It’s that time of the year when students will be preparing for their major examinations, while others will be looking forward to the long holidays. Teachers will be gearing their students for their examinations and also looking forward to taking a break from teaching. Syllabi will have to be covered, examination papers will have to be set and marked, evaluation reports will have to be done and accounts will have to be closed. But all too soon, the cycle will begin again when the new academic year starts in 2012. While people in temperate countries have seasons that tell them that time is moving on, parents have children, and teachers have the school calendar!
Many people look at me
in disbelief when I say that I resigned from a government job as a teacher
years ago. Many teachers look at me in awe when I tell them that I resigned and
not retired as a teacher. I know that I made the right decision then. Even
though I settled for half the pay after that, the job gave me more than double
the satisfaction and opened new avenues for me.
I have been lucky to
have had the choice to opt out from something that would have trapped me and
robbed me of the best years of my life. I could have been a headmistress by
now, but that was not my goal. Instead of having to go to school everyday, I
have had the chance of teaching at colleges and universities. I have conducted
courses for personal and professional development, I have written books. I now
can teach the English language to all levels of students from young learners to
adults whose first language may or may not be English.
My wide experience has
definitely benefitted the students I have had the privilege to teach.
It is undeniable that our classrooms in local schools are overcrowded, that the teachers are overloaded with work and the students are overtaxed by the demands of the curriculum, the syllabus and the system. So how does ‘tutoring’ feature in the madness of the Malaysian education system?
WT decided on a career in Chemistry not because of her Chemistry teacher in school but because of the interest instilled into her by her Chemistry tutor. KH would have been hopeless at Maths if not for the extra tutorial classes which were systematically taught. KV was heading to becoming the school bum while YC would have been the school bully if not for the intervention of the tutor.
These are merely a few examples to show that tuition has a major role to play in the lives of students. When school is a necessity, tuition is an option which should nurture, mould and inspire the student to be better than what he can be in the field that he has chosen to go for tuition classes.
Because classrooms are overcrowded, tuition classes should cater to smaller groups at any one time. It should be interactive, allowing students to ask questions and aspire for knowledge and information that go further than the prescribed textbooks in schools.
Because teachers in schools are overloaded with work, it is the tutor who knows more about the idiosyncrasies of each student under her care, especially in their growing impressionistic years.
Because students are overtaxed with an unending amount of work, tuition classes should be seen as places where they can excel with the minimal demands put on them.
Thus parents should choose wisely a tuition class for the children so that the experienced tutor will be faced with greater challenges!
