Tough Week for Teachers... Reach for Rilke...

There was a tough week. I was ill and wasn't teaching my full time-table as a result. My throat felt like it had been sandpapered, my head was groggy and I wasn't sleeping well. I could do a lesson or two but then I got knackered and my voice was kaput. Sometimes I felt like a soft westerner. Circumstances conspire to make the Bhutanese hardier than us western folk. Some teenage boys from the country have the muscles of twenty-five year old labourers, their bodies over-toughened by work. The Bhutanese immune systems are probably more effective than ours simply because their lives are more closely allied with the natural environment; they work within it instead of against it like we so often do in the West.

I watched 'Babies' recently, a 2010 documentary film comparing the early development of 4 babies from around the world (Japan, US, Mongolia, Namibia). I'm sure the director had no intention of being partisan at the outset, but you can't blame him for drifting that way by the end. The Namibian and Mongolian boys were hunting lions by the age of two! I'm exaggerating, but we've clearly developed some madness of habits in 'The West' (massive generalisation). Golden-age thinking tends to be simple and crass, but I'm sure we could potentially relearn some things we've forgotten if we allow ourselves to look 'backwards' once in a while. In this case, I guess the point is it's better for children to eat soil instead of licking bleach. But here in Bhutan, in a country that's has taken its development at a leisurely and mindful pace until just recently, there's plenty we can learn. GNH. 


GNH is a process, a middle path to tread for individuals and governments alike, a path of mindfulness and balance. Nebulous at times, but startlingly simple at its foundation; progress with values. Kindness before self-interest. Compassion before greed. Human wealth before capital wealth. Joy in life - happiness before all other things as a goal to strive for. The self-proclaimed responsibility of the government is to provide the fertile ground for its people to achieve this. How refreshing. But unless you live in a rose garden, it can't be all rosy all the time. People are people and everywhere has its ups and downs and differences.    

Some of these differences were difficult to grapple with in the first few months. I had my frustrations. We all did. Rare occasions, like when a teacher refuse to teach a class because some kids were missing because of a big sports meet, but there's still more than thirty left! I got a but huffy and went and taught in my free period, despite only having a few precious frees. I work harder here than any place anywhere before, but I don't mind because the rewards are so high and I enjoy having so many opportunities. So far I've done all the timetabling, initiated school-wide standardised assessment with automated intervention strategies (hah! sounds brutal, but I assure you it was deemed helpful). I'm enjoying being Head of Department and coaching teachers, organising science exhibitions and completely redecorating the science labs to make them exciting spaces to be in. It's generally great... where was I... not all rosy... I'm having difficulty sticking to this track...

Other foreign teachers have had a tougher time than I. I'm fortunate to have a very active, involved and hard-working Principal who has high ambitions for this fledgeling school and gets involved when he needs to, leading by example. But imagine a handful of classes with no teachers, scraps occurring between 8 year olds, kids with fever wanting to go home and no staff members anywhere except you, a foreign contract teacher with a disproportionate workload, good intentions and a limited supply of energy to draw from! The teachers might be there somewhere, in the staffroom relaxing perhaps or maybe even preparing work – but not dealing with the children. I don't quite understand how this can happen. It doesn't dominate, but I have heard about it from every other teacher, so it does exist as part of a culture. 

Allow your judgements their own quiet, undisturbed development, which like all progress must come from deep within you and cannot be forced or hastened by anything.

In other words... breathe people... take your time! There's much we still do not know.

Loneliness is an issue that has become real for some of the teachers out here. I'm in a different situation again. For one thing, I'm pretty good at solitude because I have a certain reverence for it. It's a place of deep thought, a place of quite stillness, the place where the ideas come from, where judgements are slowly worked through and where inspiration flashes its oft-dim bulb. I cherish it, though I'm keenly aware that too much of it can make you go a bit doolahlee.

To retreat into oneself and meet nobody for hours on end—that is what one must be able to attain. To be alone, as one was alone as a child, when the grown-ups walked about involved in things which seemed great and important.

Of course, they never were that important, so love your solitude, and bear the pain which it causes you with euphonious lament.

I also have people around me who no longer seem that different to me most of the time. I guess I've normalised somewhat. Sure, I still sit around the Bukari of a night and have no idea what is being talked about for chunks of time. Last night I tried really hard in vain to catch familiar words as they whistled around me. When I asked my friend Amber what was being talked about, he  told me he had no idea - everyone was speaking Scharshop (sp.), the language of the East. This is not uncommon. In my Year 9 class yesterday, struggling against a critical mass of misunderstanding, I invited the high achievers up to the board to explain to the class why Group 1 elements bonds with those of Group 7. I insisted the first one do it in Dzongkha, the second in Scharchop, the third in Hindi and the fourth in Nepali. Chemistry in 5 languages. I think they all understood in the end, and we had lots of fun getting there! 

Erm... loneliness... yes. I'm fine, though I miss those I love and would like to haul them over here and keep them for a few weeks. But other foreign teachers are way off in the back of beyond with hardly any English-speaking people around them. They meet with generosity and warmth, but real connection is difficult to forge. They can't express themselves freely. There's no easy flow to their banter. Patience is needed in abundance.  So, to you guys out there to whom this refers... my far-flung friends in the wildernesses of Bhutan... take consolation from Rilke, as promised (to a couple of you on the phone)...

We know little, but that we must attach ourselves to what is difficult is a certainty that never deserts us. It is good to be lonely, for loneliness is difficult. The fact that a thing is difficult must be for us the more reason for doing it.

Daily I learn through my sufferings [to which I am grateful] that patience is everything.

One of my friends joked that the next 9 months will be like giving birth to a baby called patience. I love a bit of melodrama, but I guess we need to cultivate patience for the tolerance of other ways of being and doing, even if we might feel that there are rational or even moral reasons to behave differently. And of course we need patience for our own lack of understanding - patience with ourselves. Perhaps then, something new and unknown will enter into us... 

If it were possible for us to see a little further than our knowledge can reach, to see out a little farther over the outworks of our surmising, we should perhaps bear our griefs with greater confidence than our joys. For they are the moments when something new, something unknown enters into us.

All quotes thanks to this very clever inspirer of all things artistic and spiritual:

I live my life in widening circles

that reach out across the world.

I may not complete this last one

but I give myself to it.

I circle around the primordial tower.

I've been circling for thousands of years

and I still don't know; am I a falcon,

a storm, or a great song?

René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke 

or... Rainer Maria Rilke

You, darkness, of whom I am born -

I love you more than the flame

that limits the world

to the circles it illumines

and excludes all the rest.