By AB
To my fellow 33,000 colleagues in the teaching fraternity, Happy Teacher’s Day! I hope you had a good day of celebrations and that the students were kinder to you today.
Just like you, I am a teacher in one of the schools in Singapore. Busy whole year round not just with the daily classroom management strategies and idiosyncrasies of every child, but also being swarmed with CCA, HDP reports, CP entries, setting exam papers, lesson plans, performance tasks, applied learning, learning journeys, scheme of works, …. just some of the terms we all are just so familiar with.
I would say one of the toughest parts of our jobs is in guiding the child, either through our decisions of positive reinforcement, negative consequences, or as a last resort, punishments. We always hope that in our decision, our judgement is not clouded and that the child will be able to develop the correct traits and values to be future ready for Singapore and contribute back to society.
I am proud of our schools, where there are measures in place to manage bullying. I do believe every teacher would be able to manage a situation in a class where there is bullying, whether it is physical, verbal or just plain taunting.
As an educator, I am proud of this. As much as we are unable to change society overnight, it is our hope that when we start young with our children in schools, they will develop into concerned citizens with the right values, ready to continue bringing Singapore to new heights.
As an adult watching the election unfold, I cannot say I am proud of some of our leaders. I am sure many of you are able to see that there is obvious bullying, intimidation, mud-slinging and even character assassinations. Are these not the exact traits of the very same bullies that we will always be quick to put down or speak up against in correction?
To my fellow 33,000 colleagues in the teaching fraternity, do pardon my English and writing as I am actually a Mathematics teacher. It is just my hope that during this election, we take our vote seriously and ask ourselves if this were the type of traits we want in our leaders, our children, our future.
Please be true to ourself and follow our heart in our vote.
Happy Teacher’s Day! Majulah Singapura.
Source: http://www.theonlinecitizen.com
