I have just returned home from a fairly hectic but wonderful day. One of my ‘Big Fun Scary’ challenges for myself this year was to apply myself to my (many, many hours of) tutoring with renewed dedication, commitment, and vigour and as a part of this deal, I fought off the temptation of laziness and especially went into campus today for a voluntary tutor training session. However, with a predetermined daily goal of research to accomplish each day, I had to fulfil that goal by getting out of bed up earlier. After all that, I’m so happy I did because I really got a lot out of the training session.
We had a super intimate group of 4 tutors and unbeknownst to me, I crashed the party of all novice tutors, and our facilitator helped me feel valued by allowing me to share my experiences with the rest of the group. The others were so kind and gracious and gave me some great feedback about the usefulness of my suggestions. It’s ironic that as a research rabbit who specialises in charismatic leadership, I’m incredibly uncomfortable with leadership roles and become extremely flustered when I’m the centre of attention. That’s something I’d really like to improve on because being a good leader makes me an even better tutor. And I have seen again and again that when one steps down from a mantle of leadership, they’re more often than not cheerfully usurped by a keener spirit who is less qualified!
In half an hour, I will be off with The Cat to the home of three very good friends, something I have looked forward to since they returned from an astonishing two-month trip around South East Asia. Their company is always full of good humour and profound insights. I can’t wait!
I understand how you feel. I hate leadership position, yet when it comes to being a teacher/mentor, I don’t mind since I can boss the kids around, haha.
. . . It’s just that I refuse to be in the management leadership position. While I have no qualms of bossing kids around (to an extent, of course), I do have problems trying to be a leader amongst adults. Especially if the employees are older than me. As someone who was raised to respect elders (Confucian-influenced mentality!), it’s incredibly difficult for me to “order” around older people.
When it comes to doing tasks and stuff, I do not like to delegate . . . I’m too much of a follower to do that.
But it’s fun bossing kids around! XD
By: Tara on 5 March 2010
at 6:41pm