2013 Career woes

It's a new new year. Actually we are already a quarter deep into the year. You must be wondering what on earth am I doing back on this platform. Well, I just thought that I need an outlet to let off some steam. A lot of steam, to be honest. An unending gust of steam. That's pretty much my life now. Heaps of marking awaits me at work as I struggle to juggle delivering the curriculum, rallying students for events, preparing documents to ensure safety issues are explicitly planned for, accompanying and sending students out for competitions, handling parents' involvement (both pleasant one and unpleasant ones), pretending to be alive when what's beneath my skin is already beaten to a pulp, waking up the next day and wishfully thinking that it's gonna be a good day.

It's tiring. Exhausting and some may even say a thankless job. But I've chosen this path and I do not have it in me to quit and cower away. At least, not yet. I never give up a fight without first battling it out and sustaining a few injuries along the way. At this juncture, I looked back and asked myself, what had influenced my decision to join teaching?

I couldn't think of an answer. It surely wasn't my teachers. I'm not saying they were bad or nasty. There wasn't anyone there who actually shone or inspired me in anyway. My teachers were nice, don't get me wrong. But they were like the benchwarmers. The ones who would sit at the sideline and cheer me on. No one would actually get up and pace me to the finish line. That's them.

And you know what, like every other blogging experience, I get an epiphany whenever I type my random thoughts out. It's happening right now!

That's it. I want to be a teacher who paces the students to the finish line. Definitely not the sit-on-the-bench-and-cheer kinda person. So why did I become a teacher? I wanted it so badly because I wanted to teach and be with the students through the now annoying phase called growing up. Alas, it took me a while to realise that the things I studied during my pre-teaching days and the things I had to work with in school are in two isolated spheres altogether. Bad administrative planning coupled with unprepared leaders who lack foresight and the ability to intricately plan programmes could bring about a cascading effect of morale dampers and exhausted teachers whose creative juices are wiped out dry. And that seriously bad. Teachers need to be creative, innovative, versatile, entertaining and somehow charismatic. A charm or two can go a long way in getting students on your side. You need that. We are like actors who need a pool of fan-base to drive others to you. Without that, class management becomes a pain, staff management becomes a chore. The sheer reality of it all is, sometimes it is a popularity contest. Quite recently though, I also learn that popularity can toss you the other side of the coin too... Especially when students who need to stay in school to wait for parents are made to decide which teacher they would like to have stay back with them too... Urgh.

Teaching. I hope after talking to my Big Boss tomorrow, my spark in this line of job is rekindled... I can only hope. The mounting dissatisfaction and whining needs to be manifested in a more productive environment. An environment that is empowered to make changes. Whining behind the closed frosted doors of the staffroom doesn't at all help.