Being an online English teacher makes my life a lot brighter. It may seem to be an easy task to do but it needs lashings of patience and dozens of understanding. It is apparently easier than a formal classroom set up but it has its own difficulty. Since I'm only given limited time per each class, twenty-five minutes is sometimes not enough for me to let the student understand what the lesson is really about. Every student has their own learning style and pace after all. However, this given time for teaching the lesson is not what matters most to me. What I care about is how will I be able to reach out to my students needs. And doing this in twenty-five minutes is literally not sufficient. I have to go extra-mile to do this. Indeed, it takes time and comes naturally.
It's difficult to know my students well in a virtual classroom than in a physical classroom where I can talk to the student face-to-face and know how they actually behave. So, I have to be more creative in reaching them out. Sometimes, I message their parents through social media, knowing what interests the kid. But most often, I ask questions about what they experienced and thought about something related to the topic of the lesson.
Some other teachers had bad experiences with their students: telling them some curses, doing some improper actions, and even worse than that. So these teachers may have thought of anything they could do just not to have this kind of student in their class again. Not having them in our class may seem to be a good idea but is that how a teacher must think or behave? Being a teacher is not a duty. It is a priviledge. I once learned in college that teachers can either make or break their students. Yes. Their future can be in our hands. One word that comes from our mouth can either bring life or destroy a kid's future.
I remember when I was in elementary. I used to say that I would study hard to take revenge to my elementary teacher. I thought of that because she used to bully me in front of my classmates. Since I was a naughty kid in the class, she once said to my classmates not to go near me because I was gay. Those words melted my confidence and trust to anyone. But this had become my fuel to study hard and to prove her that her way of teaching students was wrong. Though time, I was able to forgive her. I was actually thankful that I became the person of who I am now because of this dark moment of my life that served as my stepping stone to victory.
Fortunately, this kind of negative situation that happened to me long time ago brings something good to the present. But what if, I ended being hopeless at that time. I would have killed myself for sure. I would have stopped going to school and ended up ruining myself forever.
Now that I am a teacher, I want to grab this opportunity to help students hope for the future. My goal is to mold not only their minds but also their hearts. Knowledge can anytime be acquired. But a broken heart must be recovered right away. It can only happen when someone becomes a teacher of life.
I always pray that God may always open an opportunity for me to touch each of my student's life. I would be more than happy to see them having a hopeful life forever than seeing them being successful with their endeavors yet having broken lives.
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