Some challenges for a teacher
I started my teaching career three years ago. One day, I received a phone call from my friend who is a professor. “John, do you know what global environmental change is?” “ No, I don’t”. “And do you want to know what it is?” “ Yeah sure, if I have the chance, why not?” “Okay, here’s your chance. We need a teacher to teach this subject in the coming semester. Are you interested in teaching the subject?” And I thought for a while, like 5 seconds, and then I said, “Yes I am”. Since then I became a part time college teacher. There is a saying “for those who can not do, teach.” That’s true!
There were a lot of challenges waiting for me at the beginning of being a teacher. The first thing was to prepare the materials. When we were students, we received the materials in the class and then your teacher taught us something. We took it for granted. Just like when we join the ma in ale, we receive the materials and the crews tell you what happen in materials, we still take it for granted. But where did the materials come from? I had to read a lot and then condense what I read into a few pages of materials. Sometimes I read 20 pages but can only condense the 20 pages into 2 pages of material. This is really time-consuming. The ratio of teaching to preparation time to me is just like 1:5, which means I need to prepare 4 hours to teach one hour class. The school paid me 600 NT per hour, however, if I put the preparation time into consideration, my salary will be like 100 NT per hour. It is nearly the same as those who work in gas station but better then those who part-time work at 7-11.
At the first two years, my class started at 8:00 am. And because it takes 40 minutes to drive from my house to school, I have to get up before 7 o’clock in the morning. So getting up early became my second challenge in teaching. I can’t remember how many times I have the idea of skipping the class in the mornings, especially in the chill winter mornings. I wanted to hide myself in my thick and warm quilt. I hadn’t enough sleep. I didn’t want to go to school. However, my conscious told me:” john, you can’t do that. You are the only one who absolutely shouldn’t skip the class. You are the teacher!” you know what, I skipped a lot of classes when I was a student, so my friends told me that was a revenge to me. However, this problem has been solved at my third year of teaching. I was transferred to teach at night school in the same university.
What’s the challenge no. 3? Because the school I taught in used to be a girl school. It accepted boy students only from a few years ago. The number of girls still dominates the number of boy students. The ratio between girls and boys is like 8:2. You know what will happen under such circumstance. The girls are really hungry for boys. So any male animal that can move will become popular. I am male and I can move, so nearly eighty percents of the students who took my class were girls. Sometimes the girls showed their interests at me. Some of them even tried to flirt with me during the break. Can you guess what happened when the girls tried to flirt with me? Nothing! Because my conscious showed up and told me again” john, you can’t do that. No matter how pretty and sexy they are, they are too young for you.” God, I hate my conscious!
According to the time limit, it’s not possible to tell you all the challenges I have been through. Some challenges such as “how to let your students understand what you said”, “communication skills”, “how to entertain your students”…. etc,
I have learned a lot from the toastmasters training and I will keep learning. I am not promoting the toastmasters club to you although I really want to. Learning through these challenges really makes me a better teacher. I hope all the challenges you will face in a toastmasters club will also make you a better person in your field.
I started my teaching career three years ago. One day, I received a phone call from my friend who is a professor. “John, do you know what global environmental change is?” “ No, I don’t”. “And do you want to know what it is?” “ Yeah sure, if I have the chance, why not?” “Okay, here’s your chance. We need a teacher to teach this subject in the coming semester. Are you interested in teaching the subject?” And I thought for a while, like 5 seconds, and then I said, “Yes I am”. Since then I became a part time college teacher. There is a saying “for those who can not do, teach.” That’s true!
There were a lot of challenges waiting for me at the beginning of being a teacher. The first thing was to prepare the materials. When we were students, we received the materials in the class and then your teacher taught us something. We took it for granted. Just like when we join the ma in ale, we receive the materials and the crews tell you what happen in materials, we still take it for granted. But where did the materials come from? I had to read a lot and then condense what I read into a few pages of materials. Sometimes I read 20 pages but can only condense the 20 pages into 2 pages of material. This is really time-consuming. The ratio of teaching to preparation time to me is just like 1:5, which means I need to prepare 4 hours to teach one hour class. The school paid me 600 NT per hour, however, if I put the preparation time into consideration, my salary will be like 100 NT per hour. It is nearly the same as those who work in gas station but better then those who part-time work at 7-11.
At the first two years, my class started at 8:00 am. And because it takes 40 minutes to drive from my house to school, I have to get up before 7 o’clock in the morning. So getting up early became my second challenge in teaching. I can’t remember how many times I have the idea of skipping the class in the mornings, especially in the chill winter mornings. I wanted to hide myself in my thick and warm quilt. I hadn’t enough sleep. I didn’t want to go to school. However, my conscious told me:” john, you can’t do that. You are the only one who absolutely shouldn’t skip the class. You are the teacher!” you know what, I skipped a lot of classes when I was a student, so my friends told me that was a revenge to me. However, this problem has been solved at my third year of teaching. I was transferred to teach at night school in the same university.
What’s the challenge no. 3? Because the school I taught in used to be a girl school. It accepted boy students only from a few years ago. The number of girls still dominates the number of boy students. The ratio between girls and boys is like 8:2. You know what will happen under such circumstance. The girls are really hungry for boys. So any male animal that can move will become popular. I am male and I can move, so nearly eighty percents of the students who took my class were girls. Sometimes the girls showed their interests at me. Some of them even tried to flirt with me during the break. Can you guess what happened when the girls tried to flirt with me? Nothing! Because my conscious showed up and told me again” john, you can’t do that. No matter how pretty and sexy they are, they are too young for you.” God, I hate my conscious!
According to the time limit, it’s not possible to tell you all the challenges I have been through. Some challenges such as “how to let your students understand what you said”, “communication skills”, “how to entertain your students”…. etc,
I have learned a lot from the toastmasters training and I will keep learning. I am not promoting the toastmasters club to you although I really want to. Learning through these challenges really makes me a better teacher. I hope all the challenges you will face in a toastmasters club will also make you a better person in your field.
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