What You See is not Always What You Get

This semester is only 4 weeks old, but it is shaping up to be one of the best ones that I have had as a teacher. I am teaching classes that I am well versed in how to teach, and my students are all highly engaged and working hard at trying to do really good work. Yesterday afternoon was sunny and warm. Not warm enough to be riding my bike yet (that will probably be 4 weeks from now), but warm enough to go on a ~20-kilometer hike to the neighboring city of Yangpyeong. Yangpyeong is considerably bigger that the town that I currently reside in, and there are more parks and recreational opportunities there. As I was heading back towards the train station to catch the subway home, I saw a statue that made me do a double take. It was one of those cutesy Asian mascots that many companies here in Korea (and Japan) use. However, upon looking at it, it appeared to be extending the middle finger at everyone driving or walking past. This is especially ironic given that it was a gas station and the cost of gasoline is exorbitant here in South Korea.

Upon closer examination (and from the side angle), it turns out that the statue is giving a thumbs-up, rather than trying to tell passers-by off. My initial assumption was completely wrong. This started to make me think: how many times do I look at people and just make assumptions about them, without stopping to take a closer look at who they are? Just as significant: What are the impressions that people have of me, based on my actions? A few years ago, I had a student that we will name 'Tim' (not his real name). Tim was not my favorite student, and he was in an ESL class that I was teaching at the time. His English level was extremely low, and he could not explain his thoughts and ideas to me the teacher well. When he became frustrated, he would burst out in fits of anger and mistrust. One incident stands out in my mind when he was trying to explain a problem in class, and could not explain the problem well in English, and ended up swearing at me. It was not the first time I have been sworn at, and probably not the last time, but in my mind, I had labeled this child as a person who was going to fail in life. The next year, he was assigned to take 2 classes from me. I bluntly told the principal that I was not looking forward to having Tim in my class again, as he was not a good student. However, that semester I witnessed how my assumptions were wrong. Tim ended up being the model student. He still had a lot of difficulties expressing his ideas in English, but he was always coming to me or other teachers to ask for help and he has not given up trying to do his best. This reminds me of a passage from the Bible where Samuel is trying to pick out the best son of Jesse to anoint as king (1 Samuel 16). However, the son that Samuel picked was not the son that God had picked out. God explained that while Samuel (and by extension all humans) looked at the outward appearance, God looked at the heart. The same problem applies to all of humanity. We look at the problems in our own lives and come up with plans to fix these problems based on our presumptions of other people, much of which will turn out to be incorrect. No one is perfect, so anyone that you have a relationship with, whether it is a friend, family member, or co-worker, is going to let you down time and time again. But rather than be cynical about it, and not trust other people, we are commanded to forgive 'seven times seventy times', and still care and love each other. It is not only that I misjudge other people; people get the wrong impression from me all the time. Two summers ago, my father had a massive stroke. It was about 6:30 at night when my mother sent me a message. She had been up all night at the hospital with Dad. She was going through so much that morning, she only had time to send me a short note. Being overseas, I had no family to console with, so I went to the next best thing: the pastor for the local church. However, he had no idea why I came to his office and had an instant wrong impression. When I knocked on his office, the first words out of his mouth were "I'm busy right now, I have to finish planning for prayer meeting tonight". I just kinda blurted out my problem in a sentence or two, and he instantly found ~20 minutes to talk with me. I do have to think though; have people ever come to me wanting to talk, only to be turned away from me due to me being too busy for them? To everyone who would be a follower of God, he gave several commands: to go feed the hungry, give comfort to those who mourn, clothe those who are naked, to teach everyone about Jesus, and to make disciples for God from every nation. However, if people gather the wrong impression of you, and think they see you giving a one-finger salute instead of the thumbs-up that you meant to give, that can cripple your ability to witness or make a good impression.

#SouthKorea