I've had some Trauma, Did things I didn't wanna

The title of this essay quoted the last line of this song

 

Summary by GPT-3.5

1. The author participated in a tennis tournament that had a different atmosphere compared to their previous experiences.
2. Their college tennis club focused on winning and competitiveness, leading to a negative experience and pressure to perform.
3. After starting to play tennis again in America, the author found a more supportive and constructive environment, which made them reflect on the importance of social and emotional learning (SEL) and the need for intentional SEL education to empower individuals to make their own choices.

 

Nervous. I don't know why. Even though it was just a small tournament that is not important at all in my life, playing a tournament made me nervous. Now that I finished my first tournament, I became to understand it might be because of a different culture running around me. The comments from my friends and how they treat each other were not as same as I experienced in my old days.

I learned tennis in college. My college club taught me tennis in a way to excel in others. Winning is the ultimate goal of learning and playing tennis. There always existed pressure to do better. Comparing each other was a basic rule of learning. In tournaments, incompetent players were sometimes excluded from some games because the team prioritized winning over giving more opportunities. Members made fun of others' plays when they made mistakes. It went too far to the point of making a nickname by their mistake.

I was not happy or even enjoyed tennis at that time. I thought I have to survive in the environment. I had to crunch my teeth and go through situations in a way that I don't have in mind. Competitiveness should be more evident in my play and sarcasm was prevail around us. Even though I was being fooled by others, I had to let them go. I made too many mistakes, seized by thoughts that I just want to win and don't want to make mistakes. This forced me to behave more competitively by giving pressure on my opponents. Although it would be a lie that I dislike all my tennis life in college, it was clear that it wasn't the way I wanted to. In the end, I stopped playing tennis after I graduated.

Now that I started to play tennis again in America, old memories came up to my mind from time to time. My experiences were so surprising that nobody didn't make harsh comments about my playing or didn't want to give pressure me to win. They were always supportive and constructive feedback for the future. Tennis was not a super competitive venue to make and overcome difficulties. Even though I still want to win games and be competitive, it doesn't mean I am taking a win-at-all-cost perspective. When I understand that this is a safe place, I was able to do better than ever.

Social and emotional learning is a big issue in America for the last decade. A number of research papers proved that SEL helps people aware self and others, by taking better-informed choices that align with their personality. The most crucial and imperative tenet of SEL is building an agentic environment for all students. In SEL, people should be treated as people, not just subjects of education or a certain program. Instead of putting people in a culture that others want them to do, SEL wants to give them chances to understand who they are, how to control their behavior, how others feel, how to communicate properly, and how to make responsible decisions.

People used to say SEL was always in the education no matter what time or place is. In my country and at the time, SEL also existed under a different name and method. Character development and critical thinking were major points of SEL. However, was it the same perspective? Isn't it making a student follow a certain shape that our society needs? On the other hand, was SEL enough to be emphasized? If SEL were well taught in my old days, my circumstances would have been reviewed in a different way. I would be able to think about my life-draining experiences again, rather than following the culture. My choices still run my life and have a powerful impact on my current decisions. I can't say my choices are well in line with what I really want to do.

In the end, my tennis tournament made me think that educators need to teach SEL more intentionally to the point where our students take their own choices. And SEL should work in a whole culture where intentional education can't reach but people actually live. Life should be a life of individuals and together. People want to be aware of themselves and to know how to behave with each other.