We teachers are literally slaves |
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By 90percentembittered  Disgruntled civil servant ranting here for a bit. Teachers are literally slaves. Slaves of their superiors, some parents and definitely the government. Despite our already crazy job scopes, we have to grit our teeth and undergo hours of online + physical election officer training prior to being activated for polling duty on the actual election day itself. This time round however, I must say the upcoming presidential election truly takes the cake because it has been (purposely?) scheduled to coincide with that one special day which traditionally should have been set aside just to celebrate us educators. No doubt Teachers' Day is still happening albeit being pushed back more than a week (from 1 Sept to 11 Sept), nevertheless its significance is already greatly diminished. Things gets even worse for male teachers who have to report for military in-camp training (ICT) annually. As if fighting them proverbial wars day in, day out at school isn’t enough. “Oh c'mon, at least you get a break!”, that’s what many opine. But is it actually a break when you have to plan for 2 weeks' worth of lessons in advance whilst already struggling to see through a fully packed academic term? Is it a break when an avalanche of ungraded work which has since accrued awaits upon your return? Unless you are also dug deep in the trenches aka classrooms like us, you probably can't even begin to fathom how frustrated we feel (yes we could quit, but arrgh we love our students too much). [Addendum] Allow me to share what happens during a typical school day:
0630-0700: Reach school
0700-1330/1500: Non-stop lessons / meetings
1330/1500-1700: Meetings (again) / CCA / extra lessons
1700-1730: Lunch*
1730-2100: Mark homework / plan lessons God this never ends... *I can typically afford only one meal a day given serious time constraints (although I do squeeze out pockets to ingest a biscuit or two). |
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