To TEACH the future generation

It has been a great challenging month for my teaching life in two primary schools.

I have been fortunate enough to have gained few months experiences for being a teacher teaching at primary school. Teaching has always been my passion, something which I enjoy doing just because I like to see people grow. Teaching is not a bed of roses, it involves not passion and commitment, but a huge load of capability. Sometimes, you have the passion of doing something but it does not necessary mean you have the capability to accomplish the things that you are passionate about. I have been teaching for one to one home tuition while I was still studying and find that it is completely different from teaching a class of students in a school.

Teachers not only need to marks students' homework, but also need do the never ending administration works like key in data.

The one month plus teaching from June to August has taught me to one lesson: Passion is not enough of achieving what you want, but it involves a combination of passion and capability. While passion is something innate, capability is something which we can constantly learn and develop. You claim your passion has always been teaching but that does not necessary mean you are able to teach well and handle 30-40 students in a class.

In fact, teaching in a class full of relatively huge amount of students involves not only passion, but a set of skills such as classroom management, ability to capture the attention, ability to manage indisciplined students etc.

The first primary school which I taught. A class of 35-40 students.

The first primary school which I taught is a high performing school while the second school is considered a relatively weak performing school than the former, with many of the student from a poor family background, some even from orphanages.

Well, this in fact makes a few distinct differences during my teaching tenure in both schools. The first school has a huge number of students in a class, and most of the students, I would say 90% of them come from a good family background, with highly educated parents. One main challenge I faced while teaching there is classroom management. Some of the students are hyperactive and like to shout and run around in the class and hence have many disciplinary problems. Worse still, most of them considered themselves smart as they can afford personal  tuition after classes and hence not willing to listen and being attentive to what teachers teach in class.

The second school where most of the students from poor family backgrounds also faces the same disciplinary problems. As we commonly know, kids around the age of 10-12 are very playful and naughty. However, one good thing about the kids in the school is that most of them are willing to learn. Though I know some of them have been left behind quite seriously in their school works, but when I teach, they are willing to listen and learn hard. Furthermore, being a small scale school compared to the former one, a class of 25 students is really easier to manage and teach.

The second primary school. Students are keen to make their own national flower (bunga raya) while on art class.

Well, all in all teaching has always been a noble job which involves transforming a student’s life and future. Teachers should not only teach from heart but also should have a set of skills which equip them well in facing the challenging future generation of our nation.