I attended my first lecture on Thursday evening. First time I sat for a three-hour lecture. The longest lecture I ever attended was two hours straight. The topic was on Art Appreciation, and the lecturer gave us some ideas on how to observe paintings and how to differentiate the different angles of the painting.
Since my supervisor was busy on Thursday, I had to attend a meeting on her behalf. The meeting ended about 4:30pm in town, and by the time I went back to office, it would be knocking off time. Besides, my lecture was at 7:30pm.
So since I had some time free I went to watch “Match Point”. I am not that familiar with the other Woody Allen’s shows, but this movie is good. It is a show of passion, lust, extramarital affair, typical problems between married couples, being at the right place at the right time, and how one’s luck can change just by meeting the right people.
It is essentially a movie on how one’s life is determined by luck and chance and it is up to oneself to seize the opportunity. How one’s actions can be determined by luck whether it turns out good or bad.
The main character of the movie brought up a very good point, on how most of our lives are determined by luck and chance, because sometimes even if we can do all the right things, but luck is not on our side, we will still end up being in the wrong. Similarly, if we do all the wrong things but luck is on our side, we can still get off scot-free.
I met a few of my teaching peers in the course. Anyway this course is mainly for teachers who want to upgrade their qualifications and vying for increment and be placed on a higher scale. If I am not mistaken, besides me, everyone else is a teacher. I see a lot of familiar marking actions while the lecture was going on.
I am rather disappointed that all of a sudden there seems to be a communication gap between my teaching peers and myself. It got me reflecting just how closed-up a teacher’s world can be, since they just go in and out of classrooms and face kids day in day out, thus a lot of them are naïve over what really goes on outside of school.
They ask me that since I am no longer teaching, why take up this course? Why not? Taking up a course need not necessary mean one have to be in a certain line. Courses can be taken up for interest, for upgrading, for the sheer pleasure of learning more things. Not everything one does need to be beneficial to one’s career, and in any case, having more knowledge and higher qualifications is always beneficial no matter what job you are in.
I just find that when I talk to them, they seem quite narrow-minded as everything goes to results and career. There is always a bigger picture out there. They complain that doing “useless” topics like art appreciation, music and philosophy is not going to help them in their work.
What makes them think so? One of these days, the kids may ask a question relating to issues like these, and it will be so embarrassing if the teacher does not know how to answer. They rather go right into the core of English Language and Literature, which is what they sign up for, rather than going through a year of broad humanities. Why do people not take it from the point of view of enriching their knowledge?
This reminded me of what my dad once told me. He was a junior college lecturer / tutor for a number of years before he left. He was teaching General Paper, Geography and Economics. Now why did I not inherit these traits from him, then perhaps I could have done much better, especially in Economics. My dad was actually teaching in the same junior college where local author Catherine Lim was teaching General Paper and English Literature in before she became a full-time writer.
I asked my dad once why he left the service. He said that firstly, he had dedicated a part of his life grooming the younger generation (which, in those days, were probably much easier to handle, not like the kids now) and he felt himself stagnating.
There were many more opportunities outside for an Economics honours graduate, and later a Master graduate in Business Administration. And for a man, he needed a better career prospect in order to feed the family.
Secondly, he heard a senior teacher saying some very childish things. That teacher spent his entire life teaching, yet was so naïve about what went on in the world. My dad started to see himself in that teacher, and determined that he did not want to stay in a job that would make him lose touch with the ever-changing society. He wanted to broaden his horizons.
Those were the exact few of many reasons why I chose to leave too. I cannot deny that I miss my teaching days. I miss those kids, I miss being around children, I miss my choir, I miss inculcating knowledge and values, and, believe it or not, I even miss the marking.
But the bigger picture is that if I continue to stay on, I will miss out on even more things and opportunities that only the big world out there can provide. I will have missed out on being exposed to the society, opening up my mind and learning so many more things.
There are really so many more things to life than just education, book learning and grooming the younger generation. I need to live my own life, a life of what I like to do, a life of broadening my mind, a life of learning more things, instead of living other’s lives by catering to all their whims and fancies and getting nothing out of my own life.
Having said that, not every teacher is like that. It depends on how you want to lead your life. I admire my friend ThamPs that she is able to juggle teaching and so many other activities together. I could not. Teaching was my life and nothing else since there was no time to do anything else.
And I also salute all those teachers who dedicate their whole lives to education. Despite all the stress, demands, rigidity and problems, they still have a passion in such a thankless, super overworked and super underpaid career. I know I cannot. So I really want to applaud all those teachers who are so noble and self-sacrificing enough to be able to do that.
Since my supervisor was busy on Thursday, I had to attend a meeting on her behalf. The meeting ended about 4:30pm in town, and by the time I went back to office, it would be knocking off time. Besides, my lecture was at 7:30pm.
So since I had some time free I went to watch “Match Point”. I am not that familiar with the other Woody Allen’s shows, but this movie is good. It is a show of passion, lust, extramarital affair, typical problems between married couples, being at the right place at the right time, and how one’s luck can change just by meeting the right people.
It is essentially a movie on how one’s life is determined by luck and chance and it is up to oneself to seize the opportunity. How one’s actions can be determined by luck whether it turns out good or bad.
The main character of the movie brought up a very good point, on how most of our lives are determined by luck and chance, because sometimes even if we can do all the right things, but luck is not on our side, we will still end up being in the wrong. Similarly, if we do all the wrong things but luck is on our side, we can still get off scot-free.
I met a few of my teaching peers in the course. Anyway this course is mainly for teachers who want to upgrade their qualifications and vying for increment and be placed on a higher scale. If I am not mistaken, besides me, everyone else is a teacher. I see a lot of familiar marking actions while the lecture was going on.
I am rather disappointed that all of a sudden there seems to be a communication gap between my teaching peers and myself. It got me reflecting just how closed-up a teacher’s world can be, since they just go in and out of classrooms and face kids day in day out, thus a lot of them are naïve over what really goes on outside of school.
They ask me that since I am no longer teaching, why take up this course? Why not? Taking up a course need not necessary mean one have to be in a certain line. Courses can be taken up for interest, for upgrading, for the sheer pleasure of learning more things. Not everything one does need to be beneficial to one’s career, and in any case, having more knowledge and higher qualifications is always beneficial no matter what job you are in.
I just find that when I talk to them, they seem quite narrow-minded as everything goes to results and career. There is always a bigger picture out there. They complain that doing “useless” topics like art appreciation, music and philosophy is not going to help them in their work.
What makes them think so? One of these days, the kids may ask a question relating to issues like these, and it will be so embarrassing if the teacher does not know how to answer. They rather go right into the core of English Language and Literature, which is what they sign up for, rather than going through a year of broad humanities. Why do people not take it from the point of view of enriching their knowledge?
This reminded me of what my dad once told me. He was a junior college lecturer / tutor for a number of years before he left. He was teaching General Paper, Geography and Economics. Now why did I not inherit these traits from him, then perhaps I could have done much better, especially in Economics. My dad was actually teaching in the same junior college where local author Catherine Lim was teaching General Paper and English Literature in before she became a full-time writer.
I asked my dad once why he left the service. He said that firstly, he had dedicated a part of his life grooming the younger generation (which, in those days, were probably much easier to handle, not like the kids now) and he felt himself stagnating.
There were many more opportunities outside for an Economics honours graduate, and later a Master graduate in Business Administration. And for a man, he needed a better career prospect in order to feed the family.
Secondly, he heard a senior teacher saying some very childish things. That teacher spent his entire life teaching, yet was so naïve about what went on in the world. My dad started to see himself in that teacher, and determined that he did not want to stay in a job that would make him lose touch with the ever-changing society. He wanted to broaden his horizons.
Those were the exact few of many reasons why I chose to leave too. I cannot deny that I miss my teaching days. I miss those kids, I miss being around children, I miss my choir, I miss inculcating knowledge and values, and, believe it or not, I even miss the marking.
But the bigger picture is that if I continue to stay on, I will miss out on even more things and opportunities that only the big world out there can provide. I will have missed out on being exposed to the society, opening up my mind and learning so many more things.
There are really so many more things to life than just education, book learning and grooming the younger generation. I need to live my own life, a life of what I like to do, a life of broadening my mind, a life of learning more things, instead of living other’s lives by catering to all their whims and fancies and getting nothing out of my own life.
Having said that, not every teacher is like that. It depends on how you want to lead your life. I admire my friend ThamPs that she is able to juggle teaching and so many other activities together. I could not. Teaching was my life and nothing else since there was no time to do anything else.
And I also salute all those teachers who dedicate their whole lives to education. Despite all the stress, demands, rigidity and problems, they still have a passion in such a thankless, super overworked and super underpaid career. I know I cannot. So I really want to applaud all those teachers who are so noble and self-sacrificing enough to be able to do that.
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