CHALLENGES OF TEACHERS

Teaching is not an easy task especially when you go through struggles. The difficulties are heightened by huge expectations, daily pressures and not to mention the voluminous documents that they have to prepare. These are further intensified by the need to conform and abide by various laws, rules and regulations such as the Child Protection Policy. Moreover, there are also the challenges poised by the impact of the Continuous Professional Development. In these trying situations, how do teachers cope?

Aside from preparing instructional materials for particular lessons, the time of teachers are at times consumed by the accomplishment of various documents. This has been a struggle for teachers since their focus communicate significant learning to students is also divided and drawn to come up with beautifully written narratives and to complete forms. Teachers cope with this situation by creating a time table to manage everything well.

In the implementation of the Child Protection Policy, teachers have encountered difficulty in imposing discipline. Teachers could hardly express their feelings whenever they have to deal with hardheaded students in the classroom unless they want to court accusations of verbal abuse. This misconstrued verbal abuse may be further exaggerated by a perceived psychological trauma to students. In situations like this, teachers must resort to positive way of imposing discipline on the students. It may be a tall order but they could only refer to impared insights and encouragements they get from trainings and seminars they attend. Pieces of advice given by veteran teachers are also valuable.

When the K-12 Curriculum was introduced in the Philippines, teachers have been expected to undergo the Continuous Professional Development. Though this process will help teachers to become experts in their respective fields, others still perceive it as an added stress on their journey. With this situation, teachers just concentrate much on the benefits they will be getting through attendance to trainings and seminars and through the pursuance of higher learning that would definitely have an impact in uplifting the academic performance of students.

With what we have aired about the journey of teachers, we could definitely say that even teachers face many challenges, they look for ways on how they can triumph over these trials and cope with the every situation they are into. Challenges, no matter unwelcome, will always be treated as part of their lives.

— oOo— The author is Teacher II at Pampanga High School