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Singapore Teachers Overworked

  • lianamaster

    Looks like I am in for a hell ride starting next month.

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  • Bio-Hawk

    Idiots teaching idiots, what do you expect?

  • Rock^Star

    I have heard stories of male and female teachers breaking down due to student misbehaviour in class. 35 mins of sheer hell lol.

    One classic I heard from my friend:

    Teacher: Why are you always late?

    Student: Cher, not that I wanna be late but your lessons are really boring.

    Teacher was speechless because he was indeed teaching a dry subject. Nevertheless, he reported this to the HOD and the student was summoned to his office. The HOD decided to use the soft approach and the student got off with a slap on the wrist.

    Teacher how? Well, virtually a slap on his face and he still has to face the yaya student everyday lol.

  • UltimaOnline
    Originally posted by Rock^Star:

    I have heard stories of male and female teachers breaking down due to student misbehaviour in class. 35 mins of sheer hell lol.

    One classic I heard from my friend:

    Teacher: Why are you always late?

    Student: Cher, not that I wanna be late but your lessons are really boring.

    Teacher was speechless because he was indeed teaching a dry subject. Nevertheless, he reported this to the HOD and the student was summoned to his office. The HOD decided to use the soft approach and the student got off with a slap on the wrist.

    Teacher how? Well, virtually a slap on his face and he still has to face the yaya student everyday lol.

     

    Here's another common example (just one of increasingly many these days).

     

    Class (eg. remedial class after school) has started, group of students still slowly eating at canteen, over 15 mins late. Teacher spots them at canteen, tells them, "You're already 15 mins late, stop eating and go for your class now!". Student retorts with impatience in voice, "Can't you see I'm still eating? Are you blind? Duh."

     

     

    Originally posted by lianamaster:

    Looks like I am in for a hell ride starting next month.

    icon_lol.gif

     


    lianamaster, next month, are you relief teaching (ie. not NIE trained), or beginning your teaching practicum (ie. NIE undergrad), or beginning your full time teaching (ie. NIE grad)?

     

  • Rock^Star
    Originally posted by UltimaOnline:

     

    Here's another common example (just one of increasingly many these days).

     

    Class (eg. remedial class after school) has started, group of students still slowly eating at canteen, over 15 mins late. Teacher spots them at canteen, tells them, "You're already 15 mins late, stop eating and go for your class now!". Student retorts with impatience in voice, "Can't you see I'm still eating? Are you blind? Duh."

     

     

    lol so what's the teacher's reaction? A retort like that in my school days would have seen an automatic suspension or punishment in front of the whole school.

    Man, I feel damn sorry for the state of education these days. The audacity of these students.....has it been condoned by school principals or the MOE?

  • Rock^Star

    Ok I give u another example...this time from ITE. My friend says its sheer hell there. The canteen breaks out in fights every other day. No lecturer dares to eat in the canteen because they do not want to be "held responsible" during their lunchtime.

    These students are then brought to see the section head or junior director and they are given verbal warnings, at most suspensions. Calls to their parents go unheeded because they just cannot be bothered.  Attendance is erratic and they have always been warned that they may be debarred from exams. Come crunch time, no one gets debarred. Reason?? Because the department's KPI (and eventually performance bonus) is pegged to the attrition rate.

    Haha...what a farking joke!!

  • Kiaboon

    This is the excerpt I got from MOE forum, possibly from someone who is NOT a teacher himself/herself:

    A teaching life or a teacher’s lot? (Tan Lee Hwang, ST Forum, 21/5, pA34)

    I find Ms Aishah Quek’s diary of a teacher’s day last Saturday (‘Work-life balance? Here’s one day in the life of a teacher’) misleading in detailing the lack of a work-life balance for her husband, a teacher.

    Using the same diary format as Ms Quek, I would like to explain why.

    • 5am to 6am: Wake up and prepare for school. A lot of people, including students, take only half an hour to prepare for school or work.
    • Leave for school at 6am and arrive at 7am. If he needs to take one hour to reach school, Ms Quek’s husband should ask for a transfer to a school nearer home.
    • 7am to 7.30am: The ‘guard duty’ he does is usually done by parent volunteers or rotated among teachers, so it is not a daily affair.
    • 7.30am to 1pm: Regular teaching. Teachers do not teach from 7.30am to 1pm at a stretch. They have one or two free periods in between each day.
    • 1pm to 3.30pm: Prepare for and conduct remedial lessons. Again, this is not an everyday affair as different subject teachers will take turns to conduct remedial lessons.
    • 3.30pm to 5.30pm: Take charge of co-curricular activities. Again this is usually only once a week for primary schools. For secondary schools, these are usually done by outside coaches or student leaders.
    • 5.30pm to 6.30pm: Key in remarks on students for mid-term report book. This is required only twice a year, during mid-term and year-end.
    • 6.45pm to 7.45pm: Travel home. He should request to teach in a school nearer home to cut travelling time.
    • 8.30pm to 1am: Marking books, worksheets and the like. Most homework is marked by students who exchange books and worksheets, with the teacher going through the answers during class time.

    An exception is for examination papers and compositions, which are marked by teachers. These are usually marked in school during the teachers’ free periods. The daily routine listed by the writer did not include lunch breaks.

    While a teacher’s job is stressful, so are other jobs. Having to work long hours is the norm for all jobs now. At least the workload of a teacher’s job is seasonal and there are times when they can relax a little, for example, during the long mid-year and year-end holidays.

    So teachers, cheer up, you are not alone, all other jobs are stressful and requires us to work long hours as well.

  • eagle

    All other jobs require us to work long hours? icon_rolleyes.gificon_rolleyes.gificon_rolleyes.gif

  • wee_ws

    Dear Kiaboon,

      Thanks for sharing :)

      Let me add some details, from personal experience as a teacher:

      1. CCA teachers will need to be around to supervise the conduct of CCA activities. In the case of niche CCAs, the frequency of training may be high even to the extent of weekend trainings.

      2. Free periods in between are well-filled with department/committee meetings, briefings and perhaps consultations with students.

      3. Entering of marks is definitely more than twice, because school cockpit is not able to support large user loads. Teachers have to take turns to enter marks at designated time periods and wait for the database to respond. In addition, teachers may need to print the slips out and distribute to students for parents' signatures. Also, teachers need to be briefed before the marks are entered. Much time is spent in this area as a result. Sometimes, there is a school-based system and that makes teachers enter marks twice.

      4. Marking can be quite substantial if teachers are already struggling to find a continuous stretch of time to mark with momentum. Sometimes, departments set certain expectations on the amount of homework/assignments to be done, which students even find it hard to cope. Books and worksheets may be left to students to mark if they are of the MCQ-type, I believe. That is probably done to increase efficiency.

      5. As for lunch, I often hear my colleagues lament that they barely have time to eat properly. For me, I used to survive on a heavy breakfast to last for the entire day.

      6. For June hols, it's quite routine for schools to use weeks 1 and 4 for school remedial lessons, CCAs, school meetings, training, etc. The only protected time (on paper, say on SEM appraisal reports) may be weeks 2 and 3, where teachers typically prepare teaching/learning for next two terms.

      Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Wen Shih

  • UltimaOnline

    The 65-pages thread (and the glimmer of hope it represented in the minds of many teachers) is dying out. MOE (correctly) predicts that as long as it keeps quiet (and it has instructed the local media not to print the many never-published letters on this topic), public interest in this matter will wane, and status quo (ie. abuse of teachers by school leaders, HODs, P, etc) will be restored, which keeps MOE HQ (who certainly aren't overworked and/or overstressed like teachers, but are paid 2x or 3x as much every month) happy and its self-interest intact.

     

     

    On page 64

    http://sg.yfittopostblog.com/2010/05/16/are-singapore-teachers-overworked/comment-page-64/#comments

     

    Disappointed on June 1, 2010 at 12:54 am

    I went into teaching with the idea that a teacher’s job is to teach his/her pupils well. However, after teaching for a few years i find that this is not true. Teachers not only have to plan 3 different subjects’ lessons, conduct interesting lessons, mark workbooks and piles and piles of worksheets. They have to use up their free periods to do relief, safety duty, carry out research, organize activites. In the end, there’s almost no free periods at all. After the normal curriculum hours, teachers have to stay back to conduct remedials, supplementaries and attend long staff meetings which end late. Up to this point, teachers do not have time to mark students’ work like Compositions, thick worksheets and plan the next day’s lesson yet. So all these has to be done at home after the school closes. By that time, teachers are already mentally and physically drained out. How about school holidays? They are to be spent going back to school for meetings again, creating the next term’s resources, organizing and planning for next term’s activities, setting exam papers. Teachers can also be asked to accompany students for overseas trips for 2 weeks. All these takes up the supposedly rest time of teachers. At the end of the day, during work review, RO will tell you that you are not doing enough and you are at risk of getting a D. How can a teacher not feel demoralized and lose his/her passion and suffer from depression?

     

     

    On page 65
    http://sg.yfittopostblog.com/2010/05/16/are-singapore-teachers-overworked/comment-page-65/#comments

     

    A sup recently met up with a group of teachers at school over this article and its replies. This sup said that if you are not happy, you can disconnect your connect plan. You go figure what it means :)

    For non-teachers, Connect plan is like a cash payout every number of years. 4th, 10th, 15th, etc… This is to “motivate” you to stay in the system.

  • UltimaOnline

    On page 65
    http://sg.yfittopostblog.com/2010/05/16/are-singapore-teachers-overworked/comment-page-65/#comments

     

    junior on June 1, 2010 at 8:55 pm

    I think it is high time we teachers took action. Here is what you can do;

    1) Put your foot down and systematically reduce the amount of work you bring home. Do it gradually, week by week.
    -
    2) Cut down on your monthly expenses, so that you won’t be so financially affected by a ‘C-’ or ‘D’ grade.
    -
    3) Focus on your core duty as a teacher; teaching, marking hw, running your CCA. If you are not that affected by the ‘D’, you will come to realize that your principal and HOD are really that powerless to make your life difficult.
    Making your life hell revolves entirely around the ‘D’ grade. That’s the worst bite they can give.
    -
    4) Vote against PAP. The political party is supposed to listen to our voice, and help us. So is the union. But our ruling party has decided that an active union is bad for our country. So, every union is now rendered powerless under the law. Even the biggest union NTUC is more synonymous with supermarkets than workers’ rights.
    If the PAP education minister won’t listen to the voices of teachers, then it is time to disconnect him from his own connect plan in MOE.

     

     

    kimberly on June 1, 2010 at 9:02 pm

    The supt that asked teachers to leave if they not happy is a retard.
    :
    Widespread low morale in any organization usually leads to massive inefficiency and high turnover rate, which will ultmiately lead to greater cost for the organization.
    :
    MOE is full of such incompetent leaders who climbed their way up not by real talent, but by claiming credit for other people’s work and by wasting a whole lot of time inflating their accomplishment via reports and powerpoint slides.
    :
    Just do a half-assed job and collect your pay and connect plan. Why be so bothered about the ‘D’ grade? If you really need the money, give part time tuition outside. If politicians can hold multiple directorships, hold down a full time job and still be an MP, i don’t see why teachers can’t give multiple tuition outside school to get more money.
    Teachers who work long hours in school also know that 80% of the things they are busy with are not even closely related to teaching.

     

     

    Less $ But Happy on June 1, 2010 at 10:38 pm

    I was a teacher here, until 5 years ago.
    My marriage broke down because I had no time for my husband.
    He had an affair with someone who had time for him.
    He couldn’t take the nonsense of me marking and marking and marking,at home, at dinner, at family gatherings, even on the bed (which made him loses all interest).
    .
    In my moments of despair – mental breakdowns, depression, marriage counsellings, MCs and no-pay-leave for the counsellings,
    guess what did my V and HOD told me?
    To wake up and buck up or risk a ‘D’….
    and that the world still goes on, the sun still rise and set.
    .
    I woke up. I bucked up. I quit.
    I realised that yeah, life still goes on. What is the point of all those stupid rankings and nonsense? For what? Am I getting paid by the millions?? NO!
    I lost my husband, I am not going to lose my children too!
    For the first year, after signing above the ‘dotted line’,
    I left Singapore. My parents took care of my 3 children.
    I went to teach in Indonesia. I settled down, adjusted, stood and faced the world in a foreign land, alone.
    My second year, I uprooted my children.
    My fourth year, we went to China.
    .
    Now I am so much happier TEACHING. With 36 periods per week, I teach ONLY English. I marked only EL papers, EL homework, EL worksheets.
    No stupid MOE system.
    No tons of admin work.
    No ambitious and incompetent Ps, VPs and HODs.
    All I do now is teach and plan my lessons to cater to my pupils’ needs. Meetings are done twice a month. Of course we have other duties to perform but seriously, they are nothing compared to what I was doing in Singapore. Holidays are truly holidays.
    .
    Pupils are more respectful, parents are more appreciative.
    .
    Of course $ is less than what I used to get in Singapore but my children and I are much more happier. We get to travel about during holidays. We went to so many different places. My children have grown to appreciate the value of life, to appreciate what they have, to be respectful towards elders. Learned to do volunteer work at those less fortunate villages, learned to care for the less fortunate, learned to sympathise and empathise. Their IQ are not of those toppers in Singapore but their EQ are much way higher than most of them. This I dare to say.
    .
    To those stressed out teachers, step out of your comfort zone.
    Dare to venture outside Singapore. It is not easy to leave your family, your friends, your everything behind you and pastures are not necessarily greener on the other side but at least you have tried and you know it yourself if they are greener or not. I did, when my world crumbled. Leaving my children behind during the first year was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life (until today). Look where am I now?
    .
    To MOE, if you don’t wish to lose anymore good and dedicated teachers, you better wake up from your stupid and insipid ideas and methods of managing your teachers.
    .
    To unappreciative and unreasonable parents, you gave birth to your young(s). Ultimately, they are your responsibility. Not the teachers’. With your unreasonable complaints, threats and even letters to MOE, at most, the teacher loses his/her job. But when your kid is all grown up with no positive changes in character, you are the one to suffer. Not the teacher.

     

  • Rock^Star

    in this modern day, we still have suppression of info. LOL that's absolute regression. These complaints have not been featured in ST? I don't know cos I'm not in sg.

  • wee_ws

    Hi,

      Truth is always out there to be discovered or found by the keen-eyed :)

      The press may not report everything for certain reasons...

      Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Wen Shih

  • Rooney9

    MOE policies failed lar. who is the minister of education now and previously? they all failed. didnt PM Lee said teach less in his national day rally a few years ago?