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