A teacher's rant

A teacher needs to be at the school before 7.10am, and can only leave after 2.15pm (if there are no meetings after school) in my school, which means our official working hour is 7 hours.

On paper, I have 26 periods (ie 13 hours of lesson), one hour of extra-curricular activity, 1.5 hours for meetings per week.

However, on top of that, we get relief classes, so on average, I get about 8-10 periods per day (4-5 hours).

And during my "free" period I usually spent it helping other students in their studies, or preparing for my next lessons.

After school, I usually stay back for an additional hour or two (or sometimes three or four) to give students extra classes (free extra classes ok).

So on average, I spend about 8-9 hours in school per day - and no I don't get much room to breathe. 

Work doesn't end after school - there is lesson planning, admin duties and paper work, and attending to students messages and queries. And sometimes additional initiatives duties that I took on voluntarily, and also compulsory TFM duties too. And oh, did I mention about our crazy stack pile of assignments for DPLI?

During most weekends, we have to attend DPLI classes which is from 8am-6pm, for both Fridays and Saturdays. 

During our free weekend, we have to attend compulsory school event on Saturdays.

And on top of that, we have our lives too - we have our social lives and we want to have fun, meet our friends and go out for dinner too. FYI we have our families as well too.

Why do people assume that teachers are always free? 

I get really triggered when students take me for granted and assume that I am always free to answer their questions, or demand immediate answers. Or when some parents try to push me to have extra classes even though I clearly state I am very busy that week due to assignments. Like everyone else in this world, we have a life too you know.

We need our rest, and we get tired too. We are humans.

I was stunned, at the same time rather touched when a student asked me "teacher...do you not have many friends here? Why are you so free to bring us out of school?". Well stunned because of the level of maturity, and touched because SOMEONE UNDERSTANDS. It is not that we don't have many friends, but rather our friends (TFM Fellows) are mostly busy. And I do still go out pretty often even though our hands are rather tied (Jia Qi really need her socials). 

[Update 5am 29 April]
Received an Insta direct message from one of my KemSkorlah student and his friend, thanking me for teaching them. They were conveying their dreams to further study in the UK. T_T