I can see that my entire career as a teacher was devoted to trying to be able to find ways to teach that lift children up, to find some way to teach that brings light into their eyes, some way, any way, to find a way to chase away the darkness that characterized most of their looks my way during class, back in the days before the Invisibles.
The good thing is that I never thought that the darkness in their eyes was due to my bad teaching. I knew that if I could just find the right formula, the right system, I could reach them. I am glad that TPRS works so well for so many, but it didn’t work for me and I needed more. It was merely a stepping stone.
It wasn’t just the right system to bring the language gains that I needed. I didn’t choose this gig merely to get kids who really didn’t care that much to be good at languages. Language teaching to some extent was just a cover for that deeper work. My search for what is good and fun extended far beyond trying to bring language gains and happiness to kids, but, at the end of each day, I was really doing it to make myself whole.
There are worse jobs to try to do that in.