After the June school holidays, my granddaughter started on her third school term. When she returned home from school, she announced to us: “From now on, our form teacher will be teaching us all the subjects, such as EL, Maths, Science, PE and Art”. CL was the only subject to be taught by another teacher, because the form teacher is Malay.
As my granddaughter is attending an established mission primary school which is an all-girls school, I thought that the above-mentioned approach was a unique one adopted by the school. I thus asked a young schoolboy from an all-boys school and discovered a similar case in his class. This showed that it was not an isolated case but a common phenomenon in primary schools.
After making observations and thinking over the matter for quite some time, I feel that it is inappropriate for form teachers to teach many subjects. The reasons are as follows:
1. (Form) teachers have greater ‘authority’ to arrange lessons (within school curriculum time) as and when they like. For example, EL lesson is arranged for the first period and Science lesson for the second period. Previously, the Science teacher would come punctually for the Science lesson, but now a form teacher who has not finished teaching the EL lesson during the EL period may use the Science period to continue teaching EL. If the teacher keeps on doing this, students will have little learning opportunity for other subjects.
2. Teachers will need a lot of energy to teach many subjects. Their teaching will be adversely affected as a result. Previously, teachers taught two subjects, but now (form) teachers teach four to five subjects, and they have to do a lot of marking, given more than 40 exercises for each subject. As a result, they are saddled with a heavy workload.
3. Teachers are stressed due to fatigue and heavy responsibilities. As a result, they have frequent mood swings, which can affect the teacher-student relations. Sometimes, my granddaughter’s teacher spends half a period’s time reprimanding her students. What makes matters worse is that she would continue teaching the class for the next period. Under this situation, it is impossible for the teacher to have time for herself to calm down.
4. Whenever a (form) teacher takes medical or vacation leave, all lessons taught by him/her will practically have to stop. This happened to my granddaughter’s class one day when their form teacher fell ill. The teacher, who has a strong sense of responsibility, came back to work after 1-2 days’ sick leave even though she still looked weak.
Speaking from a professional angle, I feel that schools should arrange for teachers to teach their subjects of specialisation. Only then will teachers and students thoroughly enjoy teaching and learning and interact better with each other. As overloading teachers is bad for both teachers and students, I am of the view that raising teachers’ pay alone cannot solve the problem. I hope MOE would look into this issue.
As my granddaughter is attending an established mission primary school which is an all-girls school, I thought that the above-mentioned approach was a unique one adopted by the school. I thus asked a young schoolboy from an all-boys school and discovered a similar case in his class. This showed that it was not an isolated case but a common phenomenon in primary schools.
After making observations and thinking over the matter for quite some time, I feel that it is inappropriate for form teachers to teach many subjects. The reasons are as follows:
1. (Form) teachers have greater ‘authority’ to arrange lessons (within school curriculum time) as and when they like. For example, EL lesson is arranged for the first period and Science lesson for the second period. Previously, the Science teacher would come punctually for the Science lesson, but now a form teacher who has not finished teaching the EL lesson during the EL period may use the Science period to continue teaching EL. If the teacher keeps on doing this, students will have little learning opportunity for other subjects.
2. Teachers will need a lot of energy to teach many subjects. Their teaching will be adversely affected as a result. Previously, teachers taught two subjects, but now (form) teachers teach four to five subjects, and they have to do a lot of marking, given more than 40 exercises for each subject. As a result, they are saddled with a heavy workload.
3. Teachers are stressed due to fatigue and heavy responsibilities. As a result, they have frequent mood swings, which can affect the teacher-student relations. Sometimes, my granddaughter’s teacher spends half a period’s time reprimanding her students. What makes matters worse is that she would continue teaching the class for the next period. Under this situation, it is impossible for the teacher to have time for herself to calm down.
4. Whenever a (form) teacher takes medical or vacation leave, all lessons taught by him/her will practically have to stop. This happened to my granddaughter’s class one day when their form teacher fell ill. The teacher, who has a strong sense of responsibility, came back to work after 1-2 days’ sick leave even though she still looked weak.
Speaking from a professional angle, I feel that schools should arrange for teachers to teach their subjects of specialisation. Only then will teachers and students thoroughly enjoy teaching and learning and interact better with each other. As overloading teachers is bad for both teachers and students, I am of the view that raising teachers’ pay alone cannot solve the problem. I hope MOE would look into this issue.