Taking My Own Advice

There's a mantra that I use in every class I teach. Actually, I seem to use it a lot outside of class as well. It's something I believe that all people should try to do. Yet when I look at the things I do myself, I find that I'm often forgetting to take my own advice. The mantra?

"Don't worry." ki ni shinai de

When we're playing a game (elementary) or doing an activity (junior high) in class, I try to tell the kids over and over, "Don't worry about making mistakes. If you talk and make a mistake, I'll correct you. If you write and make a mistake, I'll help revise it. But if you never say or write anything in the first place, I'll never know what you're thinking." I try to use myself as an example. I remind them that I make mistakes in Japanese all the time, sometimes embarrassingly so. But I still speak it. I'd have a very hard time otherwise.

Outside of the classroom, in a more adult setting, I often hear myself uttering "don't worry" to friends. Perhaps they're just having a shitty day, or something's going down at work that's ticking them off, or maybe they're having issues with another person, or even themselves. And it's really easy, sometimes, to get into a spiral of increasing desperation. I've done it many times. Something goes a little wrong, I start to think of how much worse it can get, and while it hardly ever turns out that way, having put myself in that negative frame of mind, I can't get out of my train-wreck thought process so easily.

So why not take my own advice? Don't worry.

Two nights ago, I was a little low because I was thinking about Thursday's four elementary lessons, a few of which I felt a little under prepared for (my own fault). So I started to worry. What if they don't go well? What if the kids are in bad moods or not feeling energetic? What if they turn into a gang of little angry people, and kancho me to death?

Turns out, everything is fine. The kids are happy enough just to see me walk into the room, because they know it's going to be an interesting and fun 45 minutes.

Today was also a great example. After getting an awesome activity recommendation from Sam last night, I used it in today's 6th grade class. It was a hit! It's called "Bilingual Challenge." The goal is to make it around the circle, clapping a rhythm (think Queen's "We Are the Champions"), chanting things like numbers, weekdays, or months (something sequential), alternating between English and Japanese. So the first kid might say, "ichi," and the second kid has to say, "two," and so on. The kids were into it and even when mistakes happened and we had to start the chant over, they were laughing about it. There was no pressure; it was all in good fun. And now that they know it, we're going to try "months" on my next visit in a couple weeks.

So I'm deciding to take a little more of my own uttered advice and to listen to a more experienced (and did I mention amazing?) teacher.

I'm not going to worry.