Who should take more responsibility?

Being a teacher is not such an easy job....

Years ago, I thought , when I started teaching, being a teacher was quite a difficult job, since one needed to prepare for each lesson, design different activities for each learning stage, anticipate students reaction for each activities, and finally, check their understanding of the lesson as well as urge them to prepare for the evaluation for their learning. Moreover, when students were not able to or were not likely to pass the exam, it was teachers' job to assist them to overcome the difficulty and lead them toward the happiness of passing the make-up examine. However, I found myself wrong after I became a homeroom teacher here because it is a tougher mission. As a homeroom teacher, what I need to do is not just what I thought before. What else I need to do is take care of each of the students in my own class, from their daily habits to the cultivation of their personality, in addition to those trivialties concerning about their English learning situation.

When I gradually get to learn more about those students by contacting their parents, I find that some of the parents highly concern about their children's learning situation in school and keep calling me whenever my cell phone is on, whereas some of the parents are quite difficult to be reached and do not quite understand their own children. More interestingly, those are the parents whose children tend to get more trouble and tend to become the so-called "headache" in every teacher's class. My mind keeps telling me that if those parents don't have time for their kids at home for further education, is it the responsibility of the homeroom teacher to take care of and cultivate their children, including some behavior which is different from the other students? Sometimes teachers become the victim because of those behavior. Besides, some students hardly accept correction, even from their teachers. Under this circumstances, who should take the responsibility? The parents? The student? Or the teacher?

22:51 November 15, 2005.