reflections
In the shoes of my senseis'
The first day i was transferred to balestier hill secondary school to teach chemistry, i was told that i am given 6 classes to teach, 40 "guas" per class. Which easily makes up to about 200 students, which also means 200 homework to mark, 200 students to chase/teach. Through this, i saw the beauty of teaching, and the ugly parts too.
-Giving up
On the first two days, i had 4 hours of lessons on the first day, and 6 hours on the second day. Now the first thing everyone has to understand that balestier hill sec's acronym is BHS, which also stands for Bloody Horrible School. Ironically, its the school that i graduated from. Just to brief you, everyday would see afew stealing cases, smoking cases and fights, and maybe 1 or 2 will be expelled A WEEK! (im exaggerating, but its close). I have 2 express classes to teach, the bottom two lol, and 3 normal academic classes and 1 normal technical class. The first day i had two of my NA classes and one E class. Back to back. Stepping into class, half the class was outside/half inside, of those inside, half were sleeping and the rest either participating or spectating a fight, i forgot cheering. The next class was no different, so i took extremely long time and all my voice quota to get them organised, by the second period, my throat was painful. Now i know what it means by :" you won't understand until you experience it". My last class was a bliss, it was the second best Express class, the students there....are human...as in...they are civilised. The normal technical class, half were special students, special as in autistic or hearing impaired or mentally unstable, teaching was impossible but to fulfil a requirement, i was instructed to give them enough to show their parents that they come to school for a reason. On the first two days alone, i already know that half of the lot will not make it. I wanted to quit and give up. But after school, a student looked for me, to ask me a question, he wasn't a nerd or a weirdo but a normal genuine STUDENT!! Wow, that was enough to keep me staying.
I realised that the teachers put in so much effort, stay in the career and shout at students, all to benefit the few who really desire to learn, perhaps efficiency is 1% but its worth it.
-Age gap
"Teacher teacher! you how old?" asked every class that i go to. "Im currently 18"...."WAH!! same!!!" Well some students are really my age, either foreigners or some other reasons. Im 18 and im teaching 15/16 year olds and i feel as if nothing but their size has changed since i taught p3s at nanyang pri.
"Teacher teacher! *** *** like you leh." i figured young male teachers faced a high risk of being preyed upon by female students. HOWEVER! i maintain a strict distance between myself and the students.
-Homework
I finally understood where greenhouse gases that cause global warming come from. It isn't from china nor US, neither is it the factories and industries. It is balestier hill students, i print an average of 3 copies per student as the first two are either, 1.Lost 2."teacher didn't give" 3."never receive". At the workplace, i am extremely particular about saving paper, i try my very best to have all my worksheets and homework printed on ONE sheet of paper. I would like to quote a situation, in this school all the Common tests has a component called assignment marks, which is a certain percentage of the exam, to "entice" students to hand in their work. When i mark work, i really scrutinise every mistake, give alot of comments and do their corrections, i literally write more than they do, even for those who copied. and this one boy who handed in late said:"teacher got assignment mark not? I said i will mark yours on equal grounds as others, i will give comments and feedback but NO assignment marks for late work, his reply was, then do for what?
What do you do when you have half the class copying homework from each other? What do you do when pupils submit blank worksheets because all they know is that they must pass up, what they must pass up is not known, so they just hand in whatever they have, im getting chinese and other subject's homework.=.=
Im tired of this, but i will commit till the rest of my verbal contract.
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My sister has been staying in her school's hostel for some time already(NJC), and after awhile, i realised that its kinda sad being an only child, while she was away, i got to know what being an only child is like, i spend the entire afternoon talking to no one and when i open my mouth to say hi to my parents who came back its the same feeling as when i wake up to yawn. Hmm....but now my cousin is staying with me, in my room, hes sec 1 and hes quite a nice boy except hes quite silly.
He doesn't do his homework but gets A for exams, he keeps saying hes fat but he keeps eating alot of snacks, and he says that he is lactose-intolerant but can eat chocolate,ice-cream, chocolate milk etc etc.
time to sleep. ah! it started raining.
Lame comment of the day: My dog has such a short attention span, but its still longer than some of my students.
I love this game but i don't play it lol.
~datahush vi britannia commands..
9:59 PM
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