The last time i said it's been ages since i blogged here, was last september, 2 posts down.
A new year has since arrived, and I have finished my tenure in serving the nation.
While many of my friends have taken on internships in hope of getting a headstart to the rat race into university, or taken on 9-5 jobs in all forms; waitering, administrative, data entry, i embarked in greater intensity on a job that i have actually been doing for quite awhile.
Teaching.
The sudden influx of some many students placed respectively under my care for specific subjects/areas are indeed overwhelming at times.
If i were to place a rough estimate of how many students I am now responsible for, a little over 60 would be a good estimate.
And with that comes with so many teaching pedagogies that i am suddenly being exposed to. (Not that i am complaining, i have an incredible boss and workmates that share alot of methods in teaching different students and subjects) Coupled with methods that i am quickly learning along the way, my learning curve has never been greater.
There are so many intricacies in dealing with students of all ages, of classroom management, from dealing with the rowdy ones to those who absolutely clam up throughout the lesson.
I now work most weekday nights and a pretty huge chunk of my weekends, since that's when most of my students are free from the backbreaking load of school. Reaching home mostly after 11, bleary-eyed and exhausted from hours of lessons, the resolve sometime wavers.
The amount of work is tremendous. Unlike a 9-5 admin job, where work is typically confined to the office, i usually arrive hours before my actual lesson timings to work out lesson plans and mark their work, likewise for my private students (i prepare their stuff at home). My peers often tell me i have it good; hourly rates of teaching are comparatively very lucrative and financially rewarding. I used to believe it, but now i truly understand the refrain my teachers have told me from time to time; we earn peanuts. Teachers do earn peanuts, for the amount of work they do.
Nevertheless, teaching is ultimately rewarding. The satisfaction from seeing your students grasp a concept, breaking through the wall of a struggling student in understanding a subject, of watching your student grow in the process; it absolutely sweeps away all prior thoughts of the monetary worth (lack of) in teaching.
Just a couple of days ago, i have had a student coming up to me after class asking me questions regarding his homework that his school had set him. After explaining the concepts behind each question, he said thank you and left. While it may not seem much, the words of gratitude he said, as well as watching how comprehension dawned upon him as i explained the question is so immensely satisfying.
The idea of being given the opportunity to empower and positively impact somebody is truly, amazingly fulfilling and exhilarating.
Every lesson is a new challenge, a challenge that I am undertaking more times my fingers on my hands can count in a week, and I truly love every second of it.
I may not end up teaching full time in the future, but I can honestly say that it is definitely a defining moment of my life.
This past few weeks, I have also came to realise a problem that many students face today. Many students are sent for tuition by their parents, few of their own accord. Some might understand the need for it, but some may not.
And then you have students in academically weaker streams. Teaching some of them, i realise that alot of them are definitely in no way lacking in terms of mental ability and thinking capacity to their peers from academically better streams.
The point is, many of them just may not value the importance of education, of how they can help you in securing a better future, enough to work harder for it. This is not to say of course, that a lack of education condemns you to the dregs of society, education provides you with a better opportunity to succeed in leading a fulfilling life.
There will be the detractors, but one cannot deny that education is beneficial in so many ways.
If one day i were to give up teaching altogether, it will be if i have failed to make even one student come to realise this: that when you're going to school, you're not studying for anybody, you're studying for yourself, and your own future. And if that ever happens, i would have failed as a teacher, cause i believe that that is the most important value that teachers can impart to their students, not the subjects in they teach, but of the value and importance of education.
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If you're wondering what the photo at the top is, it was a picture taken a couple of years back, in my chemistry class in school (in question, the biggest face in the picture was actually a pose, he wasnt sleeping...). So funny how time flies, one moment i'm sitting there furiously absorbing all i can (most of the time, other times were spent in stupor) from the teacher, the next moment i am the one standing at the whiteboard, hoping to impart something mindblowing that will give my students their As.
