A Teacher

About time for me to put up a second post. Though the year doesn’t seem to start well for me, got a fine for parking along a double yellow line and another fine for speeding all within one hour, never mind, I will still thank my God for everything.

I would like to share with my readers an incident that show why I am still a teacher. It had been for more than half a year since I stepped into a class as I was busy helping my school to make the big move to a new campus in 2010. Last week, I was told to help out as there was no lecturer available and when I step in, I gave a pep talk to the students graduating soon. I could once again feel the joy of talking to students. Just that 10 or 15 mins of talk gave me such joy as I began to exhort them to out in their best for their final lap of their studies and I could sense that they were absorbing it and were prepared to burst forth in their last race.

It was so joyful and this is the reason why I am a teacher. Just 2 days back, one of my colleagues was given a grade that he/she was not happy with and ‘blew up’. Commented that the students better don’t step on his/her toes and he/she is in a bad mood. To me, this should not be the way a teacher behaves. Students are there for us to “shape”, to guide, and to be a source of encouragement and not for us to vent our anger.

Worst still, today I read in My Paper a comment from a Poly undergrad and this is exactly what she wrote. “My first option would be to continue studying and get a degree. If that doesn’t work out, I don’t mind applying for a teaching job with the Ministry of Education” Huh, I got a shock. Just because you cannot further your study, so just go and teach. Hey, teaching is a passion and must be accompanied with compassion for our students. It is not something like, since I can’t get my choice and recession is here, I just join the teaching force.

Hopefully, our MOE will never employ such people. They will only “rot” the next generation. I hope my readers who intent to be a teacher, will never adopt such an attitude.

So, a very Happy Chinese New Year to all my readers!!!

A New Year, A New Start

2008 had been a year that is best forgotten. Many things had happened in this past year. To the world, it was a financial “tsumani” that we had seen many big companies going bust and many people all over the whole began to lose their jobs and are having difficulties trying to make ends meet.
Not only in material lost but many lives were also lost through the Siquan earthquake. There were stories of how some sacrifice their lives to save others during this great earthquake and there was also story of how selfish man can be, where he did care only for himself and ran for his own life and leave his young students all alone and how they had perished because of his selfish nature.
As for my personal life, things were not too good as compared to the previous year. My uncle passed away in, I think, in Nov and then follow by my sister in law. Things were bad for my uncle family, where again the “beastful” nature of the human being was revealed as the son beat up his sister and his mother over the inheritance. The ugly part of the human being will always be reveal, especially when it comes to money. It is such a sad thing that man always had such a greedy nature.
But one good thing comes forth from the death of my sister in law. The family began to close rank and the family began to show signs of reconciliation and is getting closer to one another as they began to see the fragile life that we living.
But still, I give thanks to my God who had taken good care of me for year 2008 and I am still doing fine, finding favour with all my bosses.
To all my young readers, things may look bleak in the coming months, but be strong and I believe all of you will sail through 2009 and coming out as a stringer person.
To start of the year, may I encourage all my readers to make their life more meaningful. As I had written earlier, the demised on my sister in law was came as a shock as she is still considered young. So do spend the days of your life wisely and meaningfully as we do not know when it will “expire”. Do something that will leave a legacy so that other will remember you for the good that you had done, and that you will have no regrets if you are to move on to the other realm!!!