I've just received a letter from the Education Department, inviting me to attend and receive an excellent service award. This award is created by the Education Ministry to give recognition to government servats/ teachers whom 'the powers that be' deemed to have acheived a certain standard in service or have contributed to acheiving high standard in educational field.
The award carries monetary benefits, a certificate and some kind of momento like a gold watch, etc... I know of people who lobbied desperately to get this award - monetary benefits aside, there could be other things in the pipeline - further promotion, perhaps ?
How do I feel about receiving the award ? Though I must concede it's nice to have your services acknowledged, and recognition that your efforts are worth something, I don't really care much for it. The important thing is that I have this sense of satisfaction that I've done something worthwhile and that my work has brought benefits to the children I teach, that I've touched the lives of some people and that lives have been changed because I cared.
The catch word today is excellence - we've been asked, cajoled, threathened to produce excellence - results above everything else. I have this constant struggle with my staff- I have been accused of being too niggerly in my assessment - the yearly performance report. Why do I give only an average of 80% wheras other schools give over 90% to their staff - as our school has been consistently been rated the highest performing school in the district - shouldn't we be getting better grades ? Sigh! Because my standards are higher - so what if the other schools want to delude themselves and please their staff? I can't compromise my standard, which are measured against the better schools, not against the poor performing schools. I'm sorry, I can't lower my standards.
What will I do with the monetary benefits ? I plan to donate part of it to the needy students.
The award carries monetary benefits, a certificate and some kind of momento like a gold watch, etc... I know of people who lobbied desperately to get this award - monetary benefits aside, there could be other things in the pipeline - further promotion, perhaps ?
How do I feel about receiving the award ? Though I must concede it's nice to have your services acknowledged, and recognition that your efforts are worth something, I don't really care much for it. The important thing is that I have this sense of satisfaction that I've done something worthwhile and that my work has brought benefits to the children I teach, that I've touched the lives of some people and that lives have been changed because I cared.
The catch word today is excellence - we've been asked, cajoled, threathened to produce excellence - results above everything else. I have this constant struggle with my staff- I have been accused of being too niggerly in my assessment - the yearly performance report. Why do I give only an average of 80% wheras other schools give over 90% to their staff - as our school has been consistently been rated the highest performing school in the district - shouldn't we be getting better grades ? Sigh! Because my standards are higher - so what if the other schools want to delude themselves and please their staff? I can't compromise my standard, which are measured against the better schools, not against the poor performing schools. I'm sorry, I can't lower my standards.
What will I do with the monetary benefits ? I plan to donate part of it to the needy students.
3 comments:
Congrats mom! I know you deserved this award
congrats auntie :)
Thanks girls. And Suan - surprised you knew about my blog - aren't i groovy ? get your mum to blog too.
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