Birthday: 14th October Occupation: Cultivator; Moulder; Nurturer Currently I am inspired: To renovate my blog
To start on my next phase of new life in 2007
Let's see... I have been a teacher officially for ... (let me count...) 15 weeks?
And I think I wanna blog this before I become one of the jaded teachers. (Heck about the promo papers I need to mark!)
Recently, in view of the realization that I have to be uprooted from my comfort zone, I have discovered that the older the teacher, the more jaded he/she has become. Let me define what a jaded teacher is. A jaded teacher does not neccessarily need to be totally sian at her job. He/she is not one who treats teaching like a job and see it as his/her duty to teach during the stipulated school hours.
Rather, a jaded teacher is one who chooses to block out any emotional attachment with the students. My colleagues and mum pointed out that I tend to be too easily attached to my students. They quoted a pretty good example. It's been only 12 weeks of teaching time and I had grown so attached to them! And they told me to let go.
And I guess by the fact that some of my colleagues and mum told me to let go, it has begun to dawn onto me that I definitely have to let go. But why are people telling me to let go? I was just thinking and thinking about it.... Yes, students come and go. Every year, every 2 years. And will these students come back and visit you every year? Some would but not all. So is it worth it to get emotionally attached? Hmmm... unfortunately, it doesn't seem quite worth it.
What I'm trying to say is that at the end of the day, I think my colleagues and mum are telling me to let go and not become emotionally attached is because they want to put up a barrier to protect themselves from being hurt in the future. I mean, if I put up a barrier and do not care about building a relationship with my kids, it will be so much easier to let go. It was relatively simple to let go after my practicum when I had to return to NIE because I told myself to block out those emotional attachment.
And I think that if I were to block out these emotional attachment for as long as I am in this teaching line, I will be a sad person.
The kids today are very different from the past. There is a need to provide them a comfortable environment for learning so that they could enjoy learning. It took me a few weeks to break the barriers with my students and to provide them with a conducive environment for learning. They actually look forward to my lessons and they are so at home with me that they do not hurry off after my lessons. They sit down and chat with me. They tell me about which teacher is sucky, which teacher do not like them, their families, their learning difficulties and yes, how much they really do appreicate me.
From these young individuals who do not believe that they could actually do Econs, I had actually churned out a certain belief, a certain confidence to give Econs another try. Now, Econs doesn't seem that terrifying, intimidating and alien. They are friends with Econs now. And I'm sure majority of them have begun to love Econs.
During the last week of tutorials, when my kids were sharing with me about their exam anxieties, they told me that they felt the most secure for econs. Silently, I was happy for them and for myself because it was an indication that I had prepared them well enough for the exams. I was also happy to see each and every kid trying his/her best for Econs. Nearing to the exams, kids were asking me questions vis the phone or email. And bear in mind, these kids are the weaker ones and they never stopped trying.
If it wasn't for the emotional aspect that I managed to bring out during my lessons time, how would it be possible to inspire in my students a love for Econs? How would it be possible to inspire in them a spirit of perseverance and a never-say-die attitude?
I hope and pray that next year, if I were to ever read this blog entry again, I will not belong to the jaded teachers category to which I had defined earlier. I know that at the end of the day, the teacher will be the one to get most hurt but when we enter this line, we should always be prepared to give to our students. As what blessed mother teresa would say, "Give till it hurts."
Till now, I guess I have been mentally preparing myself to let go but as I read my students' blogs and see what they actually do during my class, I know I will miss them next year. And I know they will miss me. But yup... it's time to let go, move on but the emotioanl ties will still remain as we see one another in school.
