Blog # 7 Mushfaking

I'm sure many of us has had to mushfake at one or another. Mushfaking, in this contexts, basically means to fake it until we make it. We are not born with a set of skills necessary to overcome this ever evolving community. We have to learn and adapt to our surrounding if we wish to survive. This description may seem a bit exaggerated but its true.

If you have read one of by previous blog post before then  you would know that I work for a YMCA in the county of San Diego. But when started working there it wasn't as easy as how my employer made it seem.

Little over a year ago I started working at the YMCA. Me, coming from the south bay I had no idea what to expect from the kids that I was going to take care of. Moving along, I was place a school close to Ocean Beach where the majority of the students spoke English. This was my surprise because I can speak English and Spanish fluently but to come into a community that only speaks only one was unexpected. So the entire time I was there I only spoke English and nothing more which was a big culture chock from my end and also to my coworkers who couldn't speak the language as well. Now that was my first change to my identity the next was a lot harder to overcome.

Before even starting working, my supervisor at the time asked me what grade I wanted to take care of. In my mind, I had no idea what grade was better all I asked is to be not placed with a kindergarten group for I had no experience whats soever in that age group because most my experience came from coaching high school students. But as luck would have it, I ended up in the kindergarten group anyways, and if you know kids of ages 5 and 6 how they can be then this next piece will be refresher of that.

In a total of about 45 kindergartners, three staff members including myself we had to learn and adapt to not only take care of these kids but also getting them to have fun while at the same time teaching them how to act  by respecting, taking responsibility, and being honest toward one another. And me coming from coaching high school students to taking care of kinders was a major game changer. I had to not learn to speak at a tone that a child will but also interact and plan games for the kids that was suitable for their age because I couldn't just ask a kinder to have fun and listen to rules at the same time. Kinders don't know how to act among other people besides their parents. So it was the job of not only the teachers to show them how to act in school but also us, their YMCA, that had the duty to teach these beginners right from wrong when their parents aren't their. Sure I had that one kid that didn't want to cooperate but with enough one on one conversations and at times talking to their parents about their kids' dilemma change was made for the better.

And though I had a hard time adjusting (mushfaking), I eventually got the hang of it to the point kids would call me their favorite staff. That in itself was a great accomplishment in my journey to redefine myself to better the work I was doing.