Unit 1 - TESL and the T-Rex Tamer (or Who am I and Who Do I Want to Become?)

T-Rex? What?  Read on, I’m coming to that part! This first unit title in TESL seems eerily apt to me. Like many I’ve met in our TESL online course,  I am at a time of evolution in my work life. Although I started my career as a classroom teacher,
I left to become a pharmaceutical salesperson. Now I’m back to the classroom after a long sales career.

I’m a snowboard coach, track coach and teach a lot of math. One thing I see in my athletes and students is fear before an event or test. We discuss how the body reacts, how our primitive amygdala brain or “lizard brain” is designed to protect us from danger. However, it can interpret a challenge like a competition or test as “DANGER”!  So we work on identifying this state and use the thinking brain to drown out the lizard brain voice that says so seductively “Quit, stay safe and comfortable.”

The classroom as a teacher is a comfortable place for me, even after a long hiatus. I feel safe in there. The lizard brain is happy, quiet, purring. 

But now, I’m taking TESL online. I’m the student. I’ve had to focus on technology tutorials.  And, I gotta be honest, that lizard brain thinking did take over for a bit. My ancient amygdala tried to talk me out of the whole darn thing.  Technology-Rex is stalking me and there’s no place to hide.

Who I want to be is the person I coach my students and athletes to become. An explorer who embraces the struggle of learning something new, even though it’s feeling the hot breath of T-Rex on the back of your neck as you run as fast as you can scary.