Teaching

I have many things to blog about since I couldn't blog while my preparations for the exams are underway. I will just start with the most important thing. My future. I have just accepted a teaching award offer from MOE and so for 4 years after I graduate I will be bound to them. Almost every time teaching as a career is mentioned, the reaction will be negative. It's almost as though teaching is the worst job in the world and only people desperate and with no other options will go down this path of eternal doom. I believe that there's some basis to some of the comments made about teaching and I do have my doubts. I've thought about the long hours, the endless work, difficult students and maybe unfriendly colleagues and principal.
After all these horror thoughts, I still decided to sign on the dotted line. This is because I feel that this is potentially the most rewarding job in the world. Not in terms of monetary compensation, but in terms of job satisfaction. The money may be good but it's never going to be enough to compensate for the long hours I expect to be putting in but if someday, a student were to come up to me and thank me for helping him/her become a better person, every effort that I put in will be worth it. It may sound a little corny, all these things about changing peoples' lives. But my own life has been changed by the many teachers who came along my way. They may not have known it but their words of encouragement gave me the inspiration to carry on when things were not all smooth sailing. I would like to be able to help my students as much as I had been helped by my teachers. That will be the best way of thanking my teachers.