Those of you who know a bit about my work know that I spend most of my time teaching. These pictures show just a few of my students. I have two new classes now with a new group of young adults and a small group of pastors. When I first arrived I wasn't sure if teaching English would feel like "missionary" work for me. In the beginning, it didn't. However, I have learned and understood many new things over the past 5 months. I'm not sure why, but this week I have felt a strong push to reflect on this theme.
First of all, it is possible that as I am learning more about teaching and becoming more confident and comfortable in my position, I can understand that as a teacher, you always have the chance to share more than the subject matter with your students. Technically, I am teaching English but, I also get to choose all of the themes that we discuss, the articles, songs, videos and other interesting information that I share with them. I must also enter all of my classes with a conscious decision to set a positive and energetic tone for the class no matter how tired I am at the end of the day. I must show kindness, patience and a willingness to help. I must show a sincere interest in each students' personal story, opinions and success. I must create a group environment that is trusting and comfortable so that students will not be afraid to speak in this foreign language and share their stories.
At the most basic level, my goal is to help students improve their spoken English. However, students are telling me that they are also gaining confidence, learning about new subjects and thinking about old subjects in new ways, developing new relationships and one of the greatest things of all...laughing a lot! It is true, we laugh a lot together...about our mistakes, about their English and even more about my Armenian, about each others' experiences. So while I expected that this class would be like a torture session for people after school or a long day at work, on the contrary, they actually look forward to coming, seeing their friends, learning about something new and interesting and laughing together.
The way I understand this is that God uses us in so many different ways to be a blessing in the lives of other people. Without a doubt, all of my students need to improve their English. Not in the way that we in America need to learn Spanish, here, it is necessary to learn English in order to get a decent job, to enter the best universities, to have a hope of traveling abroad, reading many books and other materials that are simply not available in Armenian. So first and foremost, students come for that reason. But I have seen that as the time goes by and they start to get to know each other, they also start coming to see each other. Like in any class or school, some students are going through very difficult things in their lives. Some have problems at home, some are refugees from Syria, some cannot find reasonable work no matter how hard they try in this corrupt country. All of these weigh us down but when you come together and talk and laugh while learning and working towards a goal at the same time, it can be a great joy in someone's life.
At the same time, teaching has become a great joy for me. I will admit, in the beginning I was not very interested in teaching. For many years people have been telling me that I should become a teacher and I always said, "No, I want to be a lawyer." However, one thing that I have learned about myself since graduating is that I hate sitting at a desk all day. It makes me restless. And I hate to pass a work day only communicating with or through my computer. I like to stand up, be active, speak with people and develop personal relationships. After working in the office with my computer for many hours I become very tired by the end of the day and then I must go to teach a class at 7pm. My students say, "Aren't you tired?" I say, "Well, I was but, when I come here and see you and start to speak with you I get all my energy back." It is really true. I get energy from being around other people and I think that I am also inspired by the responsibility that I feel when I enter the room to make that 1.5 hour session a blessing.
With my youngest teenage girl students I also feel that part of being a teacher is setting a good example by wearing appropriate clothing, speaking and behaving in a way that is pleasing to God and showing them that you can be a cool person without doing all the things that society says you must do to be "cool".
I have also had the pleasure of learning about all the best and worst things about Armenia through my students' first-hand accounts and life stories. But they haven't only taught me about Armenia, they are also constantly teaching me how to teach, to be kinder, more patient, more responsible and more thankful.
I thank God for using me in this world, for everything that He is teaching me through all the people that I am blessed to develop relationships with and for all the unknown fruits these lessons will bear in the future.
