Fellowship Initiatives (4/6) - Local Focal

I'm currently working on a series of posts to commemorate my initiatives journey during TFM fellowship. Read Introduction here.

The Local Focal Project is the brainchild of Ngui Sui Yang, a 2017 fellow who was teaching in SMK Pasir Puteh, Pasir Gudang, Johor. I admire Sui Yang for his quirkiness, his high performing work ethics, and his enthusiasm for photography. Along with a few other artistic and talented fellows, they are aiming to create a platform for the students to express themselves through photography. 

I joined this initiative as an accompanying teacher, which meant I sent my student to join this program, but I was not part of the planning committee. I love all the events we had for the project. The planning team put in a lot of thoughts in organizing meaningful activities that would equip the students to express themselves through photography and expose the students to various possibilities involved along the path. 

When the term "photography" is brought up in conversations, many people still tend to have some stigma: it is either the "trashy" selfies, or the "professional" photos with many post-editing involved. But a picture is so much more than that. A telling photograph, be it taken on a cheap phone or an exquisite DSLR, reveals stories and conveys emotions, which in turn allows the audience to catch a glimpse of the photographer's point of view or the character's slice of life. 

Growing up, my dad took many pictures of our family. Then, we would gather together to look at the pictures after they were washed out or through a pocket slide filmstrip projector. However, since I prefer to express myself mainly through written words, I didn't truly appreciate taking photos or viewing photos until recent years. 

Capturing moments and scenery is indeed a wonderful thing. We manipulate lighting and freeze time every time we press on that magical, little button. A photographer is both a painter and an experimental physicist; we aim to express and make sense of the world by recording movements of photons. 

Anyway, coming back to the initiative, we had had many activities which brought unique exposure to the students. The activities included workshop about basic art theory, sharing sessions by professional photographers, and visits to an orphanage and a local photography studio. If you are interested to find out more about the program, please visit The Local Focal Project Instagram account. 

I couldn't stress enough to my students that the opportunity to visit places, to listen and learn from the professionals in the field, is rare and shouldn't be taken for granted. In the real world, people are willing to pay a large amount to attend sessions like these. 

I tried my best to explain to my students that, it's okay if you don't remember all the techniques you were taught during the sessions. It's definitely good if you can remember the skills and actively apply them in your daily practice. However, what's more important is for you to channel what you've seen and felt, into your expression and creation. That's what makes your product memorable and worthy.

A picture taken with my students after the first Local Focal workshop at Sunway College, JB. 

I have built a stronger bond with the boy standing next to the banner because he attended all the sessions. 

I had a lot of fun facilitating my student in coming up with his reflection. He was not good in either Malay or English so getting him to write what he thinks/feels could be challenging. He was quite shy to show me the photos that he had taken; to be honest, I was a little awkward going through his photos in front of him too because it was like prying into his brain to see his thoughts. During the sessions, I had fun seeing him klutzily approaching others to make friends or to work together in team. Picking him up and dropping him off was tiring because he lives far away, but the car rides were soothing because we didn't need to talk much to feel comfortable. 

This initiative might not explicitly help to address the students' needs, or help the students to build a certain skill, but I love it and I have learned something important. Not every journey needs to be an uphill battle; sometimes when the timing, the location, and the people are right, students (people) naturally pick things up from observing the surrounding. 

So that being said, as an educator, I need to stop asking myself: what skills/content knowledge do I bring to the table? Fixating on this question depresses me, because I have very little to offer. Instead, I should be asking myself: how can I create an environment/activity that will allow my students to learn naturally?

May all our kids grow up seeing things from different perspectives and taking delight in God's creations. 

Fellowship Initiatives (3/6) - Accenture Kickstart

I'm currently working on a series of posts to commemorate my initiatives journey during TFM fellowship. Read Introduction here.

Accenture Kickstart 2017 was the first initiative that I joined during my fellowship. My reasons of joining the initiative were simple:

1. The objective of the initiative is good (and seems fun.)
We would coach the students to discover more about themselves and their community. The students would then find a problem in their school/community that they want to work on. Next, we would guide the students to make a proposal and they would pitch their solution to the judges to get funding. 

Exposing teenagers, as young as 13 years old, to this mumbo-jumbo of the adult world, isn't that exciting? The participants were so lucky to be able to equip themselves with these useful life skills at a young age!

Honestly, prior to TFM, I had never heard of the word 'pitching', yet alone the whole painful process from identifying a problem to presenting a solution to a panel of judges for funding. So, I guess when I first heard of the program, actually I wanted to be a participant; but since I was not qualified, so I signed up to be a committee instead haha. After all, what's the better way to learn a thing than to learn it hands-on? 

2. I knew for sure, I would feel left out if I didn't join it because most of the cohort expressed interest in it.

The Accenture Kickstart 2017 committee. 

I am forever grateful to be part of this team. Each and everyone in the team demonstrated resilience, high performing, and resourcefulness in completing their respective tasks. 

Fast forward few months later, I was in the committee and was one of the two Student Affair Directors. My team dealt mostly with students' application, selection and registration. We prepared certificates for everyone involved in the initiative too.

My decision of being in the Student Affair team was a subconscious one. But recently, thinking back and finally joining the dots,  I realized that I am really comfortable with the student affair related tasks now because I was a record mistress and librarian during my high school days. Since high school, I have been accustomed to processing lists, being interviewed, and interviewing candidates.

The impact of holding leadership roles during high school is larger than I thought it is. Now, I can truly say that I believe in empowering students to be young leaders. They need to be leaders now so they can develop the necessary skills. While it's never too late to learn, people with more skills will definitely have more and better opportunities in the future.

The whole program lasted from September to November, with two workshops and a final day of pitching. The program went well.

I encourage you (kind souls who are reading this blog post, thank you!) to watch the following two videos if you want to know more about the flow of the program. These two videos were edited by my very talented friend and 2017 fellow, Bernard Ow.

Since the initiative was a collaborative effort among twenty over fellows, the workload was reasonable and I didn't feel very burdened by it. That being said, I still cried during the final pitching day because I was overwhelmed with stress. To be honest, I can't remember exactly why I cried. I am guessing the tight flow of the event and literally everything about being a first year, struggling fellow was too overbearing for me.

However, despite all the effort and time I had spent in the initiative, I didn't feel much connected to it. In fact, during the workshops and the pitching session, I would prefer to sit outside the hall and play with my phone than to be actively involved in the sessions as a facilitator or engaging the students in conversation. 

After the initiative ended, I did a brief reflection and concluded that I didn't feel as connected because I didn't send in any of my students to participate in the program. From there, I made the decision to join more events with my students instead of organizing more events for others' students in the upcoming year.

Little did I know, that my sense of un-fulfillment had almost nothing to do with "my students" or "others' students". It stemmed from a much deeper personal problem, which I had yet to figure out back then, but was made clear to me as the chapter unfolded.