The One with the Nothing Positive

In my blog surfing to find equally depressing people in the teaching profession, :P, I saw a comment written on a fellow professional's blog

In the blog, Mr A wrote that teachers blogs are generally depressing, and it had in some way made his cousin think twice about joining the sacred profession. He was glad that Jeanie had address this issue and I quote
"Your positive tone helped remove the depression I felt. And I think you are right. We must remember WHY we joined and if we have not left yet, we must still feel the passion somewhere in us. If there is no more passion left, we should leave. And not gripe and moan and do a greater disservice to our profession."

I totally agree with what A say about depressing teacher blogs. In fact it is not usual to see teachers griping about the system, the students, the colleagues and every thing under the sun. Sad to say, as teachers, sometimes we do not have the proper channels to address our frustrations, our unhappinesses or even our take on certain governmental policies which would have been dumped if we were the Minister of Education a day (hey everyone is entitled to their own opinion). But as an individual, everyone has their own take on issues that concern us and the very fact that we gripe about it, show that we are passionate and bothered by the things we see and experience. I do agree that griping too much can be detrimental to the service and to our own physical well being but I also understand that we need to let it out our systems at times. The fact is teachers do complain and the fact is that teachers who do complain do have this passion. Sometimes it is this passion that really got us burned out and frustrated.

I have to admit I do moan and groan and the sad/true thing is that the very fact that I have made my identity known means that my every actions, words are under constant scrutiny to the students, parents, fellow teachers and *gasp* MOE officials ( Now I wonder whether it is because of this that I am not being promoted as fast as I hope for, or maybe it is just my CEP ;P) But then again, I stand by what I have written and I know that the very fact that I bothered to even write a blog to document what has happened, is a good indication that I have *sadly* made teaching my life and my mission. And I must say life is always bittersweet and never rosy :)

( Maybe an audacious appeal to all the teachers bloggers who read this, to write about why you join teaching in the first place and what prompted you to continue on and on everyday. Maybe as what A say, this would be a timely reminder about our "mission" in life. :)) Not if you would excuse me, I got to overcome my initial depression of the blues from coming back from my reservist)