Reflections with relief...

AKi: It's been about 3 weeks since I started at Neko Primary, and already I have only one more week in the school, before I head to Nie. (!)

Was that fast or what? It's funny that the Enhanced Schools Experience (ESE) only lasted such a short time, and yet is supposed to help us decide whether a teaching career is suitable for us. :S So how do we decide based on such a short period of time?

I have a feeling most graduate trainees would not be able to experience the full workload of a teacher. What is the point in asking someone to sit on a committee, for an event happening next term, if the person is leaving in a month's time? And how much teaching can you entrust to an untrained teacher?

So most of us probably did a lot of relief, with some light teaching work, and then not much else.

But has it helped? From a friend of mine, it's certainly helped him to decide that teaching was NOT for him. :S The combined trauma of lesson planning and standing in front of a class of 40 little darlings was just one more straw on the camel's back and he's decided to leave.

For me.... I feel I can go on. But I'm not sure.

Because after all, I know that what I'm going through now is definitely not the full duties of a teacher. And even if I can take it all now, I don't know for sure that I can take it in the future, when the full load crashes upon me.

And there are times, like today, when I feel that the class is spiralling out of control, that my nerves are feeling extremely frazzled, and when I feel utterly helpless in front of the 38-40 boys who refuse to listen to me.

Sometimes it's not just a matter of being fierce or being firm. It's being able to MAKE them even notice you in the first place. And THEN you can be fierce.

Most people don't get this. They think that all you have to do is to be fierce to the kids, and they will listen. Which will work for 1 or 2 kids at a time, but when 40 of them resolutely ignore you, is much harder to accomplish.

And you can scream all you want, but you will never be able to outscream 40 voices in unison.

So how do I get by? I come home, dump my workbag on the floor and change into my comfortable home clothes.

I turn on the radio to some soothing jazz.

I step into a shower, and let the warm water spray all over me.

And with it all the knots of the day are unravelled........

Here's to the next 4 years......