I’ve recently started a new online teaching job teaching kids. I’m really enjoying it and it’s fun to be back with the little people. I’m still keeping the other adult job as well as a back up but this one is a lot more fun. I get to pull out all of Nicky’s toys and my alphabet flashcards and be a children’s teacher again.
I like this company because it has a good support system, but one unexpected thing I am finding is that classes sometimes change at the last minute. One day I prepared the day’s lessons and the first four were totally changed the next day! It’s not a train smash because as a good teacher you need to think on your feet and go with it: the lesson is there and it is possible to wing it. It’s just that for some of the lessons you can better prepare by collecting pictures of vocabulary or even actual props.
One time I was preparing a lesson about rockets and I found it very interesting. It was all about Elon Musk’s Falcon 9 rocket and I took great care to collect these pictures of how the Dragon part detaches from the rocket so as to explain the story. I even had some pics of his electric cars too. Elon Musk wants to save by using reusable rockets and there was a part about how a normal rocket boosters and fuel tank fall off and how this is a bit of a waste of money and time to go and fetch them when they drop off in the ocean. Now Nicky actually has this rocket in lego (with boosters and fuel tank) so I was quite chuffed to get this all lined up to explain it. (Although his rocket is in pieces I was able to resurrect the fuel tank and boosters)
So you can already guess what happened the next day. I login and discover the kid has changed the lesson. Later I ask her about it but she says it was the wrong level for her. And now we have a lesson on vultures. Oh well…
How often does this happen in life? We are expecting one thing and another turns up. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not very good with change. I fight it quite a bit. Until I realise there’s not much I can do but go with the new plans.
Maybe God thinks we need a different level to what we were expecting? A more challenging one? Or just something where we can learn something?
So in any case I start to read this story about the vulture with this kid. And it turns out to be a story I needed to hear.
It’s actually a story about death. The mother vulture says to her child that she wants to show her something beautiful. She shows the young vulture a gemsbok that dies.
“This isn’t beautiful,” said the young vulture to his mother. “It’s horrible!”
“I know,” said his mother. “Death is very difficult and very sad. But it is also beautiful.
“Just wait,” said his mother. “We will come back here soon and you will see.”
The story continues and shows how nature takes over. How they come back to bones and how tiny plants grow and blossom in between. Weaver birds pick leaves to build nests. Bees collect pollen from the flowers. A spider weaves its web between the antlers of the dead creature. Two weeks later a young gemsbok is nibbling the at the shoots.
“Well?” said the vulture’s mother. “Look at the life one buck has given. He has given a spider a home and weavers a nest, fed bees and butterflies, sheltered a songololo and helped the next generation of buck grow strong.”
“It is not just our bodies we leave behind when we die,” said the mother vulture. “We also leave our lessons and our love and our memories.”
“We leave them in our children and in our family and friends. You are already my green patch on Earth, Little Vulture, and you will be forever.”
I was actually very emotional reading this story and I told my student I was so glad that she had changed it.
Brett has left an imprint in my life in a million ways and also he has left his mark on Nicky. Nicky still plays with all those toys that he gave him, including that rocket, which was his last birthday present to his son before he had the stroke. Nicky is living out that legacy of fun and play when he scoots those hot wheels cars all over the floor upstairs and slides them on the tracks of that ultimate garage his dad gave him.
That’s why I think it’s important to keep up some of our traditions that we had like going to a restaurant so Nicky can play in the play area. This has initially been a hard thing for me to do by myself but now I suck it up and take a book. Last year I even took my computer when I was very busy with the TEFL course.
It doesn’t help to be angry with the change in plans. It’s better to be grateful for what I have. I have so much in terms of furniture and now even his computer that I am busy typing away on – these are all things that he has left me. But more than that I am grateful for just having that time with him and the impact he had on my life. That’s why it was so hard when he died but I do know he is watching over us and cheering us on in this new life.
As for Nicky he is definitely my green patch in all this dry land. He brings me so much joy and all of this would have been so much harder to bear without him.
I hope I can continue to bring the sense of fun and joy his father brought him too.
The story is taken from Talk 915’s MG-G4 Pre-Master Unit 10 Lesson 3
Life’s lessons and gifts are all around us. Thanks for sharing. Of course I had to shed a few tears!
Great to hear it is going well, Heather!