Yep that's me right now.
The evaluation from the owner of the company went well, and I got a pat on the back for the job I did teaching that class, even though that class is my trouble making class. It felt good to get through that and to get the praise that I did, but then they dropped the bombshell that my open classes were coming up and that is even more important than the evaluation.
An open class is when the parents come in to evaluate what you have taught their children. It’s usually the deciding factor in whether they will sign on with the school for another term and it’s the watermark for the trust you have to establish with the parents. As my manager told me, you have to establish trust with the parents before the company will ease any of the pressure they put on their teachers.
So I reached another obstacle to overcome. I know that life is one obstacle after another but these two particular obstacles come so close together that it really pushes me to my breaking point. The endless training sessions started back up with me at the forefront giving demo’s for the staff to perfect my style for my open classes.
Even though these demos are good for me and I know it makes me a better teacher. It’s hard to have your teaching picked apart and judged. You go into the demo confident and then after they tear it down you leave doubting yourself, but at the same time you have been given the tools to reassemble what they tore down into a better style. This is where pride has no place. If you have too much pride and refuse to have an open mind you can’t get better because you will only see your way of doing things.
The past few weeks have been a constant battle to keep from having a nervous breakdown and to keep my composure. The stress got so bad that eventually I did make myself sick and had to take a weekend to recoup from it. This might have been what saved me because had I not got sick I might have snapped under the pressure.
With obstacles there are usually three ways to attack them. You can go over, you can go around, or you can just try to smash through it head on. The latter being my usual approach at a problem. So far it really hasn’t failed me, but I am working on trying to improve my non-linear thinking because here in China smashing through things is usually frowned upon.
Once I conquer these open class obstacles though, I will be in the clear for a bit because I will have the summer course coming up and then I’ll get two weeks to relax on the summer holiday. In which I plan on doing a little travelling which you all will hear about. So far I have planned a day trip to Hong Kong and I want to go to Foshan.
