I have never forgotten what my friends said when I decided to become a high school teacher six years ago: "Introduce your future colleagues to us - to marry a teacher is my dream!"

They spoke yearningly, with glittering eyes. Being a teacher (college teachers excluded) in their mind meant possessing a decent, stable job, having plenty of leisure time to take good care of children, and standing behind a husband, rendering all one's support to the family. A teacher was the incarnation of tenderness and goodness.

My understanding of a teacher's job was just as a famous ancient Chinese essayist put it: to propagate cardinal principles, impart professional knowledge and resolve doubts. I was quite confident about accomplishing this. However, it soon turned out that my friends and I were all romantics who failed to keep up with today's secondary education.

My first disillusionment started with the regular breaks between classes. From time to time, I suffered from giving English lessons right after physics, maths, or other subjects. The 10-minute-break seemed to become a supplement or even a natural part of a certain lesson. The students had got quite used to this. They would stick to their seats doing various exercises if they were lucky enough to be given the breaks. The same thing was true of the lunchtime rest.

More than once, I was nudged awake by a student with an exercise book, wanting to ask questions. "It's lunch time, why not have a good rest?" I responded, trying my best to stay calm. "But I have some questions," they said without the least apology for interrupting me.

Later facts taught me that it was a teacher's obligation to answer students' questions at any time (including phone inquiries at night). What was worse, the scheduled student self-study time at morning and noon also required a teacher's participation. How could we arrange time for our students and at the same time ask them to be independent and creative? What kind of talents do we want to cultivate in society? I'd better shut up for fear of being considered an extra-terrestrial. Both teachers and students have taken such things for granted.

After changing several pairs of glasses as a result of marking tons of test papers and students' homework, I have now become a grammar expert, my brain stuffed with all kinds of rules and structures, some still in use, quite a few long obsolete today. I, together with my students, am drowned in such "unreal English" day after day, a long way from the use of English for real communication. But any attempt at change proves futile - tests and exams don't allow it.

College Entrance Exams decide everything. The general rules here are "Practice makes perfect" and "Much will have more". It is a real torture stripping the charm from language and surrendering to mere utilitarianism.

How I envy some of my colleagues! They fix their minds on high scores, and find it fun doing such exercises. They always keep a close watch on their students by asking them to stay in class after school, giving them extra lessons, checking their spelling or correcting their exercises. They are credited as model teachers both by the school and the students. I've found myself to be a dwarf compared with them.

If people's importance and social recognition could be measured by the number of meetings they attend and the responsibilities they shoulder, I believe that we definitely top the list.

I've gradually mixed up high school teachers with baby-sitters. We are required to treat students who are taller than ourselves as pre-school children. We learn for them, analyze for them, and accompany them to do exercises, make corrections, and review lessons. We drag them out of Internet bars, solve their love affairs, visit their parents, etc.

As a matter of fact, my pain lies not so much with the working hours or with the sacrifice as with myself, with my values and my image of a good teacher. Contrary to his wish, my husband is now complaining about having to stand behind me and help with the family chores.

Not until "quality education" is truly inaugurated from top to bottom, rather than being merely a written term, do I stand a chance.

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