The Job of a Teacher (Briefly)
Just this morning, I realize something about working in a school, especially being a teacher. Teachers today and 10-15 years ago are different, I mean the span is huge. I once thought, being a teacher is the easiest job on earth, well… partly. Only small part, actually. True. The rest of it? (~.~) I can’t find any suitable word.
To picture it, maybe I can briefly enlist my daily routine as follow:
- 5.15 am — woke up, get ready, do some final checks on teaching equipment today.
- 6.15 am — leave for school. it’s a 45 mins ride, so.. shouldn’t be late.
- 7 am — teachers’ morning devotion
- 7.15 am — homeroom worship with students, leads by the HRT.. (first job).
- 7.30 am till 2nd break (about 11.45 am) — teaching period (If not teaching, I usually do class administration stuffs, or making weekly plan, or correcting students’ assignments, or searching for teaching resources or handling cases *LOL)
- 11.45 am — student-teacher conference (I meet one students from my homeroom to talk about his/her progress or anything.. just like spending time together :D )
- 12.15 till 2.15 pm — teaching period.
- 2.15 till 4 pm — teachers work period (mostly used for meetings or subject-team discussion or personal work)
- 4 pm… time to go home.
50 mins later…. At home,..I still need to do teaching preparation for the next day or even the week. Mostly lesson plans (if you’re diligent and specific, you can make the detail ones), but in most of my days, I’ve always wanted to sleep right away because of feeling very tired… 9 pm, my eyes are completely drown to sleepiness.
That’s how I spend my ideal days.
Personally, I am a kind of person who’s not really into administrative stuffs. Still can’t cooperate well with that. Striving to, actually. And here are all the administrative stuffs an ideal teacher should have:
- Yearly Program
- Semester Program
- Teaching Syllabus
- Unit / Weekly Plan
- Lesson Plan
- Academic Year Calendar
- Minimum Passing Grade Criteria
- Teaching Log / Journal
- Teaching Session’s Calendar
- Attendance List Per TS
- Grade/Assignment Report Sheet
Well that’s for a subject teacher,.. whilst for my homeroom role, I should have:
- Classroom Journal
- Classroom Attendance List
- Students’ Agenda (for communicating with parents)
- Student’s Profile
- Mid-Semester Grade Report
- Learning Progress Log (if required in Mid-Sem/Sem Report)
- Monitoring Book (to record special cases)
- Classroom’s Attributes (Duty & Lesson Schedules, Class’ Theme, Procedure, Rules, Birthday Cart, Points Board, Creative Corner, etc.)
- Student-Teacher Conference Log
- ….and the list goes longer.. >.<
all should be done by one person only: the teacher. That’s why… how I wish I could have an assistant… hikshiks.. And, if I’m in my Duty Day, I’d have to greet the students at the gate, do some cleaning stuffs with the students, handle the permissions or leave requests from students, or be a substitute teacher for another class if there’s no teacher for a particular session that day.
Okay, that’s how perfect things evolve. If anything falls out of the line, then it will turn my day in a complete mess. Well, I admit it!… First year teaching, 75% in a complete mess. Second year…reduced to 50%. Phew.. I still get things messy, like woke up late in the morning and should rush like a stallion to school, work my teaching plan just the night before and stuffs round its corner. To be an organized teacher, takes a long process, said my former lecturer. A PRO Teacher…. uhm, should be a perfect person! Haha..
Being a teacher also is an unending journey or learning to be flexible, quick, responsive, firm, consistent, responsible and so on and so forth.. Blah.. blah.. blah… I can chatter another day long about this job include the technology and computer skills required to do all the administrative things, and one thing I recently conclude is: teacher nowadays will not survive living without a computer, printer, photocopy machine, color markers, random papers, and a top-priority-magic-tool: the INTERNET!! :D
That’s why… I can’t help getting online almost 24/7. *LOL!!
Well, gotta go teaching. Bye!
"Once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about."
-Haruki Murakami, Kafka On The Shore.(Source: cyanide-poisoning)
"In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong."
-Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (via primordiale)
Photos taken from day 2 on the Kepler Track (the best day), one of New Zealand’s ‘Great Walks’. The photo Em took of me is one of my favourite of the trip so far.
wanna go there someday!! :D
No matter how low you are now, don’t ever give up! You’re amazing, people are not there to bring you down; they are there to make you stronger!
(Source: fromgenevawithlove)
