It's been a while...

One day, I logged into Blogger remembering a dusty old blog that I used to keep. I wrote a bit about the education industry in Singapore, about the tuition industry and some little ideas about teaching. 

Then one day, I stopped. Or rather, I did not suddenly stop one day, but work caught up, the marking went up, the workload went up and then the blog was laid one side. Every now and then, a thought occurred to me about something and I would think about blogging about it but then other work intruded and the thought flew away. 

Nothing spectacular, just what happens to a lot of people, I guess. 

The funny thing is, while I was neglecting my blog, the Internet certainly wasn't. I would receive an email once in a while telling me someone had commented on something I blogged years back. I thought it was strange and then during the Dec holiday I decided to log into Blogger and see what was going on. 

The statistics told me: People were still reading parts of the blog, even after I had neglected it! The Internet and the spiders at Google were still surfacing parts of my blog and most touchingly, people were still interested in reading parts of it. Thank you very much if you were doing so. :) 

This year, I'm going to make another attempt at keeping this blog dust-free. There have been changes to the industry since my last blog post. There are big ideas I want people to think about. There are teaching practices that I want to share. I've found great resources and websites that have helped me in my teaching. I think there are things tuition teachers can use as well, so that they can be a great support to their students' learning, even if they have not been trained by NIE. There are things happening in local education that I want to voice an opinion about. 

And I know there are others out there who are interested too.

Thank you for keeping this alive and I will do my best not to disappoint. 

Lesson observations

Recently I had a lesson ob by my HOD. Most of you would know this would not be an ordinary lesson. You are expected to put on a good lesson ( some would say a good show ) to showcase the best of your teaching abilities.

Well, it came and went, I received some feedback that I had to act on (eek!) but I'm thankful I don't have to do it again. It makes me very nervous to have to teach in front of my HOD, let alone a 'special' lesson. Then I also have to make sure I don't scold my students too harshly, lest I am seen as 'too fierce' and 'discouraging'.

The whole process makes me very nervous and honestly, sometimes after all the planning, I'd do something wrong after all, simply because of all the stuff I'm trying to perform!

What about you? How have your experiences with observations been? If you are a beginning teacher, what questions do you have about observations?

How to be a Tuition Teacher Part 2 - The First Lesson

Congratulations! You called the agencies, you got an assignment, negotiated a fair pay, and you're going for your first lesson next week!

Now... What are you going to do?

School teachers have an advantage in this case. They would already have a syllabus, or a scheme of work for them to plan their lessons.

However, especially if you are an untrained teacher, you could be left quite blur. And you wouldn't want to give your students' parents the impression that you don't know anything.

Here are a few tips, then, to get you through the first hour at least!

1. Ask for the student's result slips or previous exam papers. See which subject the pupil was weak in, or which sections they were weak in. Spend some time talking to the parent about feedback from the teachers at school. This will help you in helping him later.

2. Prepare some assessment papers or school exam papers. You can ask the student to do them so you know where he is stumped. Another tip is to use an exam paper from a 'branded' school and another from an ordinary school. You can then roughly tell where he lies.

3. Reading and writing (lower primary). Some lower primary pupils may face word recognition problems, which is why their parents are engaging tutors! Choose some books ranging from easy to difficult from the children's section and ask the child to read them to you. If he stumbles, tell him the word and guide him. With better pupils, you can ask them to write a few sentences about themselves, or the book.

These are just 3 simple methods any Untrained teacher can use! Do you stop there? Of course not! You will later use whatever you observed in the first lesson to plan for your student later, but that's another blog post! Hope you found this useful!

How to be a Tuition Teacher Part 1 - How to find students

Thanks for supporting my old post on being a relief teacher! From there I realized that there were people keen to know more about teaching!

So I decided to write a new series, and this time, it is on teaching tuition.

I'm sure many of us out there would have tried being a tutor at some point of our lives. For many people, they do this without the benefit of teaching experience. This means they are not always prepared for what to actually teach and do during tuition classes.

I went through this once too, after my exams. I taught tuition privately for about 2 years before stopping completely to concentrate on teaching. With the benefit of my experience in school with actual students, I can now look back and see where I did wrong, and where I did right.

So, I decided to compile them into a short series. Some of the things I have written may not work for everyone! Everyone has a unique style of doing things. ( As I found out from the comments on my previous post on relief teachers ) I can only offer my two cents worth, and it is up to you whether you want to employ my methods or not.

This is Part 1: How to find students for tuition

1. Network, network
This is a valuable lesson, and I think those working in sales would agree. Tuition assignments will not come to you magically. You must let people know that you are up for hire, and networking is the key. Let as many people know that you intend to do tuition, for which levels and which subjects.

(Facebook and Twitter may have their uses here, but don't forget that many parents may not use these as frequently as you do. Don't forget your target audience is not your friends, it's the parents)

Let all your parents' friends, especially those with young children know. Send out the news to as many parents in your circle, maybe your neighbors even. You never know what may come your way.

2. Tuition agencies
I called many agencies when I first started. The first thing you must realize is that they will take half of your first month's pay as commission. This is non-negotiable as the agencies rely on this for their main income. If you go for the first lesson and you realize that you do not want to teach that student, you may even have to pay the agency in some cases.

Make sure you are 100% clear on the agency's commission policy before you take any assignments. You must be prepared to wait for assignments. I first started calling agencies in early Dec. I only started getting return calls in early Jan.

Some agencies may ask for copies of your educational certificates, and these are usually the bigger agencies. Make sure you have copies of these ready.

3. Leaflets
Printing your own leaflets and sending them out can be low-cost, but time-consuming. I tried this in 2 ways.

First, I pasted leaflets with my HP no on the walls of the lift lobbies around my estate. Second, I also tried photocopying leaflets to drop into mailboxes. I covered around half my estate.

The result? ONE reply. Later on, I also realised that the educated parents around my estate were not likely to trust a strange leaflet pasted up by who-knows-what!

Also, I found my leaflets torn off the very next day! I suspected the HDB cleaners at first, till I realized that other leaflets by other tuition schools had been left alone! Had my leaflets been torn off by rivals? To this day, I do not know... But I can conclude from that experience that this is a very time-consuming and wasteful marketing strategy!

That's all I have to share on this and I hope you find it useful! If there's anything else you would like me to share, you can always comment below!

Signs that You Should Not Become A Teacher

Every year, a new advertisement on teachers and the nobility of teaching surfaces on TV. These advertisements are meant to recruit a new group of teachers to MOE. There could be some use to them, judging by the size and popularity of the MOE booth at the Career Fair year after year!

However, at the same time, there is a sizeable group of people who leave the teaching service. These are people who thought they could 'make a difference' but only found out that they could not handle the job when they entered the service itself. I feel sorry for some of these people sometimes, because they enter with all their hopes and aspirations. But they become overwhelmed by the children, by the work and end up counting the days to the end of their bond, leaving disillusioned.

So, before you sign on that dotted line, check and do reflections whether you are really cut out for the job. Ask relatives and friends who are in the service and ask them for their experiences in the service. Have a clear and realistic picture of the workload and expectations before you actually sign anything. Never forget that once you sign the dotted line, you will be looking at a bond period of 3-5 years. It seems like a short time, but if you are unhappy at the job, it can seem like a lifetime.

Meanwhile, in a tongue-in-cheek way, here are some ways you can assess yourself for the suitability of the teaching profession:

1. You hate kids.

I think this needs no explanation. You are going to face 30-40 children under 12 everyday. If you hate kids, no amount of pay will ever justify the job.

2. You love kids. Too much.

And yet, if you are the kind of person that thinks all children are cute, adorable, innocent and perfectly behaved, you are probably not prepared for the job either. You have to realise that, like adults, children come in many forms. You do get children who are cute, adorable, innocent and perfectly behaved, but you also get children who are mischievous, spoiled and attention-seeking. Not to mention children with intellectual, social and physical disabilities. You must realise that there are children who will not be perfect angels and be ready for them.

3. You never wake up before 12.

Assembly starts at 0710 to 0720 and most schools require their teachers to be in before that. Not to mention that in a number of years, all schools will eventually become single-session, ie in the morning. You really should be an early-riser for this job.

4. You do not like the colour red.

Nobody marks with pink or purple pens. This is an industry standard.

5. You think you can go home everyday at 12 when the school bell rings

There are only a select few I know who do this, and they are all adjunct teachers. (Teachers working on something similar to a contract basis and who are paid hourly) The full-time teachers are usually staying back for CCA, remedials, meetings and if there are none of those, they are involved in some kind of committee meetings. Nobody goes home on the stroke of the bell! The truth is that each teacher can spend something like 11 hours in school, considering how early you have to reach work in order to start lessons. Do not have illusions of laziness if you enter teaching.

That said, sometimes you never really know how you feel about a job until you do it for real. If you are considering teaching, my recommendation is to approach the schools in your surrounding areas and ask them about becoming a contract teacher. You could become a relief teacher as well, but you'd have to be ready for any school that calls you at 630am to come in that very day. A contract teacher is better because you can take on work that is similar to what a real teacher does, but you do not have the bond to keep you in the job. Thus, if you feel you are really not cut out for teaching, you can leave.

Some people may feel I am 'pouring cold water' by writing this post and discouraging people from becoming teachers. I prefer to encourage people to enter the profession realistically. It does the school no good when new teachers enter, become disillusioned, and lose all interest in the job. Rather, I would like to see more people who are clearly aware of the downfalls of the job and yet are willing to take it on nonetheless. These people will stay on and benefit us all.

The Occupational Hazards of Teaching

If you teach for a number of years, it is inevitable that some aspects of it would rub onto your daily life. Even for me, I do find that I am tempted to do something in public that would only be more acceptable in the classroom. If you are entering teaching, or if you are a BT, you may want to be warned of some of the following occupational hazards following a long teaching career:

1. You become highly sensitive to spelling and grammar.

Blame it on marking all those English compositions. Once you become trained and used to skimming through written text and picking out spelling and grammar mistakes in a hurry, you immediately notice these mistakes everywhere in public. ( maybe even in my blog! ) And after a few stints as oral examiners, you may find yourself correcting the way your friends pronounce words more than once.

2. You become more impatient.

In school, everything runs on a tight schedule from 7:15am to 1:00pm. You cannot afford to be too late for lessons, or you run the risk that the next class will erupt into chaos. High value is placed on punctuality in this line. So you cannot understand why your friends can be 20 minutes. Or why your facial therapist has to delay your appointment by 15 minutes. Tsk tsk! Can't these people start on time?

3. You are tempted to scold children misbehaving in public.

After all, you do this all the time in school. If children are misbehaving, it is your duty to correct them and tell them the proper behaviour isn't it? You are so used to doing this in school that when you see the same thing in public, you can't help yourself and you tell them off. The child usually looks at you with a big-eyed stare, ( he isn't your student and he doesn't know you ) and the parent of the child usually looks at you like you are a kidnapper. You are well-advised to keep the comments to your own schoolchildren.

4. You never see a red pen in the same way again.

Let's just say, after school hours, I use every colour of pen except red.

That's my 4 occupation hazards of being a teacher. Do you find yourself doing some of these? Or do you have other strange habits brought on by teaching? Do share in the comments!

What Else Can Teachers Do?

Every now and then, you hear some poor teacher unhappy about the work they're doing. Then this unhappy person starts to wonder wistfully about how it would be different in the private sector. Usually it stops at that, because most teachers think it would be difficult to get a job in the private sector with just a degree in education.

But is it?

Maybe there are some jobs out there which teachers can do. Which in fact are most suited for, because of the unique qualities that teaching has imbued them with.

So, for all those who have ever thought about life outside of teaching, here are some suggestions:

**DISCLAIMER**

The author of this post means this as a light-hearted tongue in cheek post. The author will not be held responsible if somebody took the advice seriously and quit their job, only to find it rough going. Neither am I encouraging anyone to quit teaching. This is just a light-hearted list.

1. EDITOR

This seems to be one of the most common lines for ex-teachers and I think it's because of the nature of the job. You have to read text, check for spelling/grammar, and make sure that the writing is smooth. Doesn't this sound a lot like marking compositions?

2. WRITER

Easy, because most of us are already familiar with text types, familiar with compositions, and also have a keen sense of grammar. After handing out all those creative writing assignments, why not write a lengthier composition of your own? You could always start with your memoirs of your teaching career.

3. EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS

If you have been in a classroom for a length of time, you would know that it's not easy to find well-designed educational posters. Neither is it easy to find the exact kind of manipulatives that you would want for a lesson. Why not then design new ones? You never know, some other teacher out there would find it useful too.

4. PART-TIME LECTURER

This, I think, is the same as what we do from Primary to Secondary, just that the kids are a lot older, and more inclined to listen.

These 4 points are all I can think of for now. Do you know anyone else who quit teaching to do something else? What did they do? How did their teaching job affect their new career? Please share in the comments!

Ideas for Relief Lessons - Primary 1 and 2

Many of us have been in this position before. You are suddenly called to relief a class, at a level that you have never taught before. This is difficult for a number of teachers, because you are unaware of the skills and abilities of that class. So how do you find something to occupy them with, and yet not drive yourself crazy?

You can do the fierce teacher act and order everyone to take a book to read in silence, but that can make some classes try to rebel against you. Usually it's less stressful if you engage the class in an activity that they are interested in.

With that in mind, here's an idea for relieving a Primary 1 or Primary 2 class. It's not necessarily educational, but since you're just relieving the class, it doesn't hurt to do something fun at the same time! And the materials needed are easily found in school, or in your students' schoolbags.

Hand Animals

Materials needed: Paper, pencil, colouring materials

Time: One period ( Inclusive of you giving the class instructions on how to carry this out )

What to do:

1. Put hand on paper.

2. Draw outline of hand.

3. Add eyes, hooves, hair to make it look like an animal.

4. Colour.

Easy isn't it? This can be easily done by most Primary 1 or Primary 2 students. If you want to make it more interesting, you can draw a weird-looking animal, or make it into an alien instead. Demonstrate it first, so that they can see how to do it, and then let them loose to their imaginations!

Reopening

After some time, I decided I would reopen this blog again. I had no idea at the time, but apparently ideas on teachers and teaching are quite popular around the Internet. Even after the blog officially closed, I was still receiving comments and email from a few people, surprisingly. This made me think that maybe ideas on teaching are still being googled, and I do find myself googling ideas for lessons at work.

So I'll make a second try at this blog. Here's to more good stuff!

Looking back... and Forth...

Looking back, it's been 2 years since my last post.

Funnily enough, that's been the approximate amount of time that I've started my bond at my posted school.

When I started this blog way back in NIE, my naive self never thought of a few things that would affect the postings to this blog. I never anticipated:

1) That my work would take up so much of my time and energy that at the end of it, I wouldn't really want to do something as mentally taxing as blogging. [Other than the other after-curriculum activities that take up more of my time and less of my energy that is]

2) That I would have to live in apprehension of having this blog found out by my current employers and, ever since a certain incident concerning another teacher, face the fear of disciplinary action or even legal action.

3) That, er, work is often so boring and routine that there wouldn't be that much to blog about anyway. [How much commentary can one make on revision papers and exams?]

So after all these combined, I have to rethink the idea behind this whole blog. Often, there are things happening that I just wish I could blog, but knew that if I did so, I would get into very real trouble with people. In order to get past all these, I have to rethink the whole direction I have taken with this blog and where I want it to go from here.

So sadly, I have to officially declare a hiatus on this blog. I don't want to completely shut it down, because I think the concept is a real help to some groups of people out there. [Those who sent me mail, thanks] I'm just going to take a break and take the time to redo this blog.

Thanks for the support I've received! And finest wishes to all the other fellow educators and educators-to-be out there!

Choose! Would you go through the Subaru RX challenge and stick to your hand to a car for more than 60 hours to get out of the bond? Vote now! [5 votes total]

YES!! Anything to get out of the bond! (3) 60%
No! Are you nuts? (1) 20%
Hmm, I'm not sure but I'm tempted...... (1) 20%

Die... we actually have 3 pple who are willing to stick their hand on a car for >60 hours to get out of the bond, and one who is tempted by the idea. Moe seriously needs to look into their bonding and staff retention policies. :p

For those who missed the voting, try again by clicking on this link.

End of Exams... Start of Headaches

The exams have ended for the kids, and everyone is pretty hysterical and diffident to anything that resembles work anymore. X( So in a nutshell, all the kids are having the times of their lives in school, but we are faced with the job of keeping them occupied and entertained.

Personally, I'm in favour of just releasing all of them from school one week early and letting them romp around at home instead. Especially the primary 6ers, who finished their PSLE ages ago, and are just in school for... I don't know what purpose. Why keep them around when they are utterly disinterested in work anyway? And for their sakes, let them enjoy what days of carefree leisure they have before they have to face secondary, JC and even work.

And give us some kind of break from keeping them occupied too. :p

At least it's easier to occupy lower primary students. Give them a word search, a complicated maze, or bring tons of scissors and glue and get them doing some kind of models, or drawing, and they're occupied and happy. Try the same thing on upper primary students and you get the "duh" look.

Oh well... 2 weeks more and counting... :p Remember to start applying for leave, everyone!

3 Days or 3 Years?

Speaking with a fellow BT one day, we discuss cars and bonds.

Think about the maths for a while. A typical 3 year bond comes with a roughly $30,000-$40,000 penalty, depending on how long you spent in NIE. [We are working on a one year PGDE bond here, to make things simple.]

If you entered the Mediacorp Subaru RX challenge and you keep your hand on the car for more than 64 hours, [approx 2odd to 3 days] you would have won yourself a new car, which, if you sold off, would almost be enough to pay off for your bond.

All you would have to do is to get over the starvation, dehydration, fatigue and sleep deprivation that comes as a result. But hey, since we face this in the job everyday, we should be quite trained for it, no? :p

What is your choice? 3 days or 3 years?

3 Days or 3 Nights
Choose! Would you go through the Subaru RX challenge and stick to your hand to a car for more than 60 hours to get out of the bond? Vote now!	YES!! Anything to get out of the bond! No! Are you nuts? Hmm, I'm not sure but I'm tempted......
	Current Results

In other news, the PSLE marking period is now over, and it's back to school for everyone. While the prospect of facing my students doesn't exactly fill me with unadulterated joy, at least it somewhat beats the menial task of a recorder during the marking period...

Although I might change my mind the minute I step into class tomorrow and face the kids, who would have probably forgotten all the classroom conditioning and the holiday assignments over the 4 years. *faint*

Happy Children's Day!

I know I'm going to take a good break somewhere..... hope the same goes for the rest of you too. :D

Should Teachers Blog?

Who saw the article in the digital section of the Sunday Times? [Go flip through your newspaper pile if you haven't] Not a new issue of course, if I remember, this has been talked about before, though I can't remember the exact occasion.

Frankly, I don't know why people even think teachers should not blog at all. Please, just add blogging to the long list of human activities that teachers are not supposed to engage in already, including having a life outside of school that does not involve education or children in some way.

I thought being in the education line would've taught people one thing by now: that the more you stop the kids from doing something, the more they want to do it. I should know. The more I try to stop my kids from jumping on the tables and chairs, the more they do it somehow, despite obvious danger to life and limb. [sigh]

So why should we teachers not blog? I think there's nothing wrong with blogging, if you know where the lines of slander are drawn. [hee] If you're going to write about what a pretentious prick your principal is, for example, [not that mine is one!!!] obviously you're going to get into trouble, the same way you would if you were to troop into his office and call him a dumbass to his face.

What's missing is an atmosphere of open maturity. You gotta accept that from time to time, people do have grudges about their job. Even if we're in a vocation, where the standards are higher, you cannot except people to be 100% happy all of the time. If the blog does not slander, does not use foul language, what the heck is wrong with it? Besides, don't forget the sheer number of students who blog these days. If you're not familiar with it, risk losing touch with a large number of your students.

I never believed banning ever solved anything. Teach people to use things responsibly, instead of just taking it away from them.

And anyway, with more blogging going on, won't it help to raise the standards of English that Big Moe is so concerned about? ;)

Here is me doing cheap promotion for my own poll. Please vote on the latest GROW plan and what you think of it at the online poll at the right of the blog. Current results indicate that, er,

2 people think it's ok
2 people think it makes no difference to their careers
3 people still feel like quitting anyway

and no one feels more motivated to continue working.

Hahaha... I'm tempted to think this is the true viewpoint of those on the ground, but I have to reluctantly state that the sample size is too small to conclude anything. [damn that stats module I took!] So please vote if you haven't already, and also leave a comment on why you feel that way!

Teachers are going crazy!

The good things about being in school on a PSLE day are that the school is quiet, the children are not around, and there are no lessons to plan :)

The bad thing is that you [or rather I] get more tired easily, because of no exercise, you stare at your computer screen too much trying to finish planning lessons before the weekend, doing research for upcoming exam papers, and other assorted admin work. X(

Now I realise how unsuitable a desk job is for me.

Anyway, there is a current thread going on at Moe's forum about whether teachers are going crazy. According to either unfounded rumours or hidden facts, [whichever you choose to perceive it as] there is a significant number of teachers who end up at IMH for......... you can go ahead and guess for whatever reason. :)

I tried reading the threads, but I almost went crazy doing so [haha, cheap pun] so here are the main points as supplied by my friend:

1. Prioritise your time.

Work is work, leisure is leisure and never the twain should meet. I only realised how important leisure time was when I started the real work. True enough it does take up time that could be used planning lessons or looking for resources, and the worst thing is that I end up procrastinating a lot and doing a lot of last minute work. :p

The upside is, I get my recess time, and something about being forced to meet a deadline no matter what has resulted in some of my better lesson ideas. Mwahaha. At least my creativity and quick-thinking skills are improving.

Put it this way: You won't want your kids to sit through lessons the whole day without recess in between would you? So why subject yourself to the same torture?

2. If you can't, you can't

Everyone has their limits, and a wise man knows his. If you know you can't do it, why force yourself to do it, and then convince yourself you can? It's true enough that nobody knows their real limits, and that if you never grow, you will never know. But you know when you can't do it. That's when you start dreaming of nightmare scenarios involving you, your students and your HODs and endless piles of unmarked papers. Or you sweat uncontrollably at the sight of a red pen.

Face it, if you think you need learning support, don't force yourself to join the A stars.

3. Eat bananas

So you don't go bananas. No really, according to someone on the forum, bananas contain anti-depressants, so maybe there is some truth to the statement after all.

And my very own point at the end of it all... when all else fails....

4. Just Don't Bother

Fergeddabudit. Throw the red pens into the bin, switch off the laptop, ignore the pile of unmarked books, and just go do something fun. Tell yourself you owe yourself that much.

IF you don't agree with any of the 4 points here, I sincerely hope you don't land in IMH one day.

We Are Not Happy. Why?

It's telling how, simply by glancing through the Tomorrow.sg website, one can come up with the number of grudges, grunts, and overall noises of dissatisfaction against the System.

Why I Hate Teaching
D&T above all else

And wow, even a petition for a principal to please, quit already.

Ironically, I remember when I went for the mandatory Reflective Practice course, the trainer was trying to tell us that we had the power to change our situation. If we could just take our own positive affirmative action, then we could drastically change our teaching outlook and approach, and generally, at least life would look a little better for us.

I think I can only half agree with her.

Firstly, there are just too much crap going on outside of the actual teaching that is causing dissatisfaction within the teaching profession. In my very-short career, talking to other contract teachers and senior teachers and reading other blogs has yielded one result: that it is NOT the children that is causing the dissatisfaction, but all other things like the leadership, the administration, the non-curriculuar activities.

Above all, it is the expectations. It is telling in the trainer's presentation that the reason why WE suffer is because of US and that WE can take action to solve that, while having faith that the system is doing its best behind the scenes to help us.

There is a lot expected of teachers isn't it? Is it because we are working in a vocation [as opposed to an occupation] that people think it's only right that we suffer all these with a whisper of complaint? I feel as if we are expected everyday to do more and more and more for the children, but only for that few extra peanuts. [and not gold-plated ones, to boot]

But on the flipside, I have seen situations where the teacher in question could have avoided extra work with a few simple actions. For example, one BT in school was looking particularly strained because 3 different HODs had suddenly called in her children's workbooks for checking. And suddenly she had to examine and sort out piles of English, Math and Social studies workbooks and files to be handed in the next day

I told her to tell the HODs that she was swamped, and to ask for an extension. After all, it was the eve of the holidays! Why can't she just hand in the books either during the week, or even in Term 4?

She didn't. Maybe she was nervous, after all, a BT telling a HOD that she can't do it, would she look bad? Would the HOD just demand it of her anyway? Maybe she was afraid that it would give her a bad, or unprofessional image to the HOD, but still! Isn't this a pretty impossible uphill task, even for a senior teacher???

Why not at least make the effort to ask, in a professional way, and explain the situation to the HOD? If you asked, at least you get the chance of a reprieve, rather than suffering in silence all the while.

[anyway I learned my lesson from her situation. From next week, I'm hounding my students for all workbooks, worksheets and files, and I'm making sure they stay in school, unless it's exam period. That way anytime someone wants to see my books, they're prepared.]

I hope our suffering is not caused by our own silence. There is only so much that we can all take to a certain point. Why allow others to put you past that point? If you think people are shitting on you, then raise a stink and make sure they know of it!

I hope I never reach the point where I suffer things blindly.

$250m

The new measures to make teaching more attractive and retentive are out, announced during the Mass Lecture at the Singapore Expo yesterday. [incidentally how many of you were there? And how many of you left after the speech/informal break/lecture? ;p]

Among the measures: [as stated by Straits Times]

- Increase in gratuity bonus
- Higher starting salaries for graduates with pass/pass with merit and dip. holders [I joined one year too late!!!]
- Salary review for mid-career grads
- More opportunities for promotion
- Full-pay sabbaticals for teachers with at least 12 years of experience [I'm so out!]
- Learning-related expenses of $400-$700 to be made claimable [the most flexible, it will be available to everyone]
- More emphasis on staff development [whether this gets translated to the ground level, remains to be seen]

Unfortunately our salaries are already found to be quite competitive with the private sector, so no changes in that direction. Shoot :p

At first glance though, most of the goodies seem to be more for the long-term employees rather than the newbie BTs. Is anyone interested in whether we'll stay beyond our 3/4/5/6 year bonds? And most of the goodies don't focus on the purely material but instead seem directed towards making our life and career development as smooth and varied as possible. Which means you'll only feel the full benefit if you stay for as long as possible.

Hm. What do you guys think?

Happy Teacher's Day

It seems highly ironic to me that the day that is supposed to be for the teachers, ended up being more tiring for me, the teacher, than any other normal school day.

2 of the troublemakers decided to get into repeated fights with each other, just a few pathetic minutes before I was supposed to get them all gathered up to go to the hall for the Teacher's Day concert. In the ruckus, they push over a much smaller girl, who starts crying on the spot.

Honestly, it's days like these that make me wonder why I joined this line.

We finally arrived late for the concert. I had the two boys stand outside the hall giving them one solid scolding while the rest of the students were settled in the hall waiting for the performance to start. Once I had finally cooled down enough, I dragged one of the major troublemakers to me for a calmer talking-to.

I told him something like there was no point in fighting, because even if the other kid started it first, he was equally in the wrong for continuing the fight. [and for hitting back more savagely, may I add] And in the end, only innocent bystanders like the smaller girl would get hurt in the end, and would he only be satisfied after he had killed all his classmates, or pushed his other friends down the stairs or something?

I told him to please think in the future if someone hit him. If it was accidental, then ignore it. If it was on purpose, then tell a teacher, instead of hitting back. At the end of it, I asked him to repeat what I said.

His reply: "If someone hits me, hit him back a million times." *grin*.

Teachers are the imparters of values, the principal read out from the Teacher's Day letter to schools. But what if the students are not willing to accept those values?

*Haiz* Anyway, for a lighter note, please scroll down to read the entry on Things Teachers Wish They Could Tell Their Students.

Happy Teacher's Day, all.