Marking

Every teacher's nightmare would be marking.....

I am in this profession since 1995, that is almost 22 years now, wow I didn't realize it is almost a life time! I love what I am doing, I love the interaction with my kids...once someone asked what do you mean your kids, they are not your children. Well, yes, I do agree, these are not my biological children, but I do see them as my own. They come in all shapes and sizes and colours and attitude...some you can remember them for a long time but most are gone from my memory after the semester ends.

Well, the reason for this entry is to tell how most of us in this profession hate marking. When you are teaching these kids and ask them questions, they will answer you and nod to acknowledge they are following the lesson but only when we start marking their exam papers you can feel the frustration. And we start wondering "what the hell happened in the past 14 weeks?"" Did they not learn anything?" "How can they not even answer this simple question??!!??" After the questions comes the moment when we would want to wring their neck and give them a slap! I know I sound so violent but it is so frustrating to see all the effort you put in to teach them go down the drain.

For anyone who thinks teaching kids is a walk in the park, let me remind you, come and mark the exam papers, you would know you are walking into a complete chaotic zoo!

All said and done, I do love my job, there have been moments, years after the students graduate, they come back one day and they say thanks, that moment, that particular moment, your heart just know you did something right. It is when they go up the stage to receive their scroll is a proud moment for every lecturer, we know when these kids came into our lives, they were so young and innocent and practically have no clue what they want to do with their life, they were like a blank piece of paper....but over the three to four years, we see them grow, we see them take charge, we see them falling in love and sometimes out, we see them become confident, we see them succeed...and that is our proud moment, that is the moment that we stop asking ourselves why on earth am I here yelling at these kids, that is the moment, we know we did something right and we smile....

This job does not pay you much in dollar and cents but it pays you tonnes in satisfactions!