There are a few reasons why I'm so adamant about giving up my Sunday job. Make no mistake about it, the job pays well, especially when you consider my A-level qualifications and the lackadaisical job market. I have learnt how to manage a class of students, and the teaching experience has certainly helped me develop better mentoring techniques. And yes, I am grateful to my boss for entrusting me with the task of educating her students. But perhaps I've been too naive in expecting that the basic function of teachers is to teach, and to teach well. Recent adjustments have seen teachers at the centre take on extra workloads without being reasonably compensated for their time and efforts. Yet the crux of the issue isn't simply to do with dollars and cents, but to do with dollars and sense. What lengths should a teacher go to for his students?
I believe that it is exceedingly difficult to become an excellent teacher. It takes many years of experience and exposure to different students at different levels. It requires that the teacher is unremitting in his efforts to seek the best for his students, at the cost of his personal time. It requires the teacher to be able to develop and display two sides to his personality: the strict, serious and discerning figurehead in class, and the fun-loving, humourous friend outside of it. And I believe the most important ingredient of all lies in the teacher's ability to inspire his students to learn. I am hardly even one-hundredth of a good teacher, let alone a great one.
I say that it is a toss-up between dollars and sense, because although the renumeration is attractive and important, it does not mean that I would continue to stretch myself indefinitely even if I am being paid more. I am a perfectionist. If I find that I fall short of delivering my best to my students, then I have failed my task as a teacher. They do not deserve me; they deserve someone else who can give their best, even if he is not as good a teacher as I am. I don't have the time to devise worksheets or to develop concrete lesson plans and notes. I don't have the energy to create full-length exam papers or to painstakingly mark their work. These are all the little sacrifices which make a great teacher, and I certainly fall way short of the benchmark.
Perhaps, I try to convince myself, that I am better suited to teaching on a one-to-one basis. It is infinitely easier to focus on a single student, rather than having to adjust your teaching style to suit each and every student in a small class. There is no one-size-fits-all approach here. There are the fast students and the slow ones. There are bright students who inexplicably fail to meet reasonable expectations at exams, and there are the not-so-bright ones who surpass all expectations at exams. Then there are students who are more easily distracted than others...the list goes on.
I realize that I am ranting. But the point remains that I am a decidedly poor teacher, especially when it comes to teaching in a group. I simply cannot handle the pressure placed on my shoulders to make every lesson an exceptional learning experience for my students. Perhaps I have unreasonably high expectations of myself. Perhaps not. But I do know that once my replacement at the centre arrives, I will have a happy, carefree Sunday to myself, and I will be able to rediscover the joy of sharing these precious Sundays with my friends and family all over again. And then there is the enticing prospect of grass, boots, shin guards, sweat, and a little thing called a soccer ball.