W1, 2010

Surprisingly, going back to school has been great so far. Toward the end of my 5-week holidays, I had been dreading it. Just coming across back-to-school sales was enough to get me depressed.

But I'm enjoying myself so far. I'm teaching five Form 3 classes this year and I get to teach only English. I'm no longer teaching Moral nor on canteen duty (yeay!).

The only downside to this arrangement is the marking part. Form 3 students have the most number of tests/exams. In addition to the tests in Feb, March, July and the mid-year exam, they also have the PMR Trials and Ala PMR 1 & 2. Marking nearly 200 PMR essays for each test and exam is not going to be fun...

I was also relieved to find out that I won't be teaching my Form 3 students from last year. Though I have nothing against them, I wanted to start the year off fresh from the mistakes I had made last year as a beginning teacher.

This year, I knew that I have to set clear boundaries from the start, be stricter, more competent, and employ more tough love measures. I've learnt that some degree of arm-twisting is required when dealing with adolescent learners. Otherwise, they won't be doing their work or any learning at all. Relying on the students to develop their own intrinsic motivation is just wishful thinking.

The classes that I teach range from the "good" to the "weak". Each class has their own personality, and though I generally get on well with all of them, certain classes do provide more "chemistry" than others.

I love 3Q because I used to teach them for 1 semester last year (before I moved to the morning session) and they are just the nicest bunch of kids you could ever come across. They cheered when I entered their class and said, "Kami rindu Cikgu", which made me walked on air for kilometres.

Lessons with them are always lots of fun. Just yesterday, we acted out Chapter 1 from the novel 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'. Naim's group gave a great performance which brought the class down. Fahmi, Muiz, and Fikri were excellent as Mr. Hyde, Mr. Enfield and Edie's father respectively, but Naim stole the show with his portrayal of Edie. His "screams of terror" were genuinely funny. I wished I had a video camera with me that day...

The other classes are enjoyable too. On my first day at 3A, the students got to ask me questions. I gave them 4 possible answers to each question and they had to figure out which answer was the correct one.

At first, they threw me predictable questions: "How old are you?", "Where are your from?", "Where did you study?", etc

Then came the absurd ones: "Are you married?", "Will you marry me?", "Do you have a daughter?" (apekah?) and "How old is your daughter?" (again, apekah???)

Having a laugh with the students is one of the joys of teaching, as are seeing them flash you their bright smiles, receiving their cheerful greetings, and waving them back from afar... :-)

But teaching does come with its hazards. A teacher had her car scratched (this happened last year) and when she went to get it repainted, the first question the mechanic asked her was, "Cikgu ke?"

I thought that was hilarious. He must have had a lot of teachers for customers.

His second question was equally funny: "Guru Disiplin ke?" (!)

X X X

The first few days were relatively free from classroom management problems. The majority of students seemed well-behaved and eager to learn. But it took 3B just four days to show their natural streaks.

The boys at the back chose to collectively go out to the washroom and the bookshop during my lesson. They didn't bring their textbook and when told to borrow from the other classes, they went out of the class in droves - leaving the class down to half.

This prompted my first lecture of the year. Contrary to popular belief, teachers do not like to nag. Nagging is so taxing on the emotion and vocal chords that I often avoid it. But, in keeping with my new set-the-boundaries-early strategy, I gave 3B a lecture before I let them off for the day.

When I'll see them next week, I'll tell you whether it worked or not and whether I had managed to exude the don't-mess-with-me vibes... haha

Till then,
have a great weekend people!