Freaking Pissed..

I've learnt not to put in too much emotion in my job. It's just not worth the effort. These students don't see the importance of education. A handful of them come to school to make a nuisance of themselves, cause disturbance to others, be freaking rude to their teachers, don't bother about their marks, be attention-seekers and do whatever they like besides behaving and respecting their teachers. Sometimes when I step back and put myself in their shoes, yes, I didn't really care about my studies from sec. 1 to 3. But at least I bothered to do my homework and whatever I was told to do. No one in my school walked around the class when they didn't feel like listening. No one turned around and started laughing loudly as if the teacher was invisible when the teacher was teaching. The worst behaviour was just chit-chatting with our partners.

People tell me that I must try to empathize with them. They come from broken homes or complicated family backgrounds. I always feel that that's not an excuse to be a nuisance in school. There are other ways of grabbing attention. These people choose the laziest way to do so, which is to intentionally annoy the teacher and not learn. Why can't they do otherwise? Work hard, be respectful towards their teachers, be morally-upright citizens, contribute positively to the society and at least secure a decent future for themselves. And come on, how many percentage of them actually come from broken homes? Being poor is also not an excuse for not studying and anyway, how poor can these people be when they have handphones? Whatever it is, I feel that being poor should spur one to study even harder so that one won't be forever poor. It's a vicious cycle if they continue lamenting on their poor fate without taking any action. Now I finally understand why the gulf between the rich and the poor is widening each year in our society.

While I was invigilating and I look at these students, I really feel very worried for our future generations. Thirty minutes past the exam, you are bound to have students sleeping, toying with their pens, drawing pictures, attempting to cheat etc. I really don't know what to say. All I can do is to shake my head.

Of course there are bound to be good students in neighbourhood schools. I think one negative trait about me is that I tend to concentrate more with the bad students and overlook the good ones. And I do admit that my attitude needs checking if I want to be a teacher as I have the tendency to look down on certain groups of people.

What I learnt today: No point putting in too much heart into my job. The higher one's expectations and concerns, the more disappointed and demoralised one gets.