Life is a Roller Coaster Ride

Teaching is like a roller coaster ride. Sometimes it sucks totally, so much that you really feel like you're screwing up the lives of kids and really want to quit to avoid ruining the futures of more lives. Sometimes just a simple statement from the students will bring you to cloud nine and erase away all your fatigue. Hearing students say that they liked coming to class, preferring to attend my class to other classes, passing their tests make me feel that no matter how physically and mentally drained I am, it is all worth it. It is having kids like this who makes me feel a greater need to do all that I can to help them improve their grades. I know this happiness is short-lived as I cant guarantee every lesson is a fulfilling one where I achieve all my expectations, but how long can my passion in teaching sustain? 

Credits: https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8413/8710087045_70ea238726_z.jpg

Credits: http://33.media.tumblr.com/75f0ea5e2e7d58896b4595fbb5d7c045/tumblr_mjmpmqoFmO1qh8iwno1_500.jpg

It's not going to be easy, but it's gonna be worth it

Tuesday again and it was tuition day. However somehow I felt that the spirit and enthusiasm of the class was heightened judging from the class participation. They seemed more interested in the class and involved in the lesson. This is possibly due to 2 very simple questions that I asked at the start of the class.

The moment they stepped into the class, I asked each of them "Did your parents ask you to come for tuition or were you the one who wanted to come?" Second question "On a rating of 0 to 10, 0 being you don't give a shit about what is happening in the class, 10 being you really want to learn something out of the class, what would you give?"

Simple as it is, yet it had a deep impact on my teaching approach. In my opinion, undoubtedly I am paid to do my work as a tutor. As long as a student steps into my class, I have the duty to ensure work is delegated to him/her and I attend to his/her educational needs. However according to my own principles and understanding that they are already young adults who understand their own priorities, I will dedicate more of my energy and focus to those who are truly interested in learning. Should you be uninterested in learning, I will not expend extra energy on trying to ignite the passion of learning in you. Instead, I will use this energy to teach those who sincerely want to takeaway some things from my lesson. I am only 1 person, who have this amount of time and this amount of energy to teach the class, which has that many people and that much amount of work which needs to be cleared. 

Thankfully, even though there were a few tutees who were sort of forced by parents to come, all the students rated their passion to learn in class as a 5 and above, even up to 9 and 10. This was heartening for me as I could see their passion in learning evidently displayed in the lesson after the questions. It was quite late of me to ask this question given that I am only left with 1 lesson with them but I hope they maintain that passion in learning and hopefully this will motivate them to work harder:) 1 student even told me that he passed his recent Maths test and I was really happy when I saw the broad and proud smile on his face:) Such joys and sense of accomplishment in life is what makes me feel like it's all worth it and makes me want to improve more so that I can make an improvement in their educational paths. 

Credits: http://www.iliketoquote.com/img/35.jpg

The Decline

Went for my last lesson for this week and it was such a disaster. I thought that my week had been bad enough, with students not giving a shit about learning on Tuesday and students complaining my game was boring (as compared to the previous week's game) on Wednesday. I was wrong. Horribly wrong. I went to the lesson half an hour early with the marked worksheet and decided on what to teach each student. 15minutes into the lesson and I was still waiting. Alone. In the classroom. Only at the 15th minute mark did 1 student step into my class. 1 student out of a freaking class of 6.

I felt a surge of despair and guilt as I spent the entire 2 hours fixated on 1 student. I felt so bad for screwing up the lives of the students as they must have skipped my lesson to go for makeup lessons, meaning to say I'm a useless teacher who can't even teach properly. Even for that one student, I couldnt teach properly as he was a slower learner, hence making me slightly exasperated. Exasperation compounded by my sense of guilt just threw me into a deep hole of shit. Think I should just give up on this path and source for alternatives, instead of screwing the lives of students who are unluckily placed in my class. 

Since there is still 1 month of relief tutoring left, I shall just persevere and strive hard to lessen my guilt. In the meantime, I need some Running Man and Mango-Orange-yogurt smoothie to ease my depression. 

"Life is a marathon, there are times you're ahead and times you're behind. But ultimately it's merely a race with yourself" 

(thanks to a special friend for this inspiring motivation:)

Efforts not appreciated. So much for putting in so much time and effort into designing and writing notes, planning the lesson and trying to find interesting videos to engage the class. Kids who are not even interested in helping themselves. I really cannot understand why these kids still come to tuition despite being indifferent about learning and come here just to waste time and money. Not only that, they are disturbing others' learning experiences. Every passing moment further compound the doubt that I cast on myself. Halfway through my disastrous lesson I felt super guilty for not being able to achieve what I wanted the class to achieve. Lesson today sucked, but I shall persevere for the remaining one month of relief tutoring. In the meantime, an exotic flavored Chocolate Coconut Pocky to make my day slightly better.

Indeed, $50 per lesson is not alot of money. But as the saying goes, "do more of what makes you happy". Strangely, I derive great pleasure and satisfaction from planning lessons and designing activities for my tuition sessions:) Despite being greatly discouraged by my poor teaching and how students fail to comprehend concepts, rendering my teaching useless at times, I shall persevere in designing my lessons. Hopefully my efforts will be recognized by the students as reflected in their grades.

At times, I really feel that I am a useless teacher who can't teach concepts properly. This makes me very demoralized and unwilling to plan for any more lessons and want to just shut out the route to teaching career. But the thing is, there are only two choices in life. Either do something that you like or something that you are good at. I can't find anything that I am good at. If I shut off my option which I am passionate about, what am I left with?

Passion vs Strength

Today's tuition didnt go as well as expected. Despite planning so much and putting in so much effort trying to make sure the students understand, I doubt my efforts and patience was appreciated as it was drowned in the students' noises and handphone addictions. Babbling in their own groups, playing with their phones in class. Whatever. Honestly, I don't care about what individuals do in my class. "If it is not meant from the heart, it is not worth doing it". If you are not interested in my class, so be it. I won't expend energy trying to engage you in the class as it is not worth my effort and it is unfair to others who are truly interested in learning. So I dedicate my remaining energy and passion to delivering the lessons to those who are truly interested in learning, who truly want to make their money worth, who truly want to understand the mysterious beauty of learning. I believe, since you are matured enough to walk from your home to my class, you should be matured enough to understand the importance of paying attention. So I shall not waste time and effort trying to teach basic manners and principles of learning.

During the afternoon over lunch I was discussing with my mum and decided that I will go for teaching career upon graduation because of my passion in communicating with kids. However halfway through my lesson today, I doubted my capabilities. If I can't even control a small class of 8 how am I supposed to teach classes in future? If I can't teach a simple Math concept efficiently how am I supposed to make significant improvements to the kids' results?

Passion is one thing. Strength is another thing. People say if you like what you're doing you become good at it. But for my case they are two different things. I am not good at what I am passionate in. So which road should I take?

Credits: http://www.pinterest.com/explore/lucas-scott/

TGIF: Last day of internship

TGIF. After spending 20 days together, today marks the last day of our internship. Despite being a short 20 days internship with each day having only 6 effective hours spent together, it is amazing how we manage to bond so tightly together that we start talking with the same style and accent:P I'm really grateful for this bunch of crazy nonsensical buddies. Without them, I bet I'll just quit the job within the first 2 days because of some shit that happened. They are the best bunch of people to be around, always there to entertain me with their lame nonsense, funny shit and impromptu activities. I'll really miss you guys, can't wait to meet up with you guys soon^^

It is indeed tiring to handle two jobs at the same time, tutoring at night and interning in daytime. However I find it fulfilling and interning is never tiring because my fellow interns are my source of caffeine. They always keep my hyped up through the incessant gossiping sessions:P Shag max at the end of the day, but I find it a fulfilling day because teaching is a benevolent job, plus interning at a social enterprise really taught me useful business concepts.

Feeling the love from my beloved intern <3

 One bad thing is I am too occupied with my work. Mondays to Fridays internship. Tues to Thursdays I have tuition at night. That leaves me with no time and energy to meet up with friends, making me guilty to reject my friends' meetings:( Thankfully, I managed to meet this bunch of awesome friends on my last day of internship:) I love how we are always filled with enthusiasm and lots of exciting stories whenever we meet. Sorry if I was abit quiet and dao today cos I was drained from days of work:/ Wishing these 2 all the best in their stuffs and have a safe trip to wherever they're traveling to^^

My awesome crazy nonsense gang

"If it's not from the heart, it is not worth doing it" 

(credits to a social worker whom I worked under last time, Mr Jonathon Toh)