Similarities Between PM & A Lecturer

Hi fellow readers, I’m just trying to avoid the conventional postings. Let’s be casual at times. However, I’m neither directly nor indirectly comparing my role to the Prime Minister, not at all. His or her role is far more superior than mine. Interestingly, there could be some similarities

Managing classes is like managing an economy/ a country with different states. Depending on number of classes that I’m responsible for, generally the more classes that I have the greater is my responsibility

(1) PM’s blog vs. my blog. Believe it or not, some leaders do have their own blog to communicate with the people. Malaysia’s former premier, Tun. Dr Mahathir does that. He posts all issues that he disregards with e.g. poor current leadership, world economy, politics etc. I do the same thing too. I write about my opinion on financial issue in America, explaining why pound is falling & yet there is nothing to worry about, whether to bail or not to bail the Big 3 etc. My main intention here is to communicate my ideas to fellow students.

(2) Instill confidence among people vs. students. One of the roles undertaken by a PM is to ensure the existence of consumer confidence. This is utmost important, as it will be a catalyst of economic growth. When people have no confidence, they will not spend into the economy. Same as being a lecturer. I need to ensure my students are well prepared, continuously giving them inspiration (although sometimes pressuring them is more effective), teaching them the skills & techniques to answer papers etc. Without all these, they may not even have confidence to sit for exams. Worse, there are some which choose to skip the exams

(3) Paying tax vs. paying RM 20 for photocopy materials. Government will utilise the tax revenue which comes from income tax, corporation tax, VAT etc to spend into the economy. The same goes for me as well as other lecturers. We will collect RM 20 from each student for the purpose of photocopied materials. In other word the RM 20 is like a kind of ‘tax’. Then we use it for photocopying notes, case studies & exam papers. In real world the government could use that money to build schools, hospitals, upgrade infrastructures & other public works

(4) Mandate given vs. students’ can choose who they want. The public can choose who they want to be the country’s leader through election. The same goes for education industry. In some situation (although limited), students may opt to change lecturers

(5) Election vs. teacher’s evaluation. As there will be term election in the real world, there will be term evaluation for us teacher. If the outcome of the election is bad, we know that the people dislike the current leadership. The same goes for the class. We lecturers can tell if majority of the students like the teacher or not by reading the comments written on the evaluation form. Also the average score for each attribute like clarity in explanation, attitude in class, whether the teacher is helpful or not etc can be use as an indicator

(6) Unemployment vs. weak students. Governments often look into resolving issues regarding unemployment. These are the people that highly need assistance. Also this is to prevent the further widening of income inequality. Equally in class, I’m very concern (although I scold & cynically criticised them a lot) with those who are weak with Economics. I try to extend my help in whatever way I can for instance giving extra lessons, making my phone line available 24 hours a day etc. This is part of my effort to bridge the 'knowledge inequality' among students, especially between the strongest & the weakest

(7) PM late for events vs. me late for classes. I guess I don’t have to further explain on this

(8) PM needs to prepare speech vs. preparing lesson. Some may argue that PM’s speech is prepared by his or her PA (personal assistant). But in many cases, PM has to give speech independently especially in press conference. The speech & answering skills will become better over time. For me, at initial stage I need to prepare extensively for every lesson that I have. But once I’m familiar enough, there is not much preparation needed. Also over the time, I’m more able to address difficult questions asked by my students (although still need to improve). Here, students are like reporters