Friday, June 06, 2014

Glass Classrooms

As my teaching careers draws to a close (and when I have the time!), I start to think more and more about the job as a whole and the things I have learnt. I keep thinking to myself: I should write this all down, but the moment I get home I get distracted by something soothing and forget at all about it. This is especially made worse by the fact that I've re-discovered the time black hole that is Civilisation and have been playing it almost every night since last week Tuesday.

For the past few Fridays, I've been assigned to a glass classroom next to the staffroom. I call it a glass classroom because it is literally made of glass. Glass windows look out onto Thomson Road where you can see flags from several nations fluttering away, and the walls and door are made of glass, giving you a full-on view of the two adjoining classrooms (and the other way round too). I am not particularly fond of the classroom because it feels like I'm teaching in a fishbowl, plus you need to awkwardly walk through another classroom to enter it. That being said, it is near the toilets and the staffroom, so I can dash about easily. Still a classroom is a classroom, and I'm getting vaguely used to it.

Recently however, I've been feeling a bit stressed out about teaching there, namely because of the teacher next door. She's a senior teacher, and the lesson plans she shares during meetings always sound fantastic, plus her students always look so engaged and interested. Watching her from my classroom I feel inadequate as a teacher. I can't command such gravitas, summon up such energy and spunk, and plan my lessons as well as her. Even though I tell myself she has a good 10 years worth of experience on me, I still can't help but feel slightly despondent and wish for better for my students. Wish that they had a better teacher who could help them a lot more.

All things said and wished however, I know (for better or worse!) that my students are genuinely of me as a person and an individual, rather than me as a teacher - and I cannot help but wonder if it just might be a good thing, that they will learn empathy amongst other things from the time I've spent with them. Only time will tell I suppose, and I wouldn't trade my students for any other in the world.

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