Shockingly frentic teaching life

Primary school teaching is nowhere as idyllic as I'd made it out to be.

Today was primarily just talks and discussions, so I haven't actually observed what happens on the ground yet, but the primary education scene is so much different from back in my own primary school years in the early 90s. There're a lot more programmes and enrichment classes available now, and it all seems mostly good (from the student's point of view).

Of course this all translates into more work for the teachers, and if there's one thing that hasn't changed much from the 90s, it's staff size. I've always heard about the legendary 'administrative stuff' that teachers find themselves busy with a lot of the time, and I guess I'm about to find out in greater detail what exactly all this entails.

It seems that in Guangyang Primary, teachers usually go home later than 5. Well, supposedly it's possible to do your bare minimum and go home shortly after lessons end, but I think you can forget about job advancement if you do that. Which might be fine for some, I guess, but probably not for me.

There's still three weeks to go, and really a lot to learn, but right now I think that unlike what I'd thought four years ago, teaching at the primary level is actually both a challenging and rewarding experience.