Let There be Chaos: My Teaching Job

Today marks the last day of my temporary teacher's job at Sekolah Sri Bestari. I've been carrying the title as MISS HEE (cough, cough) for one month, exactly one month and phew, just everybody stand up and feel the weirdness of people addressing you as a teacher...

Ask the question:
1.Why teacher?
Education runs in the blood of my family. I've got a private tutor mum (part time), an aunt who runs a kindergarten, cousins who teaches music and tuition, an uncle who is a retired principal, an uncle who runs a music centre...And besides, I've heard that after Form 6, if you apply to be a teacher, you enjoy a lot of benefits such as short working hours and abundant holidays in line. And plus the pay is expected to be high. Plus teaching is no stranger to me. I've been a tuition teacher and kindergarten teacher before.

2. Why Sekolah Sri Besatri?
Ask why private school instead of Chinese Government schools, because you know that Chinese Schools pay high salary. And it seems from centuries ago there is always been shortage for teachers. Well, I did apply for Government school as GSTT but too bad the school doesn't want me (for whatever reason). And it's a myth that says that there's a constant shortage of teachers because almost every school we've asked had already enough teachers. And they do not pay high, because as a GSTT, the money is fixed by the government not the school, approximately 1200 per month plus benefits (EPF, SOSCO, Medical panel). Well, looks inviting, but they did not hire me. Therefore I went SSB since they need a Temporary teacher. (Note: Temporary teacher and GSTT are different in the case that the former gets daily wages without benefits while the latter gets monthly pay with benefits)

3. The job?
Routine.
PJK: Go feild. Run, pant, sweat. (go back office makan)
English: Scream at 4C. (go back office with sore throat)
Mandarin: Copy on board. Read, mark exercise. (go back office type Daily Lesson Plan)
Computer: Distribute task, sit down, shake legs. (go back office shake legs again)
Maths: Rush 2A and 3C to hurry up. (go back office mark books)
*between lessons there're a lot of free blank periods for me to sit and online, read books, magazines, listen to music. I don't understand why other teachers were so busy, but I seem pretty relaxed, even with the workload.

4. The pay?
RM70 per day. Working hours is from 8 to 4.

5. The environment?
Okay. I was very furious at first when I arrived that they did not have a table for me and gave me the reason that I've reported in late. I just merely think that they just want to save the trouble of preparing the table for me because I am temporary. SHEESH...UNFAIR! So for the first two weeks I was really grumpy and in a bad mood because I'm in an nonconducting environment, and HELLO, how am I supposed to perform well?

They gave me this table at first. The shared printer table. And I had a book's free space, and ten people asking me to tumpang lalu every ten minutes.

Then, they shifted me here. The cutter and laminating table. And this is better because Paramjit talks with me all the time, but I still hated the minimum space.

Finally, Kok, the teacher I'm replacing came back. So they beria-ia found one desk for her. (sarcastic-nya. As if I'm not a teacher), so I sat on her place for a day. Eventhough it's in front of the main switch, but it's secluded, and privacy is excellent. Darn I enjoyed one day of peace there~

Then, upon Kok's return, I was shifted to another table, Lee's table, the teacher I replaced for one week. And that's the table I sat until today.

Nay~I'm not demanding too much. I'm okay with the job, the demand, the workload, the responsibility. Anything. Just, show some respect and appreciation for your teachers. By showing her the care and rights she ought to have. Even she's temporary~

6. The students?
They're just kids. Even the Year 6 ones are just kids, even they insist that they've already grown up. (or they think they've already grown up) Session 1 students are better because you can just scare them using scoldings and threatening them with their parents or the principal, or in rare cases, the police...LOL. Session 2 are more difficult because they don't give a damn about what you scream because they know you can do nothing to them. So have to use a lot of psychological approach.

The Year 2 kids I taught.

7. The school?
Okay. Let picture say.

The lockers in the class. The table there is just a student's place where he forgot to bring his book(3 times in a row), so I blasted on the spot and pulled him together with his seat and told him to sit at the back of the classroom for the remaining of the lesson.

Hallway.

Classroom.

School compound.

8. The staff?
They're nice people who are easy going and fun. Because most of the teachers are young and there will be no much generation gap. So actually I can talk about almost anything with most of them. Even I regard myself as very quiet there, but I do like their presence as they gave me a lot of guidance and advices about anything: duties, teaching methods, career prospects...So nice. Well, I do sure will miss them.

One of them gave me chocolates to farewell me. I gave her my telephone number.
Evil me right? But I lub all the teachers there!

So today, my last day, just have a glimpse of everything.

My table: always with a mug, a stack of books, and my MP4 player. I'm known as ulat buku there. And a photo of my friends, just to remind me that, I'm not alone in this working world.