After around eight years of teaching in class, I shamelessly feel qualified to post this out of my experience. :p
In case you haven’t conceived this yet: teaching is serious business! Never had I imagined, as a student, how teaching reaches lengths beyond the usual classroom meetings. Teaching used to be an ideal: an erudite person steps into the class to enlighten all us dim souls for one and half hour – or as those in the educational industry prefer to call it professionally, “one meeting”.
Now, as the “erudite person steps into the class”, I have probably assumed my own ideal persona in such meeting, I have then come to realize behind the classroom facade is a series of uncompromising duties one will never learn of during his twelve years of primary education: assessing individuals, preparing suitable materials, keeping up with the learning pace, researching about and reviewing possible instructional blunders, optimizing teaching speed with the ideal syllabus provided, improvising for new matters and methods, coming up with quizzes and exam questions, correcting exam papers (such excessive paperwork), identifying students’ problems,
getting checked about the curriculum by the boss… the list goes on and on.
I remember during my high school, my best friend, Yanty, and I came up with the idea of working part time. Well I did teach private tuition at home already, but we wanted to try something new, something so challenging, and we saw this vacancy part in newspaper. And so, we thought, heck, let's try it out. The exam took us almost a day lol, and we were so tense about it, I even broke a pen, worst, not my pen, but the staff's pen cos I forgot to bring pen! And we had so many trainings, interview, teaching demonstration, Gosh, It was making me tense that time. But best part is, we got accepted! I ended up teaching in that place for five years. That was memorable since I entered the dual position, or in Sociology term, more social roles, not only as student, but also as a teacher. Initially, I wanted to apply for teaching post, simply for the sake of experience and process of learning, yet, as I stepped into that world, I came to be in
love with teaching... Hehe :P
After teaching in class, I suddenly grasped all the aforementioned hell of teaching, and I came to admire those teachers whose endeavors in keeping all their students under one line I had once hated with passion. Teaching, it turns out, is not a “learn it or drop it” escapist profession.
I vividly remember when I first stepped into the class, all eyes of the students were fixed on me, not that I loved to draw attention, I just had to do that when I became a teacher. So inconvenient at first, but well, I got over it. Being a teacher, I do everything to make my students understand the lesson, to my stress sometimes, since not all students can be easily bent and taught. Ain't easy at all! Now I know why my high school teachers got so grumpy at me and my sisterhood at school lol. Ssshh, we were quite naughty! As years go by, I have also experienced that down moment as well - boredom- Gosh, surely all teachers have the down moment, the period where we are mostly bored of teaching and feeling like arrrggghhh! I guess that must apply to any kind of profession. Well, one doesn't need routine all the time! That down moment comes once in a while.
There's this huge gap I realize between teachers and students. I’m not talking about knowledge – even that’s not a definite – but rather about the mentality. One thing that struck me for odd is how different their perceptions are for assignments. Generally speaking, students have far better memory of what tasks they have at hand, while teachers tend to be forgetful of what homework they have handed to their students. A teacher unleashes burden by giving assignments. Result: being forgetful about them, yet pressured when there are none. A student receives burden by getting assignments. Result: constantly reminded about them, and relieved when there are none.
As a tutor, I tend to forget anything I assigned to my students, unless reminded – which really is a striking paradox. Considering that the test sample – myself – should have the same degree of discipline, then the logical explanation for my perception of “assignments” would come from which position I am in, whether as a teacher, or as a student.
The psychological reason is probably connected to our perception of “burden”. When you’re the teacher, the effect of giving assignments on your mind is very temporary. The extent of work you’ll need to do is to tell your students which page to finish, or what topic to write on, etc. Then your mind will relax.
I have given them the task to do. It’s up to them now to do it or not. If any, preparing the homework may be your very burden that you’ll unload at class. On the other hand, students’ burden starts when they are given tasks to do, and their mind will enter a state of panic.
I have to finish this task. It’s all up to me now. Therefore, assignments form a burden serving as a reminder to a student of his responsibility, while for a teacher they are a forgettable relief.
Anyway, before I bla bla bla in here as long as the Great Wall of China end-to-end, I just want to say this: Teaching requires a great deal of commitment and effort, and involves a superficially invisible mental burden. Also, try to appreciate your teachers for what they do now. As I have said before, teaching is serious business!
P.S.: In case you haven’t noticed, this article is a quasi-rant of my tutor job.
