it's already 11am. 5 more minutes to go.
you refill your marker pens, look through the stacks of papers you are bringing to class, make sure you are also bringing the marking scheme for paper 1, 2, and 3.
ok, it's time.
and you walk to the classroom. they greet you, say their prayers and then sit down.
in the class, there's only 17 out of 21 students. one of them is not even from your class. well, never mind. you carry on with what you have planned. you return the papers to them. in your heart, you are amazed that some of them can be so happy with their THM performance (ok, maybe they are expecting the worst); some of them can be so apathetic; some of them have the ability to show you their darn face as if they are very smart but actually their results is nothing but a laughing stock.
very funny, right?
you have been taught by your own experience - learn to care less, just do whatever you are paid to do, deliver the darn lesson, get out from the class. Do not get so emotionally attached to these people (a selected few, yea, acceptable and that's enough). to them, you are just another teacher who (so happened) is posted to their school and they are going to leave school by the end of next year anyway.
so you go through all the questions in paper 2 and in your heart you wonder how many percent of what you have discussed actually registered in their brains. you have to battle with time and you have to keep waking that particular few sleepy heads up. you have never wanted to scold them because it's a waste of time and secretly,
you don't really care that much. it reaches a point where you choose only to focus on those who are following your lesson. why should you neglect the good ones for the sake of those THM ones? and don't know since when, you have turned into a follower of
academic elitism.
you are told to simplify the things you teach, make things easier to accommodate the slower ones. but the problem is, any more simplified version than those you teach will make you look like a fool. you couldn't stoop any lower. you are already feeling like a great fool for teaching watered down syllabus. Imagine yourself sitting down like your students watching you teach. You will laugh and wonder what's wrong with this teacher going through the same old things again and again and again. and again. and again and some of them still couldn't get it. Don't you realize some of your students are feeling that way? Don't you realize some of the good ones feel neglected because you have been focusing quite too much on the not so good ones? And yet the not so good ones didn't even budge a centimeter from where they have been.
You realized that. and you wonder if it's your fault for not helping the good ones do better; or is it your fault that those brats never moved a centimeter.
well, you are forgiving towards those good ones who dozed off once in a while because they can afford to do so. and then you have these few students who are constantly on a ride towards their wonderland somewhere out there. once upon a time, you tried to motivate them to study. but sorry to say, after some time, you realize that you don't have enough self-motivation to go around or share with them.
out of 17, only 4 of them are constantly paying attention to what you say and they are alive because they are responding to you. and again, one of them is not even from your class. the rest, they are just floating around. Like zombies.
your conclusion - there's a cantonese saying that goes like this
"烂 泥 扶 唔 上 壁"
Apply this saying into your situation - as Suit puts it,
helping your students improveand climb up the ladder of success is like coaxing watered down clay to go up a wall
you put aside the frustration that is raging in your heart. questions after questions. for the love of the subject, you discuss your heart out like how people cry their hearts out or laugh until their lungs burst. Finally the clock strikes 12.25pm. thank You and thank you class. you walk out and get ready for another such cycle.
to some, this is just another normal classroom scene. to some, you are considered lucky because you don't need to shout or yell or cane or waste half the period just to get the students ready for lesson. you are lucky because most of your students can answer more than half the papers with reasonable answers and not simply doodling and scribbling the papers. By the way, what is the definition of lucky?
shouldn't you be contented with life in this place because you are such a lucky girl?
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friend, i think you should never be contented with this kind of life simply because this is not you. you thought this was you but your THM life in this place shows you that something has gone wrong somewhere. you deserve something better and you deserve the opportunity to embark on a search for the one you once were, to reconcile the old and new you, even if it might take you quite some time; even if it means taking risk and losing the so called iron-rice-bowl.
and let me remind you, the less you give, the more you get back. Most importantly, you get back your sanity.
