I just received a piece of bad news today. The tuition centre in which I have been teaching for almost three years will probably wrap up in another month's time. My eggs are not in the same basket so my tutoring work is not that affected by its closure but the news is nevertheless still a sad one because I'll be parting with a place in which I have many fond memories of teaching some of the most wonderful students that I have ever had.
The tuition centre is not large and ostentatious but the atmosphere it used to have was truly that of boundless energy of learning. In the past, students would stay back hours way past their tuition timeslots because they loved to study there and access all the tutors there who would try to answer their questions on whatever subjects they took. The pay I got from the center was merely a fraction of what I would charge outside the centre but because of such energy within the centre, I have had no regrets teaching there and in the process meeting some of the most interesting students in my tutoring life thus far. My classes would always be bustling with eager students who would not hesitate to ask questions, conduct active discussions, and do extra work on their own initiatives so I could correct their work and point out their mistakes before they head off to their examinations at the end of the year.
However, things went completely downhill ever since the principal of the tuition centre broke up with his girlfriend who had been his centre assistant since the creation of the centre. I did not know what exactly happened between the two of them, but it seemed to me that ever since that break-up, the entrepreneurial and fighting spirit of the principal was broken and as it waned, so did the energy of the centre itself. Subsequently, the principal stopped advertising about the classes in the centre, fumbled with some investment errors along the way and started absenting himself from the centre's lessons. As the months went by, fewer and fewer new students were enrolled and the tuition centre is now a picture of abandonment and has completely lost its heyday form of energy and spirit de corps.
I suppose I can only bring nothing with me, except the happy memories of those smiling faces of my students who enjoyed my lessons with me for the past three years, when the whole place closes down. Hopefully, with those memories, I can re-create the abundant energy in new classrooms with new students in a new tuition centre in the future. The principal's spirit may be broken but mine is still intact.
What's left are only my thoughts about the entire episode - Maybe everything boils down to one's fighting spirit. If one is unwilling to move forward, then nothing will move that person.
Where's your fighting spirit? Are you prepared to use it everyday of your life?
1 comment:
Feeling a bit sad aft reading this post of yours. But I totally agreed abt the fighting spirit in everyone's body. I need to charge mine too. Seems low but I will not let it die out for sure. :)
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