no. I said "You have the power to change this in the future, just as I helped change this for my future by campaigning for Obama." Second, I said " I wanted to show you these characteristics because these are the qualities if you develop in yourself, then you will be able to lead hospitals, or companies, or the government, or whatever your career is and people you are leading will like you! trust you! believe in your ideas! etc."
They loved it. This semester went on with me having them examine current events, fun cultural magazines, I showed them the movie Juno as an example of American culture. This was no ordinary Introduction to Speech class. I wanted this class to inspire them, motivate them, and wake up to what is going on around them, since they live in such a lovely safe bubble here in Japan.
This all came to fruition when this last class of my favorite class came about. I was ending the class, and one of the students stood up and said "Jenna we have a present for you." They had gone to Starbucks and had bought a tumbler had decorated with notes of "Thank you." "We will miss you" "Your class was so fun!' This student stood up with a typed speech and said "we loved having your class, you are a great teacher and we will all miss you. We bought you this coffee cup and inside there is a certificate for you to get some coffee. We love you!"
They stood there all of the staring at me clapping. I was so happy that someone finally recognized how hard I tried this semester. I mean all my classes had rewarded me with quality work, but these guys truly wanted to thank me. And as they gave me 3 different rounds of applause, I realized that teaching is the single most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life. That I love people and it is the one job where I get to be in control, I am not micromanaged but my ideas and concepts are respected and enjoyed and I truly feel a connection with so many people.
This is why I am coming back to become a real professor in America. My dream is to teach design. I have a mentor her name is Mary Flanagan, and she was the single most inspirational professor when I was in college. I can't wait to start in this new avenue of my career and be teaching with fluent native speakers. Cause I feel like if I could connect with so many people who's english levels vary, how many people could I connect with when we can speak freely!
I can't wait. I didn't cry in front of my class that day, but I went to the grocery store right afterwards for lunch and broke down into tears of joy, in the produce section...just thinking and reminiscing of the direction my life has taken since coming here. I feel like a whole new person and I am excited to see where the next steps---I leap---will take me.
I hope you all have found and or are finding this sense of joy and fulfillment.
xo.
They are first year students (like freshmen) but they vary in age from 18-20. Anyway these students are golden, predominately a class made up of 20 guys and 3 girls, we always have so much fun! They are very creative and I would have them create roleplays that they always ran with and came up with hilarious stories a lot of the time which involved me.
After a summer of Yoga and meditation I had a vision of myself inspiring students and their hearts started to glow red. This vision kind of jolted me into really getting my shit together teaching and I realized I have this amazing opportunity to connect with 400 bright young people a week. This is when I decided to really do something to inspire them.
The first homework assignment of the 2nd semester was "What is the biggest problem in the world? How are you going to solve it?" This being an Introduction to speech class I had them go home and research their solutions. They astounded me with full on presentations (which is amazing giving their english ability) about What things they were concerned about. This lead to a class discussion and we brainstormed simple solutions and bigger overall solutions they could do.
Being the good teacher that I am, I didn't want to bombard them with discouraging themes that would make them fall into a depression or worse yet make them not want to come to my class. So I followed this lesson with a fun "Please bring in the lyrics to your favorite song, and tell the class what you think it's about." This created a fun atmosphere, unto which that class I brought in songs from The Blow, and The Gossip, and Johnny Cash had them try to decipher lyrics. They loved it.
The following lesson was right after Obama was elected, so the question of the day was "What characteristics make a good leader? What is the benefit to the people they are leading?" Example: Honesty-- People can trust what their leader will say is true. Charisma- People will be more likely to like their leader. Intelligence- People will be able to trust their leader can make intelligent decisions. Creative- People can trust that problems will be approached in a new way. Etc.
Anyway at the end of this discussion I said to them, "This exercise has happened for two reasons, The first reason is because it's important for you to understand which characteristics make a good leader, so when you are old enough to vote (voting age here is 20) that you will know what to look for. Does your current Prime Minister have these qualities? They all shook their head no. I said "You have the power to change this in the future, just as I helped change this for my future by campaigning for Obama." Second, I said " I wanted to show you these characteristics because these are the qualities if you develop in yourself, then you will be able to lead hospitals, or companies, or the government, or whatever your career is and people you are leading will like you! trust you! believe in your ideas! etc."
They loved it. This semester went on with me having them examine current events, fun cultural magazines, I showed them the movie Juno as an example of American culture. This was no ordinary Introduction to Speech class. I wanted this class to inspire them, motivate them, and wake up to what is going on around them, since they live in such a lovely safe bubble here in Japan.
This all came to fruition when this last class of my favorite class came about. I was ending the class, and one of the students stood up and said "Jenna we have a present for you." They had gone to Starbucks and had bought a tumbler had decorated with notes of "Thank you." "We will miss you" "Your class was so fun!' This student stood up with a typed speech and said "we loved having your class, you are a great teacher and we will all miss you. We bought you this coffee cup and inside there is a certificate for you to get some coffee. We love you!"
They stood there all of the staring at me clapping. I was so happy that someone finally recognized how hard I tried this semester. I mean all my classes had rewarded me with quality work, but these guys truly wanted to thank me. And as they gave me 3 different rounds of applause, I realized that teaching is the single most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life. That I love people and it is the one job where I get to be in control, I am not micromanaged but my ideas and concepts are respected and enjoyed and I truly feel a connection with so many people.
This is why I am coming back to become a real professor in America. My dream is to teach design. I have a mentor her name is Mary Flanagan, and she was the single most inspirational professor when I was in college. I can't wait to start in this new avenue of my career and be teaching with fluent native speakers. Cause I feel like if I could connect with so many people who's english levels vary, how many people could I connect with when we can speak freely!
I can't wait. I didn't cry in front of my class that day, but I went to the grocery store right afterwards for lunch and broke down into tears of joy, in the produce section...just thinking and reminiscing of the direction my life has taken since coming here. I feel like a whole new person and I am excited to see where the next steps---I leap---will take me.
I hope you all have found and or are finding this sense of joy and fulfillment.
xo.
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
jurasic:
So are you still in Japan? That's awesome you got to go but lame you never used the tent. I must confess I only used it once in the backyard with Elektra...hehehehe
myra:
Oh wow, that sounds to good to be true. Like one of these movies where I always bawl my eyes out at the end because it's so great that the teacher made it 