After 11 weeks of Relief Teaching posting in Secondary School...

It has been a long while since I last updated my blog as I had been so tied up juggling between my relief teaching and tuition lessons. More than 12 hours of work each day on top of my pregnancy, though tiring yet fulfilling. 

It had been a great experience to get the chance to teach A/E Maths in a secondary school, for now I really understand the differences between a MOE teacher and a tuition teacher. It had also provided me a with clearer view that being a tutor is what I want after contemplating to switch to teaching career for many years. 

During this relief period, I had been assigned to one Sec 4 Express A/E Maths class, one Sec 3 NA Maths class and one Sec 1 NT Maths class. This diversity had provided me a great opportunity to meet students from different backgrounds and understand their needs and interests in academics. As a teacher, not only do you need to deliver the knowledge and inspire, you need to manage the students as well, especially towards those weaker ones and those who showed the lack of interest. It's definitely a tougher job as compared to tutoring, as those who walked in to us are those who at least showed some interest in improving their results. Most of the time, teachers may find that they get trapped in the dilemma of whether to spend more time to inspire students who show bare interests in learning or to nurture those who wished to learn more. The beam is already so hard to balance. Not to mention, teachers also need to cater to the speed of teaching for the whole class, as some students learn fast while others slow, and some students have tuition teachers, while others have none. 

Though frustrating and disappointed at times, this experience is on the whole worthwhile. It helps me to understand and appreciate my tutees more now. Now, when my student tells me that he or she did not understand a single thing the teacher is teaching in school, I can now understand his or her situation better and cater better to his or her needs. Making this comment can be due to many factors and not necessary always the teacher's fault. The class environment, was it too noisy? Or was the intelligence level of the class on the whole, very high, which might properly be a reason for the teacher to teach fast, or was the teacher incompetent to deliver or was it due to my student not paying attention in class? All these factors are very important to consider when we teach because the wrong assumptions can lead to the tutees losing confidence in their tutors, just like they did with their school teachers, or worse, lose interest in the subject totally.

Now that the relief teaching is over, I look forward to another new chapter in my tutoring career. It has always been my goal to enhance my teaching skills to further help any students in need. A motto that I always hold: There are no stupid students in this world, but only lazy ones. With the right inspiration, any lazy student can be taught to shine!

Clarice
2nd April 2015