Letting go of control….

It’s strange to think that my initial time here is almost up. The plan was that I would originally stay for longer than 3 months and then leave school for a month before the holidays. As in traditional African style, plans don’t stay the same and now due to various circumstances, we are going to take a 2 month school holiday for June and July and then we will return back to school at the beginning of August, making up the missed month by extending the school day into the afternoon. This means I will be returning to the UK in less than 2 weeks-it’s crazy to think that’s quite soon and I’m glad that my goodbyes won’t be an permanent, but only temporary.

School has been slightly crazy these last two weeks. I’m now responsible for 2 classes, and the idea is that I split my time between teaching the 2, with teaching assistants teaching them the rest of the time. At the moment, I seem to have spent most of my time in class 3, and almost abandoning class 2, apart from doing the planning. This week I intend to spend more time in class 2 teaching them. I also have to learn to let go of control if things are not done in the way that I would have wanted them to be done. For me that’s hard. I always knew that I was a control freak, but I’m realising just how much I am. This is especially true at lunchtime. It was becoming the case that I was doing everything at lunchtime and nobody else did anything. So the other day I was told that I was not allowed to do anything and leave it to the others. It took all my willpower to stay where I was sitting and not go and get involved or go and tell the others what to do. When they asked me questions, I was not allowed to give them an answer, and had to tell them to do what they thought. Man, it was hard! Maybe in this, I’m learning that I need to let go of having control and let others do things their way sometimes.

When something comes to an end, it’s always good to look back on what you have learnt. I don’t know if there’s been some major life revelation whilst I’ve been away, but also there is a feeling that my time in Tanzania is not coming to an end, but merely beginning. I guess I’ve learnt that I often rely far too much on other people and that my worth is not in what other people think of me, but my true worth is in my identity in God. I still find that hard and often look down on myself when I mess up. This is also a letting go of control thing and learning that I need to let go of what I can’t control. Also what has happened in the past has happened. Whether it be for good or for bad, every circumstance is used to mould who we are and our lives. I now feel that I can look back on this last year, and beyond and realise that my God is so much bigger than me, and all the stuff that happened, happened for a reason. There is still a long way to go, but I beginning to learn how to handle and deal with the hurt that I felt during that time. My time here has been, and will continue to be, the beginnings of a healing process in which I am beginning to relearn skills that I began to believe I didn’t have/had lost.

Even though it is my time in Tanzania that is coming to an end, it is becoming more and more real to me that it is my time in Canterbury that is coming to a more significant end. Leaving the UK was hard, but I know that in returning it will probably be harder, knowing that goodbyes will be more meaningful and in leaving Canterbury for as long as I am here, at least. Being here has made me think more about ‘home’. What is home, and what makes home? For me, home used to be about the place, where I felt settled and comfortable. I think there still is an element in that, but in realising that I will be moving away from the comfortable and normal, I’m realising that home for me now is about relationships. My ultimate home isn’t on this earth; it’s in heaven, but for the time being I need to make this my home.

I know that I will settle in Kigoma, but it’s different. I don’t know if it is home like home is in the UK. Most people now know that I call Canterbury home (sorry Mum and Dad!), but the realisation that I will very soon be packing up and leaving that home is setting in. Grantham will always be home as well for me, but in a different way. Home there is where my family is, and where I grew up. Canterbury is where I think I did most of my growing up. I learnt what it means to truly be accepted as part of a group of friends and where I grew in my faith. I used to say that Grantham was where my past was, Canterbury was my present. I’m now realising that Canterbury is also going to be my past. Canterbury has been such a significant part of my life, and I imagine will continue to be so. It’s just strange to think that I am now the one that is moving on, after I’ve found it so hard every time it has been other people. It’s so easy to hold onto the past. Something that I always seem to do, and know that I probably shouldn’t do quite as much as I do. The past is important, it shapes us into who we are in the present and who we will be in the future. However, it is also just as important to look to the future without holding onto the past, I’m learning there is an excitement in not knowing what’s around the corner (even though this means not having control!).

 

 

You can look back, but don’t stare…

It’s funny how life turns out. A year ago I wanted to leave teaching for good. I felt completely useless and had given up. It was almost as if instead of thinking that I was giving up on teaching, but that it had given up on me.

One year later, I am in Tanzania, teaching, and now having made a decision to return to teach here, for as long as my time here is right and I feel that God wants me here. Not only am I teaching again, but I also have responsibility within the school, and I am looked to as the one who is in charge. I’ve almost been given the label ‘deputy head’, with Andy as the head. Today we had a staff training day in order to help the other teachers think how to deliver their lessons in a much more engaging way for the children, rather than stand at the front and have the children copy from the board or a textbook, as is standard African practice.

Today I had to explain why we use a learning objective, the benefits of success criteria in order to assess and plan a lesson and how as a teacher, to take a step back and allow the children to think for themselves. We did a practical lesson about levers, in order for the others to see how to get the children involved and to encourage them to put themselves in the children’s shoes. At one point, I was about to say something in order to guide them how to make a pivot. I had to physically stop myself from talking and took a step back without realising. This demonstrated the point that we were trying to make-that sometimes you need to take a step back and allow the children to think for themselves.

I’m learning this in other areas of my life here too. Sometimes you have to take a step back in order to be able to think about circumstances and different areas of your life. This has reminded me of a Take That song (8 Letters) in which I often find a line come into my head ‘You can look back but don’t stare.’  I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently and was also reminded of Genesis 19:26, where Lots wife looked back at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and became ‘a pillar of salt’. When you look back at the past and the hurt, it is important not to dwell on it (stare). By staring, it allows time to focus on the hurt and the pain that it caused. The past has been done-I can’t change that. It has caused me hurt and pain, and I’m not saying that it was anybodies fault. There was a mixture of reasons why it has happened, and maybe without all that hurt-actually not maybe, just without all that hurt, it is unlikely that I would be here at all. Being in Tanzania and in a different context has made me realise the depth to the pain that has been caused, but in that, there is a depth to healing too. I am beginning to learn that actually I can do this, and I can be a teacher, where the children are more important than the level they achieve at the end of term, or how many sublevels progress have been made. Don’t get me wrong-those things are important, but I always felt that they hindered the real reason I became a teacher-to give them love and care in an environment where they can feel safe. I was told the other day that I don’t teach children, I grow them. At first I was fully sure what this meant and thought, ‘no-I should teach children.’ After thinking about it though, I learnt that this meant that the full wellbeing of the children is much more important that just teaching them to read and write. Then I realised that actually this is why I became a teacher-to get alongside children and care for their whole self, not just academically.

Like a gardener plants his seeds and waters them, nurtures them and supports them until they are ready to be harvested, this is surely what being a teacher should be all about. Without the hurt and the pain that I felt last year and all the difficult stuff I went through, I would probably still be staring at the past and feeling like I need to keep up with everybody else. I always thought that I had to find the answer myself to why I was such a failure in my job. Now, I’m SLOWLY learning that it was just one thing after another. The lesson was so deafening, because that is the way that it had to be in order for me to listen.

 

We were once the answer and then you discover

You were actually just one thing after another

and what was the question and why was the lesson so deafening?

 

This is all that matters now

And that was all that happened anyhow

You can look back but don’t stare