Teaching as a Career

Hi,

I just saw the advertisement on recruitment for teachers by our MOE on TV.

I applied for a teaching position with MOE after seeing their advertisement and attending their recruitment talk, about 7 years ago.

I have always wanted to teach as I have an affinity to share what I know and I believe I can also provide some guidance to the student lifestyles too.

I was not successful and I think it is partly due to my age as the successful applicant has to undergo 2 years training and then bonded for 5 years; that was the T&A then. I would be in my 50s and most likely, MOE thought this is a bad investment...ha...ha.....

Another friend also applied and got interviewed but was also rejected. He was a few years younger than I. He told me that during the interview, he was told that they were curious why he wanted to change his career.

BTW, I was a Parent Volunteer in my son's Primary school and was teaching a character building programme bought by the school. Once a week but was assigned to a class where the students were quite a challenge to manage. After that, I realised the difficulties and problems some of our teachers face daily and if you are not passion about teaching, I think you will not last long as it is very very challenging and stressful.

I noticed that my son was not taught PowerPoint in school but it was done by a few other schools or they arranged for them to pay and attend such classes during school holidays.

So I spoke to the principal and I developed a PowerPoint training material to teach the students. It was popular as I was supposed to teach P4 and P5 A - C classes but a few other form teachers also wanted their classes to attend it. Jason was my assistant and he enjoyed the training sessions too. I also learned something from these students and have exposure to better students in the school. I believe the teaching material was still used after I left.

Finally, I managed to get into a polytechnic to teach as a part-time and then full-time but this only lasted for a year, much to my disappointment! I was very enthusiastic about my lessons and tried to make my classes interesting and shared as much as my working experience to those who were interested. This is a different mix of students and I also learned a lot from talking to them and I believe this interaction has also help me understand my teenage son better too.

I believe Teaching is a very noble and challenging career but you must have the passion for it and not treat it just as a job.

I am glad I have been given the above mentioned opportunities to teach but I wish I could have stayed on teaching in the polytechnic.

David