(no subject)
Went for the MOE Teaching Scholarship Tea Session this morning, which has made me 138472059x more confused about my.. I dunno, "life path"? All my life, I've never had one constant ambition - I wanted to be a marine biologist when I was 5 (impetus: the Underwater World), a lawyer from when I was Pri 1 to 3, a writer/journalist in upper primary, a psychologist from the SN years to IP 1 & 2, then I started toying with the idea of teaching in IP3. Since then, I've kind of shuffled between teaching, running a business (amusing, considering I don't know anything about economics) & writing for a stupid womens' magazine (it's money for talking cock, why not!), but I'm largely aimless & ambitionless.
Not good things to be when you're IP4 and not too far away from life in the big, bad, away-from-school world.
Anyway, the Scholarship runs like this: You're given free tuition fees & accomodation in a Uni of your choice (and a healthy monthly allowance) but it means you're bonded to the MOE for 4 years if you go to a Local Uni, and 6 years if you go overseas. 1 year of the above is taken for NIE training, so it's actually 3 and 5 years (respectively) of actual teaching. I'm generally able to sniff out propaganda so my brain switched off all through the urging to "mould the future of our nation", and focused instead on the pros & cons of taking it up.
Pros: it's one of the most stable careers, the pay is alright, it's something I'm pretty interested in doing, it's *only* 4 years of my life and I'll be young enough after my stint to branch out into other fields
Cons: do I really want to and am I capable of spending 4 years of my life teaching?
I really don't know. Embedded within that con are many small worries, the biggest of which is my fear that I won't be able to fulfill what I see as being the principle duty of teachers - effectively communicating content to my students while keeping them interested and maintaining my sanity & unbiasness at the same time. Being a student, I know what I want and do not want in a teacher, but I don't know if I'm able to match my own standards if I were to teach. It's sort of like parenting; we all know what makes a good parent and swear blind that we won't do certain things that our own parents do to us if we ever had kids, but how sure are we of that? My sister is young enough for me to be a sort-of-parent to her, and very often I catch myself saying and doing things in anger that I'd told myself never to do. And since teaching is kind of like parenting on a very large scale... I don't know. I'm terrified of screwing someone's future up by making them hate a subject and hate school by extension, 'cos I have been terrorised and turned off school by certain teachers in the past.
Added to that is the whole overseas university dilemma. Taking up the scholarship means a lessened financial burden, which means that I might have the chance to go overseas. If I do, it's definitely the UK, I have no love for America & its institutions in general, haha. I like the sound of Warwick -the Arts programme looks awesome. But do I really want to spend tons of money on an overseas education that will definitely be more interesting and fun, only to come back to Singapore and become a teacher? Besides, what I want to take is pretty much offered in Singapore as well :/ And I really don't think I'm even good enough academically to consider an overseas education, plus I really don't know how to go about the whole business of applications - it just seems so taxing and tedious and not something I have time for, not right now.
There is another option though - I can take the scholarship, do my undergraduate studies in Singapore, then take my Masters overseas in a college of my choice. That sounds like the best thing so far, but again - do I want to be a teacher???
Introspection needed, BRB.
Okay that was one helluva long entry of me rambling on (and on and on) and questioning myself so it doesn't make for particularly entertaining reading. On a lighter note, I saw quite a few NJ people at the MOE today - Jafnie, Wang Mo, Jensen & Xian Yong. Err.. Haha.. No comment..
Dinner with mah homiezz tonight at Simei, y0.