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Dear TEFL Grads,
Once again, I have the pleasure of wishing each of you and your loved ones health, happiness and countless blessings in the holiday season.
For the TEFL Certificate Program, this has been a year of dramatic growth. As you may know, we design our programs to serve our clients and, to the extent possible, the community at large. When we began the TEFL Certificate Program nearly ten years ago, our only competitor in Boston trained teachers without the benefit of foreign students; trainees practiced on each other. From the beginning, The Boston Language Institute offered free English classes through our TEFL Certificate Program. For years, we were mostly only able to recruit Russian students. In the past year and a half, however, we have successfully expanded our outreach to the Chinese and Hispanic communities. Our free English classes now serve both our program and a more diverse community of English learners in need. As the TEFL Certificate Program itself has grown by nearly 40% in the past two years, we are now able to make an even greater contribution to the community at large.
As many people are struggling in these challenging times, I would like to share with you a formula for overcoming challenge that I have found effective in my personal and professional lives. When challenge confronts you, first look inside yourself and thank God for the blessing of it. No matter how painful the challenge, no matter how great the difficulty in forming the words, express your gratitude…then watch what happens to your troubles when you live in this consciousness. If you are going through a difficult time, take a few seconds at least once a day to look within and give thanks for the blessing.
We are all souls who come to this earth for a time and a purpose. Ideally, before our time is complete, we have served our purpose. This past August, Senator Ted Kennedy completed his time on earth and, I believe, his purpose. The Boston Globe editorialized after his passing that, despite great accomplishments, he was not a great man. I believe they missed the point. Everyone has flaws; Teddy rose to overcome his and contribute to the lives of millions. He became a great man because he overcame great challenges and achieved great things.
We all face challenges in life; not all of us overcome them. Teddy seems to have overcome his and left a better world in the process. In this season of rejoicing and reflection, let us each give thanks for our challenges and pray that we, too, may learn the lessons our challenges are meant to teach us, thus removing the need for them. Each of us holds the light of God within and therefore the potential for greatness, no matter how large or small the stage we walk on. To quote Yogi Bhajan, “It is not the life we lead that matters, but the courage we bring to it.” And that is the courage to face our challenges with gratitude as children of the same Creator.
I am grateful to each of you for ten years of memories of our TEFL Certificate Program; I am thankful for the ever increasing stature and renown of the program itself. I eagerly anticipate the years to come and invite each of you to stay in touch.
God bless you.
Siri Karm Singh Khalsa
President
(sirikarm@bostonlanguage.com)
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