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:

1. Yearly Program
2. Semester Program
3. Teaching Syllabus
4. Unit / Weekly Plan
5. Lesson Plan
6. Academic Year Calendar
7. Minimum Passing Grade Criteria
8. Teaching Log / Journal
9. Teaching Session’s Calendar
10. Attendance List Per TS
11. Grade/Assignment Report Sheet

Well that’s for a subject teacher,.. whilst for my homeroom role, I should have:

1. Classroom Journal
2. Classroom Attendance List
3. Students’ Agenda (for communicating with parents)
4. Student’s Profile
5. Mid-Semester Grade Report
6. Learning Progress Log (if required in Mid-Sem/Sem Report)
7. Monitoring Book (to record special cases)
8. Classroom’s Attributes (Duty & Lesson Schedules, Class’ Theme, Procedure, Rules, Birthday Cart, Points Board, Creative Corner, etc.)
9. Student-Teacher Conference Log
10. ….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!

anthonyreza:

Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

“We are purpose maximizer, not only profit maximizer.” Must watch video.

COOL!!!…

brandipal:

Irena Sendler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for having saved 2500 children from Auschwitz concentration camp in Germany during World War II.

Sendler entered the Nazi death camp disguised as a plumber. With the aid of a dog she had trained to bark on command, Irena would smuggle out children in her van each time she went to Auschwitz. She used her barking dog to distract the Nazi soldiers and prevent them from hearing the cries of the children she was hiding.

Irena didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize. It went to Al Gore instead. But, hey, he did invent the Internet and discover “global warming,” right? What is that in comparison to saving thousands of innocent lives from being destroyed by the Nazis?

By sharing Irena’s image and her story we honor a woman who selflessly risked her life to save others.

She was truly an angel among us.

(Source: sweepmeup)

Student Bloopers! (I)

moestus: This is a compilation of actual (ALLEGED) student bloopers collected by teachers. 

- Solomon had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines. 

- Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Dying, he gasped out: “Tee hee, Brutus.”

- Joan of Arc was burnt to a steak and was ‘cannonised’ by Bernard Shaw. Finally Magna Carta provided that no man should be hanged twice for the same offence.

- In midevil times most people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the futile ages was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses and also wrote literature.

- Queen Elizabeth was the “Virgin Queen.” As a queen she was a success. When she exposed herself before her troops they all shouted ‘hurrah!!’

- The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies, and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter.

- John Milton was a great author. He wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained. 

- During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe. Later, the Pilgrims crossed the ocean, and this was called Pilgrim’s Progress. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.

- Abraham Lincoln became America’s greatest Precedent. Lincoln’s mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation.

- Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German half Italian and half English. He was very large.

- Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.

- Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the Organ of the Species. Madman Curie discovered radio. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx brothers.

miesoterica: =)) LOL LOL LOL! How creative! It’s like reading all new mind-blowing facts… :D 

Educational Help!

I’m now teaching ESL to grade 9 students here, in Papua. The thing is, their vocabulary and basic grammars were so poor whilst they have to face the National Exam by April next year. The exam’s standard is equivalent to Intermediate level of English skills. I’m stuck of don’t know what to do to help them pass. :(

If you have any idea of activities or anything I can do with them to boost their vocabulary up and teach them to understand questions and passages the easiest way, please help! I’m new in teaching, so I desperately need suggestions. 

Just hit the link, and post your idea/suggestion to my ask, please… Thank you!

mothernaturenetwork:

The glasswing butterfly with transparent wings has a Spanish name, “espejitos,” which means “little mirrors.” If it wasn’t for the opaque outline around the wings, the average observer might not see one perched on a leaf or flower.

Check out some more amazing transparent animals.

The Facts about Bottled Water

While a large portion of the world desperately seeking of clean drinking water, the United States and other country spend billions of bottled water when perfectly clean drinking water is readily available. Not only we needlessly spending money on water with lower standards than those of tap water, we are also filling our landfills with billions of pounds of oil based plastic that takes 1000’s of years to degrade. View the graphic by clicking the title link!

Say NO to bottled water, SAVE our environment!!

Learn It, Live It, Love it: No Child Left Behind: The Football Version Author Unknown* l. All...

teachingtoday:

No Child Left Behind:
The Football Version

Author Unknown*

l. All teams must make the state playoffs, and all will win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable.

2. All kids will be…

Living LIKE an “educated” one, OR …

It’s just three days passed since this week started on Sunday, but I got things unceasingly banging my brain. Stressed, and tired of it, I can’t help find ways to get a little bit of relief from this so-called “professional burden”. 

Well, not every bits of it. But, most of it.

Just about to write something, and… I think I need to attach a brief explanation or prologue about what the hell is the thing I’m talking about here. Ok, here we go..

I’m gonna call it: a tiny-ditty-daily-buzz of my open-ended life. Here, in the land where I am known as “immigrant” (meaning to say, it’s even for domestic). — redundant English, who cares? LOL! — anyway, we’ll start it with a brief “chronoxplain”.

SUN. Hardly done anything, except window-gazing. Got stuck. Bored. Lonely. Buried myself in the internet, yet it made me even more tired. Stop. Decided to put my clothes into a proper compilation rather than just a something looks like a molehill. Day’s over. — this is one of the days in my life where I, in whole being, say that I wanna get lost somewhere for a moment.

MON. Rays of light woke me up. 5:40 am (GMT+9:00 region). Gotta go to school. Monday Flag Ceremony — used to be my fave event in High School. Not late. It began. BANGG…!! Strike one! >.< Mistakes detected, and vituperation got on-air. Arghhh!! my day ruined in the morning. Not enough of it! One, two, three, four … blah blah blah.. persons joined the broadcasting objurgation.

———-

at that very moment, my head started to spin. Spinning for a worth searching, value digging, and a heart judging. Am I living LIKE an “educated” one, or….? 

School life that used to be uplifting for every student, but ruined by irrespective words that came out from the mouths of those who claimed themselves as “educated folk”. My knees literally trembled and my head ached, hearing and witnessing those inappropriate scene performed right in front of me.

I remember back in High School, I used to give my biggest effort to made-perfect any responsibility I got in carrying out a success Monday FC with my team. I was proud, I was full-spirited. I smiled, I enjoyed the show. Thrilling moment! Heard the “Indonesia Raya” fill the air, saw the national banner waving freely in the air. Very, I repeat again, VERY proud to be Indonesian! The clear-piercing voice heard reading the preambule of “UUD 1945” and “Pancasila”, for me personally, was hypnotizing! I even can memorize the preambule till now! :D

Yet, I was disappointed seeing it abused today — speaking in the context of Monday. I’m not talking about the mistakes students made, it’s normal. Everybody knows that to err is human. None of us perfect. But, I’m talking about the attitude of adults who in spite of their professional titles, etc., failed to carry out with devotion the value of “Pancasila” and “UUD 1945”. 

That’s why, I’m talking to myself. Am I one who failed it?

Am I “proper” enough to be called an “educated” being?

Am I “proper” enough to “educate” other person’s child, to the way they should be?

……. when somebody done a mistake, do we comfort them? do we encourage them to try again? OR,….. do we mock them?

……. when somebody fall short in the same mistake, do we STILL comfort them? do we STILL say “alright, let’s try again next time. it’s okay.”? OR,…… do we humiliate them?

……. when somebody STILL not get it, and fall again at the same spot, do we even STILL willing to comfort them? do we STILL willing to accept them, and say “practices make perfect.”?

thinking all of these, I guess, I also should forgive those adults in the deepest part of my heart. They are also human.

Maybe our nation and all of its system has been in an inherited-high-level-complexity problems for many many years, then our generation of adults, young people, and children are behaving this way (“THIS WAY” I mean, all News-gazers of Indonesia should have known that).

…..well, it’s not a “maybe” anymore. It is an open fact.

TUE. Rainy. 6:30 am (GMT+9:00 region). Waiting. An hour passed. No school’s taxi arrived yet. No news. Nothing. Bang!! Strike again! Figured out the way alone. In school, Grade 9 National Exams problem. Parents prosecute, judged, threated teachers and schools. Teachers blamed the uncooperative attitude of parents and students. Students??… again, be the “fall guy” in the scene. STRIKE again!! Perfect!!

Are we ….. living LIKE “educated” ones, OR……. ?

a BIG QUESTION.

Ask Mi Esoterica any question!