Every day, I give students assignments, attend to them, and facilitate their learning. I also score and evaluate their learning outcomes. As a homeroom teacher, I am responsible for the learning activities with all students, also the facilities and infrastructure in the classroom.
Life at the university and work are very different. As a new teacher, I have a lot to learn, from managing the class, understanding each student's character, dealing with parents, and other things. However, working in a different school forced me to adapt to a new environment. I had to start over again to understand the characters of my colleagues, parents, and students.
I’m not a physical education teacher. I’m not an English teacher. I'm not a religion teacher either. But I can teach students those subjects if requested. I have little bit of knowledge of all those subjects. As a general teacher, I teach mathematics; Indonesian; civic education; natural science; social science; art, culture, and craft (SBdP); and local content subjects.
My most memorable experience while becoming a teacher was when I handled a noisy classroom by raising my voice. It was indeed effective; the students got quiet and took their seats. But the reality was different than what I had imagined. Quiet students did not always mean that they were paying attention to my lessons. In fact, they were busy with their own activities.
It has been eight months since I started teaching at the primary school where I was assigned. I have gained a lot of experiences; two of them are the most memorable.
It was my first time working in a public school. I was assigned to teach Grade 4 at a public primary school in Jakarta. I was told that a student with special needs would join my class. I was startled when the student with special needs had a meltdown in my class. His friends said such incident happens frequently, where the said student screams for no reason and walks out of the class.
Every Tuesday and Thursday, the school where I work holds English Day where teachers, staff, and students wear an “I Speak English” pin and interact in English. I think it is a great programme as it is my first time giving instruction in English.
Teachers are often regarded as students’ “second parent” at school. As a “second parent”, I take care of the students as their parents do at home. Keeping an eye on many students at once is challenging. Some students cry easily, and some younger students still need assistance to use the restroom properly. It takes tremendous patience to do these tasks.
While working as a teacher, I have dealt with quite some problems. I’ve dealt with student problems the most during my tenure as a public primary school teacher. Meanwhile, most of the problems with students' parents occurred when I worked in a private school.
The principal said that there was no homeroom teacher vacancy, but he was looking for a dance teacher and offered me the position. I was silent and perplexed. What just happened?