sober teacher thoughts for the day

class at neighbourhood school was acting up again. EM3 + Poetry + hot afternoon = madness.
Instead of running through my intended lesson plan about "how to present your poems", I ended up talking to them about why it was very important for them to know how to do simple things like stand properly, speak well, look people in the eye etc. in context of future job interviews, bursary / scholarship interviews etc. I was really laying it on to them how they better make sure they can at least conduct a proper introduction of themselves.

Some of the kids got my drift and were solemn and obviously paying attention. Some tried shutting up the rest of their nonsense-spouting classmates. But more than enough rabble-rousers still persisted in disrupting class with inane antics.

I had stopped a class game halfway to lecture them and the rabble rousers proceeded to ask, "ay cher, play games leh. have fun lah. boring lah cher"

I was not angry with them anymore and just felt really sad. I told them, "There's no point in me playing games with you if you don't learn anything from them. You laugh laugh have fun, so what? I walk out of here after one hour and leave you with nothing. Tell me, who loses? If every teacher just haha with you and not teach, you will spend 4 years in school and learn nothing. Your teachers walk out of the school, with pay in their pocket and all the skills and content still inside them. Isn't that terrible?"

The brighter ones shut up and realised what i was getting at. Some even chirped, "Ay cher don't be sad lah"

The poor, silly, out of control, playful ones were still fixated on the game and said, 'Cher, cher, so who won the game? You never say who won the game yet."

How do you tell them that if they never started to see what their brighter classmates had already perceived, they might never win the game?

sigh : _(

Poor kids.

Regarding that whole recent flurry of self-righteous letters to the press about teachers who quit too easily on their students, I have only one comment: I teach in neighbourhood schools only 4 hours a week and already I can feel an iota of what these teachers are up against day in day out.

It really is not easy at all and perhaps it would help if all education policy makers and armchair critics taught one day in one of these classrooms for a massive reality check. I don't think neighbourhood school teachers should quit easily but I do think they deserve a lot of our respect and sympathy for the onslaught of apathy they have to face everyday.