Last Monday was the half way point for my time here in India. I cannot believe that I have already been here more than two months and have less than two months to go. Being in India has stopped feeling like a vacation and has started to feel like home. It is finally setting in that this is where I live.
While there are things about India that I find frustrating or exhausting, as a whole this has been an amazing experience. I am learning so much about myself as a person and an educator. I am learning how to do more with less and ways to be creative with my resources. I have revised my idea of what it means to be culturally sensitive and am incorporating that into my teaching style, I believe for the best. I am also being forced to recognize my perspective as only one of many, and not always the best or most appropriate for the situation.
In my time here I have been exposed to a truly global community, full of amazingly talented people from all over the world who talk casually about the myriad places they have lived and languages they speak. I am learning that for this community, taking a job in Tanzania is as natural as taking a job in Frenchtown, MT. I have also learned what it is to be the minority. This has its positive and negative facets.
I hope you will forgive this anomalous post because I wanted to give you all a peek into how much living abroad has opened my eyes to other ways of seeing the world. I thought that living in India would teach me about other cultures and religions. I even anticipated the staggering poverty. What I didn't realize was how much working in an international school would impact my experience as a whole. The lessons I have learned and the experiences I have had so far have been staggering. I can only guess what the next two months will be like.
While there are things about India that I find frustrating or exhausting, as a whole this has been an amazing experience. I am learning so much about myself as a person and an educator. I am learning how to do more with less and ways to be creative with my resources. I have revised my idea of what it means to be culturally sensitive and am incorporating that into my teaching style, I believe for the best. I am also being forced to recognize my perspective as only one of many, and not always the best or most appropriate for the situation.
In my time here I have been exposed to a truly global community, full of amazingly talented people from all over the world who talk casually about the myriad places they have lived and languages they speak. I am learning that for this community, taking a job in Tanzania is as natural as taking a job in Frenchtown, MT. I have also learned what it is to be the minority. This has its positive and negative facets.
I hope you will forgive this anomalous post because I wanted to give you all a peek into how much living abroad has opened my eyes to other ways of seeing the world. I thought that living in India would teach me about other cultures and religions. I even anticipated the staggering poverty. What I didn't realize was how much working in an international school would impact my experience as a whole. The lessons I have learned and the experiences I have had so far have been staggering. I can only guess what the next two months will be like.
No comments:
Post a Comment