No Such Thing As Free Period! Period!

Entries in My Other Blogs :

i. No-Bake Strawberry Cheesecake

ii. Perjumpaan 3 Penjuru

I remember about five years ago, when teachers were complaining about the relief classes they were getting  (not that they are not complaining anymore now!) the principal at that time made a stern statement (which I will remember, God willing, till the day I retire!) that teachers do not have free periods.  If a teacher teaches for six out of the ten periods per day, the teacher cannot consider himself free for the other four periods!

In fact he said, during these four periods, the teacher is required to do other teaching related work (I stress on the word work, just as he did!) like marking exercise books or exam papers, completing lesson plans, creating and producing resource materials to be used for teaching, updating the special rooms that the teacher is assigned to plus other related clerical work!  

In short, what he was trying to say, teachers do not have the right to go for a coffee break (let alone the one hour lunch break that all civil servants are entitled to!)  It also suggests that teachers cannot even go to the loo or in fact do whatever else that is not related to teaching!  You look at the other school staff taking their own sweet time doing their work, taking half an hour coffee break at 10 a.m. or whenever their hearts desire and that one hour lunch-break that they are entitled to!  Worse of all when you come later in the evening, you see these people idling in their offices reading newspapers, chatting in Facebooks, listening to Youtubes and everything else not related to work!  I guess this is because they are not teachers so they deserve all the free time!!!

As it is, teachers now go back at 4.30 p.m. from Mondays to Thursdays (aside from Wednesdays when they go back at 5.30).  If you consider the fact that a teacher starts work at 7.30 a.m. and ends at 4.30 p.m. then he would have clocked nine hours for the day (this is because he is not entitled to that one hour lunch-break!)  Nine incredible hours is too much when you think about the fact (according to that Principal!) teachers work non-stop!

I shudder when I think that one day some of us teachers may drop dead like flies due to overwork!  When you think of it, death would be a consolation compared to losing one's mind due to stress and overwork!  Let's hope things don't come to that!  Insya Allah!