Late

Yes. Late is something I always am, lately, but not to things that are due or appointments that I have made, rather late to things I have promised, such as delivering an essay a day.

I see my current lifestyle as problematic because it does not quite encompass who I want to be, entirely. I have no time to express myself creatively unless I am able to produce a powerpoint presentation, whereI fully do express myself and receive a whole lot of gratitude towards my effort in my powerpoint presentations from peers that I otherwise would never have spoken to in my entire life. That is quite beneficial, yes, but I still am not fulfilling myself entirely yet. 

I suppose tutoring people also takes a toll on me. I am getting money for giving parts of my intellect, filtered intellect actually because younger children fail to understand most of my vocabulary, and I sit there waiting for them to finish a simple task, a simple writing task or mathematical equation and they take their time sharpening their pencils or blowing their noses or refilling their plastic bottles of water and it all drains away their parents' money and I sit there wondering whether teaching really amounts to something or whether some students just want a leading figure in their lives, one that is not either one of their parents, and I think that there is the problem - I am getting paid to be a guardian.

Being a guardian has its price, though. Now the children I tutor all are too dependent on me, and I hardly put in any effort, or maybe I do and I do not recognize it as much as they do. But, what I am beginning to realise is that the schools they attend, two, one higher class and one lower class, are failing to meet their needs to the extent where I am hired to help them meet them. This should not be the case. Rather than chasing the curriculum, schools should also take the time to assist all of those children who are falling behind. Teachers, after all, are getting paid to do so. What about integration aides? This whole teaching thing is a joke. 

Last year at one of my placement schools, a young girl had a speech difficulty and the government gave her a test to do and she apparently scored 'more than average' so they would not give her school the extra funds to support her. Regardless, the integration aide had helped her out a little, and left on numerous occasions when she would get too frustrated to even bother understanding what to do with her. I could not bear to witness this, so then I took over and I boosted her creativity with a few words and a lot of smiles, and soon enough this girl began to write like never before.

Similarly, another girl who spoke no word of English was struggling because she was left in the classroom whilst waiting for an ESL school to accept her. She would literally just sit there as everyone spoke a different language. The teacher would give her books to read and things to write but she would not do either because she was not capable. I decided to use the Vietnamese girl next to her to translate things I said to her and things she said back to me, and soon enough we began communicating with pictures, and it worked. She would await another mini lesson from me every time that I had placement, and soon enough she began reciting words of her own in English just by looking at the pictures.

I have also come across autistic children who performed better with my aid than the teacher's or the integration aide's. Some teachers no longer put in that extra effort, though I am not so sure that they ever did. It pays off, not financially, but spiritually, to help a child who really needs it. Maybe the education world would be a better place if this were the case.