Hi,
I made this posting on Channel NewsAsia forum some time ago
when someone asked about teaching. The description below is a
personal reflection.
As a teacher, one needs to be able to juggle many
activities, on top of teaching, lesson preparation, test/exam
setting, marking and consultations such as:
- being a form teacher (plus responsibilities that come with the
role such as counselling, speaking with parents, liaising with
other subject teachers regarding academic matters when students
perform below expectations, etc);
- carrying out department-assigned duties (e.g. action-research
projects and cluster sharing sessions, develop teaching/learning
resources, encourage e-learning among colleagues and students and
the like);
- being a contributing member of various school committees (e.g.
IT, speech day, national education, Innovation and
Enterprise, and the like);
- being a co-curricular activity (CCA) teacher-in-charge (i.e.
oversee running of the club, plan budget and monitor/review
its spending, being with students when activities are organised,
plan for club's student leadership succession, recommend students
for school/MOE/national awards, etc.);
- entering data (e.g. marks, disciplinary cases, testimonials,
etc.) into the student database (MOE-based and sometimes
school-based systems);
- attend up to 100 hours of training in school or
those conducted by MOE/NIE and complete several reflections
(and sometimes carry out sharing sessions) after attending
courses;
- attend frequent contact time meetings with heads/school
leaders to receive information about initiatives/policy matters for
school-wide implementation;
- attend meetings conducted by the department, various
committees, school cluster, MOE HQ, etc;
- become invigilators, presiding examiners, chief presiding
examiners, moderators, markers for national exams;
...and the list simply grows :P
As a teacher, one will be ranked on factors other than
teaching such as organisational awareness, contributions to the
school, leadership, strategic thinking, value-added results, etc.
At the start of the year, a teacher will need to write personal
statements about key performance indicators so that review sessions
may be done at mid-year and end-of-year with his/her immediate
supervisor(s) to see if these were met or otherwise. My experience
is that there will always be areas for improvements no matter how
well things were executed. The appetite for excellence is
not to be underestimated.
I hope this will provide a good picture of what a
teacher is expected to perform in the education
service.
Cheers,
Wen Shih