Chalk...

Movie time? No. This time it was more of a documentary about few teachers in a school and how they manage their school, students and themselves. Even though it was not a movie and not very interesting but it gave me some idea of the real teacher teaching in a school. It is in American context and the students are average in their studies and behaviour. The camera focuses on all of the movement of the teachers. The first person we were introduced to was a History teacher who was struggling to get the students to participate. At one extend after one odd hour of teaching, a student asked him, how long he is in this field. It looks like he just came to this school to teach. The teacher never looked confident at the start of the documentary. So I need to prepare myself to expect all this kind of reactions from my students on my first day of class. Gone is the time where students will be afraid of teachers and respect them no matter how new they are in the field. I still remember when I was schooling ten years back, when we were told we will be getting a new teacher for a particular subject, all of us would be anxious wondering whether the teacher is strict, nice, stern or jovial. As time goes by, the first teacher learns about class management by reading up books in the library. He learns that students need humour in class so that the class doesn’t become boring. It is history class after all. In the end he manages to handle the class well.
The second teacher is a Physical Education (PE) teacher who is a lady who helps the students physically. She is a senior in the school, two years to be exact. She is committed to the school but I feel she is too into the school that she is mostly not satisfied with the happenings in the school. She only had one reason to come to school that is to be a dedicated PE teacher before she met the first teacher. Now she looks forward to come to school for another reason, to meet him in a day to day basis. At the end of the documentary, she says that everyone is different and sensitive. So she needs to be in their shoe to feel what they feel and be tolerant.
The third teacher whom I am not clear on what subject he teaches is portrayed as a teacher who is very dedicated but in real he is not. He wants to be famous and when he lost the election for teacher of the year he gets very angry. One of the students told him that coming in second is not being last. He gets very angry and kicks a table till it falls off. He was angry with that statement because there were only two people in the election. He fails to control his anger and became selfish. He later on realises and hopes to control.
Another person is a lady who is the assistant principal. She was a teacher before she was promoted. She is in a lot more pressure then the teachers. Everyone comes to her when there is a problem and even though it looks like she can’t handle it but she manages. Once she gets the promotion, she always gets back home late and by the time she reaches the husband is already asleep. At one point, she told the audience (us) that it has been three weeks since she had sex. It is an important part of life once you are married so she is trying to tell that the work is taking too much of her personal life. At the end of the documentary she tells that home should come first and then second is school but in less then fifteen seconds she says that home should be number one till fifty six and fifty seven should be school. I guess she was so exhausted about school that she had to say that.
This documentary showed a one year school life of three teachers and an assistant principal. It is interesting on how much things they have in mind in teaching students and also other things like election, family, love, anger, tolerance and commitment towards their job. It is wrong for one to think that being a teacher is an easy job. This profession must be one of the hardest but it will become a lot easier if teachers were dedicated.