I used to think that one of the reasons TPRS was so difficult for me was that I didn’t have the energy for it. It just seemed to require so much effort to get a story going. Surely there must be an easier way to teach!
Now I realize that it wasn’t about requiring a lot of energy – it was that my own energy was blocked. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be good enough at it. I didn’t know how to let the energy just flow through me. I didn’t know how to just let the comprehensible input go where it wanted and see what developed in the sacred space of co-creation with my students.
Now, after a lot of practice in the method (and a lot of waking up at night either freaked out by something or moved by a new idea), I am able to trust myself in the moments of co-creation of the CI with my kids. It doesn’t require me to expend a lot of energy at all. The energy expenditure is minimal and the bell marking the end of class always seems to surprise me.
The other way, blocking all that energy, speaking all of that English in a kind of defensive way, was much more exhausting than what I am doing now. I used to be in the middle of a class (this was before I met my teacher Susan Gross ten years ago) and wonder how I was going to make it to the end of class.
Related blog entries:
https://benslavic.com/blog/?p=6456
https://benslavic.com/blog/?p=5664
https://benslavic.com/blog/?p=6379
https://benslavic.com/blog/?p=5394
https://benslavic.com/blog/?p=4567
https://benslavic.com/blog/wp-admin/post.php?post=6624&action=edit