The irrational teacher!

If I said that you are to leave the comforts of your home and take a bunch of children to an adventure zone and stay with them and take care of them, ensuring that they learn something new and have fun and stay safe, for no added benefits to you,.....

.... more probable than not, the chances are that you will politely decline. That is absolutely rational. 

So what makes another person get excited and spend hours on planning that excursion, which will take him/her away from the comforts of home with a bunch of excited, energised children? Irrationality might be a correct presumption!

Or perhaps this person is a teacher. I don't have statistics but having been in this line for some time now, I am pretty sure I would be right most of the times.

Teachers are indeed an irrational breed.

When a teacher talks about her students he/she often says ‘my children’.  After spending the majority of our waking and productive hours with the lively, active, energised fresh minds, it is difficult to just remain a ‘teacher’.  More often than not, a teacher’s role morphs into that of an educator, counsellor, parent, guide, friend, mentor, nurse, nanny,  tour guide and much more. We teachers talk about our students’ parents,  as ‘my parents’,  simply because in our heads they ARE ours! We spend hours distressing about ‘my child ’ who is not reading or writing at the correct level.  We talk, we google, we draw upon every resource possible to plan for our children. We spend hours rejoicing small achievements.  A spelling word that a child has mastered after weeks of hard work brings a happy smile or even happy tears on the face of a teacher.

As a school, we take months in planning something that lasts an hour! An excursion for us is not a chance to take off from school. It is a responsibility, which we happily take on because we want ‘our kids’ to learn from these experiences. 

So when well-intentioned bystanders question the TKPS or the MOE about the need to take children to the outdoor camps like Kota Kinabalu that was struck by the earthquake, I’d like to say…. take a break please! Give the school community space to come to terms with the tragic incident. School staff spends months on planning the trips to give children a more holistic learning. They leave their families and comfort to take their children for experiential learning. They try their best to shield their children from every possible stress. They ensure safety to the best of their capacity. It would be easy for them to stay in their safe harbour and not worry about anything, but they do it because they want to give ‘their children’ the best possible.  

Unfortunate incidents esp natural disasters cannot be helped.  It is unfortunate that the six children and their teacher lost their lives. But look at the teachers who shielded the children from the boulders by standing in front of them! That is a natural teacher instinct.  It is the confidence in that instinct that helps a school send children on excursions.

The Earthquake in Sabah is a tragic incident. Families that have lost the little ones must be in shock. The parents’ grief would be insurmountable. So would the teachers’. Do spare a thought to the teachers’ families as well. In a school community all staff members work for the children’s best. Spare a thought for the community and don’t question their good intentions, esp at this time. They would be doing a lot of questioning themselves. Trust me.