IT happened again. Meeting my husband’s new manager at a party, I was asked, ‘‘So, what do you do?’’ ‘‘I teach,’’ I replied. ‘‘Ah ha!’’ he said, ‘‘The cushiest job in the world. Long holidays and half days. I tell you, there are times I wish I was a teacher — such a stress-free job.’’ I didn’t say anything. With the clink of party glasses in the background, it wasn’t the right time nor the right place to correct him.
Ever since I donned the cap of a teacher, I’ve noticed that people who know you either respect your chosen profession a great deal or have this preconceived idea that it’s all plain sailing for you.
I wish I could make those misguided souls walk a mile in my shoes. Only then would they realise how much a teacher has to face in a day. Being a teacher today is no easy task.
Frankly, I doubt if it ever was or ever will be — with or without the latest technology. A teacher is human and confronts more humans in a day than any other profession. The badge we wear is a badge of courage — constantly in the line of fire or in the face of a barrage of complexities — mostly man-made.
Take a typical day in my life, for example. Even before the bell goes for the first class, a thousand thoughts chase through my mind as I prepare myself mentally for the day’s work.
Just before I head for school I have already made a stop at the market to get some fish for my Form Four Science class’s experiment on fish gills.
Stowing them in the lab’s fridge, I rush to send in my teaching record book to the HM’s office. (A memo awaits you if you don’t hand it in on time.) After years of teaching experience, filling this book itself is still a major chore but it has to be done.
Next, I’m on my way to my first class. Disappointment engulfs me as I check their work. Seven students haven’t bothered to do their homework and the same group of five I’d identified earlier have obviously copied again. I decide to deal with them later and ask them to see me at recess time. The class begins. The bell goes. The next class.
I’ve scheduled them for a presentation on pollution. The first group goes up and I begin my role as facilitator here in earnest.
A word of encouragement here, some constructive criticism there and finally I make it clear that I expect their written reports in a week’s time. Questions come hurling at me. I handle these too.
The bell rings but before I can enter my next class, the office boy comes up to me to say there’s a phone call for me.
It’s the organiser of the district level Science Quiz. He wants all the names of the school’s participants within two days. The quiz is two weeks away. As I rush to class again, I try to decide who I’ll pick the Quiz. Who will train and guide them?
Meanwhile, my class students have been having a whale of a time — they’re all over the class and it takes another 10 minutes to make them settle down and bring out the right books. I’ve lost precious time.
This class worries me — they’re behind the others. I have to cover three chapters left untaught by their Science teacher the year before. Yet, before I can begin, I get another note from the office.
An emergency meeting for Speech Day has been scheduled for after school. Such short notice — I was supposed to meet the Science salesman then to arrange for dark curtains in the Physics lab. This is the third time he’s been to see me and I still haven’t been able to sit down with him and discuss the details.
At recess time, in between mouthfuls of mee, I tell the five students who copied their work to see me the next day. The Science Club president wants my ‘‘okay’’ for the T-shirt they’re printing to raise funds.
A new teacher approaches me to ask if I have the Science syllabus for Form Two. The lab assistant tells me that the primary school next door wants to borrow our lab’s incubator — should he allow it? The HM sends a note to say that he has ordered a hydroponics set — would I sign acceptance?
The bell goes. I hastily down some coffee. I don’t have a class after recess but I need to catch hold of the Form Five student in 5D who still hasn’t given me a copy of his IC for his SPM registration.
I’m stopping here but I hope you get the message. Teaching, marking, supervising, facilitating, preparing, organising, controlling, managing, presiding, counselling, mentoring, motivating, encouraging — you name it and we teachers are bound to be doing it at some time or another in our lives.
It’s all in a day’s job and it spills over into our home lives. In short, it’s never over. So, the next time you meet a teacher, remember that there’s more that meets the eye than that relaxed job you imagine it to be.