WD 2018 W1-W2

One of my new year resolutions for 2018 is to keep a work diary, so that I can celebrate my students’ growth, keep track of the activities that I am involved in, make time to reflect regularly, and all in all, take stronger ownership of my work.

The first two weeks of 2018 have been rainy, cold, and wet. The temperature has dropped to 22 degree Celsius these few days. I work well with the cold, but I dislike gloomy days and sharing wet road with a bunch of reckless drivers.

[SCHOOL REGISTRATION 2018, 30 December 2017, 7:30 a.m. – 12.30 p.m.]

I was in charge of registering a form 1 class. I learned so much from all the mistakes I made.

First, always double check a kid’s health record, especially when his parents submit the health form declaring that the kid had never received tetanus vaccine before. Parents, if your kids are Malaysians, 99% of the time your kids had received tetanus (kancing gigi) vaccine during primary school, you can check for the vaccination date in their health record (buku kesihatan).

Besides that, check the health record to see whether the kids have any disability. The school needs to know so that they can make better arrangement to cater for the kids’ needs.

Second, always check whether the parents attached their pay slips / filled in how they get income. The school will ask for it later. The school will decide whether a kid is qualified to receive financial aid based on what the class teacher submits. If the class teacher put 0 as the family income, the computer system will automatically change it to 99999, and the kid might not be filtered and selected as a financial aid receiver.

I could not imagine the guilt that I will impose on myself, if my students who are really in need of the money missed out on the opportunity to get help, due to technical issues that I could avoid.

[LESSON PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION]

One of my career development goals this year is to consistently carry out effective lessons that will benefit my students. So far it has been going good. Praise God for giving me guidance and giving the kids tranquility to sit through the lessons!

Since all the schools are using CEFR for Form 1 and 2 students this year, I can share teaching resources with all the other teachers. In the mid of second week, I conducted a listening activity designed by Grace in both my Form 2 classes. The students thoroughly enjoyed it.

Just like any other teachers, I am distracted by many other work obligations such as paperwork, so I need to constantly remind myself that my most important job as a teacher is to design lesson, impart knowledge, and instill values in the students.

[STUDENT EMPOWERMENT, decorating the classroom with a few students on 12 and 13 January 2018]

I am not going to lie. Empowering students is not my forte, yet. I work with brilliant students who have amazing ideas, but sometimes their ideas are not realistic due to financial and time constraints. As the facilitator, it's my job to tell them, plan with them, and fine-tune their idea, making it practical while keeping the originality and passion. But I am terrible at it.

This year I am the class teacher for a Form 2 class, and a few boys in the class were very excited to paint a mural on the wall. So I was thinking to myself, this is student empowerment right? Okay, let's do it!

I fetched them to the store to get the necessary items. I convinced the school and the parents to allow them to come back to the school on weekend. I stayed with them while they paint. And the initial result?

Unpleasant. We spent longer time and more money than we wanted. Then we ended with no product. The few painted parts were......too artistic to be appreciated by many. The students were frustrated with their work, they complained about their friends, and I felt dumb for not interfering with their design choice and work attitude.

Thankfully the students initiated and came back the next day to finish off what they have started. On the second day, I gave them suggestion on how to improve the painting and they took my advice. After I finished my meeting, I joined them in painting. On top of that, I actively monitored their work progress by assigning task to students who sat down to play with their phones for more than 5 minutes or so.

The end product of these two days was not perfect, but it was valuable for everyone involved in the process.

Through this activity, I hope at least the 4 kids who stayed till the very end had fun. On top of that, I hope all of us have learned something. This experience reminds me that a lot of time, youth means making reckless decision that we will regret later; however, growth happens when we admit our limitation, seek help, and push through what we have started to deliver promised result.

Thank you kids, for your endless imagination that knows no boundaries, and for giving me a chance to go through this experience with you.

So does the outcome worth the pain? As I am looking at my empty wallet, hmm……

That’s all from week 1 and week 2 of 2018. Stay tuned.