Getting Better at Teaching
Things are going well here in Korea. I am getting better at teaching Co-Counseling and even surprising myself with how well I’m doing it. Over the past two eight-week cycles, we lost one guy. I was disappointed, because he’d made great strides and seemed to understand the theory. Also, he is bilingual and was able to help a lot with translating. Partly, I think, it got hard for me to counsel him. But, given that it was the best I could do at the time, I’m going with the direction that it’s fine that he decided to stop. He has the tools, and I think he might be back.
That leaves me with two new native Korean students. They’re both doing great. I spent the last two classes talking about early sexual memories. It’s actually the first time I’ve ever taught about this, so I was a bit nervous and concerned as to how they’d receive it. To my delight, they were quite excited about and hungry for this information. I realized that even with a topic as difficult as early sexual memories, if I’ve set up a good environment in which people can think about things, they want to hear this information. This realization has made me more confident as an RC fundamentals teacher. Slowly, the feeling of dread that has come before each class is beginning to dissipate. This is great progress.
In a little less than two weeks, I’ll be giving an “each one bring one” introductory lecture about RC. I’ve enlisted my class to participate. I wanted the class to grow a bit bigger and thought I’d use the lecture as an opportunity for my class to think with me about how to build RC in Korea. I also thought it would be good practice in communicating about Co-Counseling. So far, we’re expecting at least four new people.
There continues to be a struggle around language. Have other folks tried to teach Co-Counseling in English to a population whose first language is not English? I’d like to know what you’ve figured out. Of course, we are working toward Co-Counseling in Korea being taught in Korean by a native Korean, but until we get there, I would welcome strategies people have found to be successful.
Molly HyoJung Bidol
Seoul, Korea