Thursday, August 23, 2012

Taking care of the caregiver

German stalled about six months ago. It stalled when we quit German school after Matthew's stay in the hospital.

It wasn't that German school was teaching the kids German, though it was teaching them to love German. It was that German school was keeping aflame my desire to speak German with the kids. Those weekly chats with native speakers gave me confidence and desire to keep going. Without them, the energy required to speak German when no one responded in German quickly faded.

Just as caregivers need care, teachers need themselves to be taught. I guess that is why we had so many inservice days growing up and why good professors all do independent research. Without it, you lose focus, direction, even your core knowledge.

That's why I am working through my own German education right now. It'll include a mix listening to German news online, reading novels, and a grammar book. Hopefully it'll include a "tutor" from the neighborhood once we move whom I can hire to tutor us all once or twice a week. I'll add my German Bible into our mix, and maybe even memorize some Psalms and parables in German.

Without care for herself, the caregiver will eventually run out of steam to care for others. My German has reached that point, but I'm not giving up.