got bored after extracting the key ideas from the comprehension passages we have gone through and organising them in a word document. so, wrote the piece below. last sunday, I just plain bo-chuped and sat down to finish reading The Family Way. But reality beckons and now, I should go and read my two backdated copies of Time. haha.

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performance review

Oh, I have always had a soft spot for teacher dramas. You know, those like "Dead Poets' Society" in which the teachers melted the frost within their students with their infectious spirit and fervently cajoled them to embrace life. Whenever anyone asked me my rationale to go into teaching, I typically replied, "well, I hope to make a difference". The thing is, I wasn't revealing the whole truth. I knew that I could make a difference.

So, I arrived at teaching and the first assignment I got my students to do was to set up a blog and pen a post on "what do you want to do with your life". a profound question for boisterous teenagers, there. One even named his blog, "weilianghatesgp", gp standing for my subject. I dismissed all this resistance with a grin. They would come to realise the urgency of my cause.

Fast forward one year and what have I been doing these days? No more showing of movie snippets, in which I could guide my students in order to feel things for themselves. The poignancy of love lost in Before Sunset, the hilarity of certain parts of Bowling for Columbine, the map-cap delight of the cinematography in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. All distant memories as I prep my students for one mind-numbing comprehension passage after another. "Children, highlight this connector after me. The author is switching his direction of argument," even some of my kids can now predict my instructions.

Where has my idealism gone? Yet, I know that passion is over-rated. What good is it if my students can't pass the national examinations at the end of two years? And pass they must, because a good grade boosts their university entry score and a good score opens doors of opportunities for prized courses and a prized course allegedly leads to a better life and...

If I can't enthuse people, I will at least be responsible. And i will hold the fort and battle with my comprehension passages.

Do I regret teaching? you may ask. Nay-as I once revealed to one class in a rather personable manner since that passage about an increased degree of choice allowed me to transmit some insights about life-one can only make the best-informed decision he can and hence, shouldn't carry emotional burden around with him. "Life is too short for unhappiness!" I extolled, feeling a bit awkward since my emotive response contradicted with the mechanical nature of text deconstruction. Haha.

The other day, I came across a student's blog, in which he religiously reproduced that statement and attributed it as a quote to me. Apparently, someone remembers! Like how I did when my own English teacher wrote me that line all those years ago when he confessed how he had gone through a divorce. And this student aspires to be a teacher.

Perhaps, he will one day relate this line to his own students.

Perhaps, my presence serves a purpose, albeit not the one which I had intended.