School days started last week, and strange, I really never had the chance to sit down and update my blog! I’ve been extremely busy — being tied up enough in all kinds of school work… The classrooms look a lot smaller because the classes are huge… and there’s not enough textbooks to be distributed!
This year, I have around 75-77 students in each of my English classes and only 20 textbooks I could use at hand. The high school seniors look like they’re being punished for having no choice but to spend each schoolday in a jampacked, extremely-hot (poorly ventilated) classroom! I suffer with them, too. I’d always feel like I’m being toasted inside a hot oven all the time.
A number of students don’t even have armchairs so they’d grab the teacher’s chair instead while I’d have to remain standing for hours! This is Philippine public school education, guys! Poor and inadequate school facilities… poor students…. and poor teachers like me.
From 7:20 in the morning until 4:00 in the afternoon, I only have one free hour to write my lesson plan and check the papers of my students. I bring my lunch, so I could have more time to do my paperwork and prepare my teaching aids. 4:00 to 5:00 pm is spent for the schoolpaper’s staff meetings and workshops. At the end of the day, I’m completely wiped out… too tired to even turn on my pc and update my blog!
March 27th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
[…] Based on my experience, no matter how varied and well-planned the class activities were and how organized and systematic I was, every school day for me was extremely tedious, frustrating and stressful. I couldn’t help but wonder how my fellow teachers survived all these years. […]