complicated simplicity

I was quite jaded over the past few weeks of teaching. I did ask myself why I put myself through many many long hours of marking, setting exams papers, and on the phone with parents who are insistant their kids are angels.

Today, I felt quite sick but I decided to turn up in school as I want to finish up a topic and do some revision for a class. This class has given me problems right from the start, because I was very strict with them. I made them tuck in their shirts, pull up their socks, tighten their belts. I chided every single one of them not dressed properly. I didn’t want to compromise the school’s standards. And I was so surprised when I walked into the class. I told them I wasn’t feeling well, and won’t be doing much today. And the transformation happened. They just turned into angels. No problems, no shouting. Everyone was quietly doing the revision worksheet I gave out. As I walked around, I helped some of them with the worksheets, quite adamant that they should find their own answers from the textbook. Then came the reason.
Adam’s been a huge problem for teachers since the day he walked through the school’s gates. Lets not go into the details.  While I was walking around, he insisted that he didn’t know how to balance equations, and I told him to look for me after the class. And he did. I thought he was joking. It was recess, and to students, recess was SACRED. Bell rings, poof. The time, he came up to me and said, ‘Mr Gn, I want you to teach me how to balance equations.’ Stunned. Like… stunned. Here was Adam asking me for help when he couldn’t be bothered more about every other thing. So I spend the next 20minutes teaching him and some of his classmates, during recess. RECESS. Screw my own break. At the end of it, when he finally understood, his smile and thanks will forever be etched in my heart.

‘Thank you Mr Gn. Hope to see you next year again.’

This is why I teach. Moulding the future of our nation.

Tags: Personal

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