Teaching here is not really a tough job, or as I had thought it would be some weeks ago. In fact, there wasn't much work for me to prepare, nor was I expected to stay for work till very late. Perhaps it's just this school's requirement, because there are other secondary schools which make the RTs work really hard, like working out the solutions for the Math and Science papers. Haha, perhaps all I can say is, lucky me.
And precisely because of this, as our timetables are not really full, all the current RTs get a lot of time to slack past during the job, and we've gotten reasonably friendly with each other and close too! What with common subjects to talk about (the 'A's, the 'O's, funny things in our own JCs, the boyfriends, the ongoing SALES (!) and etc.) and ranting about the kids who don't give a damn about their work, and suggesting ridiculous ways, and more seriously, trying to come up with effective ways to deal with the "noise which always seem to come from the back".
However, it's been some kind of a culture shock to me when I started teaching here. For the first time in my whole rote-learning life, I've met kids in class who are simply not interested in doing well for their exams, nor believe that hard work reaps rewards. And kids who come from families so broken that they don't want to go home, much less care about their school work. And also kids with determination so weak that they give up on questions after a few futile tries. Even some who are doing their 'O's this year couldn't be bothered to put in effort for their work. But they are all very nice kiddies (:
I'd been thinking rather seriously about teaching. If I really cannot find a suitable way for myself to get into the fashion design, or interior design courses that I want, I'll want to go into NIE. It's not a last resort, but if there's no way for me to reach out for my own passion, I want to go into the education career. But it wouldn't be easy if I indeed made my foray into this option, for, ONE, I have many ideals of my own on how to teach the kids, and it would be hard for me to fulfil my own ideals (mainly because I don't wanna be just a teacher who helps kids to pull through their courses, I want all of my kids to be more determined, and get better results because they want to), for, TWO, most of these would clash with the conventional methods, and the goals that MOE puts forth. And if I do discuss it here, I might be blacklisted and forced to drop my ideals and delete my own blog, haha.
And this morning the NYWS Alumni had training. As I mentioned that a guy from an uber-rich European family snagged a place in a prestigious UK university by securing a scholarship there, the GP training in us took over and analysed the merits and demerits of meritocracy. You can imagine what we discussed la... what about the poor but smart kids? Should scholarships awarded be assessed on the awardee's family income? Then we went on to how if you start off rich enough and can afford the best education for your children, who grow up with the right kind of social circle, and then you'll continue to earn more money and have a richer family, and the cycle continues. But what if you started off poor? And you can't give your children the best education, more tuition and enrichment classes because you can't afford to? Well, one can be very determined and work very hard, and get a scholarship. And this is seriously not easy at all. But it is admittedly easier for these kids to go waywards. What if they are really interested in studying, and can't further their education because of the lack of funds, because the scholarship was taken up by someone else who obviously had the means to pay for the entire package? Not fair at all, isn't it.
Meritocracy does have its disadvantaged after all, it's not perfect.
