To TEACH the future generation

It has been a great challenging month for my teaching life in two primary schools.

I have been fortunate enough to have gained few months experiences for being a teacher teaching at primary school. Teaching has always been my passion, something which I enjoy doing just because I like to see people grow. Teaching is not a bed of roses, it involves not passion and commitment, but a huge load of capability. Sometimes, you have the passion of doing something but it does not necessary mean you have the capability to accomplish the things that you are passionate about. I have been teaching for one to one home tuition while I was still studying and find that it is completely different from teaching a class of students in a school.

Teachers not only need to marks students' homework, but also need do the never ending administration works like key in data.

The one month plus teaching from June to August has taught me to one lesson: Passion is not enough of achieving what you want, but it involves a combination of passion and capability. While passion is something innate, capability is something which we can constantly learn and develop. You claim your passion has always been teaching but that does not necessary mean you are able to teach well and handle 30-40 students in a class.

In fact, teaching in a class full of relatively huge amount of students involves not only passion, but a set of skills such as classroom management, ability to capture the attention, ability to manage indisciplined students etc.

The first primary school which I taught. A class of 35-40 students.

The first primary school which I taught is a high performing school while the second school is considered a relatively weak performing school than the former, with many of the student from a poor family background, some even from orphanages.

Well, this in fact makes a few distinct differences during my teaching tenure in both schools. The first school has a huge number of students in a class, and most of the students, I would say 90% of them come from a good family background, with highly educated parents. One main challenge I faced while teaching there is classroom management. Some of the students are hyperactive and like to shout and run around in the class and hence have many disciplinary problems. Worse still, most of them considered themselves smart as they can afford personal  tuition after classes and hence not willing to listen and being attentive to what teachers teach in class.

The second school where most of the students from poor family backgrounds also faces the same disciplinary problems. As we commonly know, kids around the age of 10-12 are very playful and naughty. However, one good thing about the kids in the school is that most of them are willing to learn. Though I know some of them have been left behind quite seriously in their school works, but when I teach, they are willing to listen and learn hard. Furthermore, being a small scale school compared to the former one, a class of 25 students is really easier to manage and teach.

The second primary school. Students are keen to make their own national flower (bunga raya) while on art class.

Well, all in all teaching has always been a noble job which involves transforming a student’s life and future. Teachers should not only teach from heart but also should have a set of skills which equip them well in facing the challenging future generation of our nation.

The art of teaching

I have been teaching for nearly 2 month and have been to 2 primary schools during my 2 month tenure of teaching.

Well, to be frank, I have no idea why I will end up in teaching during my 'free time' while I was looking for a career transition, and to be frank again, I thought I will enjoy teaching, but the reality of teaching in a school proved to be a tough challenge often make me think twice to make teaching as my long term career.

In fact, teaching is not a bed of roses.

I would like to share with my readers about an interesting and informative article written by Nithya Siddhu, a school teacher and also a keen writer for the STAR EDUCATE section.

In her article, she introduces us 3 Greek words: ethos, logos and pathos which will what explain about the art of teaching. The quote of the article as follows:

Ethos is the Greek word for “character”. It speaks volumes of the spirit, attitudes and beliefs of the speaker. A teacher’s disposition is determined by her ethos. You cannot gain respect as a teacher if you don’t even realise that teaching is classified as a profession and hence, bound by a distinct code of ethics. Being punctual, honest and giving immediate feedback are inherent in teachers with good character. Aren’t we more convinced by someone who has a credible character?

The second is logos. To me, logos is about content and logic — when a teacher clarifies, criticises, comments or expresses an opinion, it should ideally spring from rational thinking and reasoning. 

This knowledge and skill comes from diligent reading from varied sources, understanding the facts and organising them. Imagine a teacher who is ill-prepared and does not even know her subject content when she begins to teach!How can she hold a “reasoned discourse” with her students when they query her? Can a teacher who can’t support any argument with facts progress to using language effectively to convey content? 

Finally there is the quality of pathos — an appeal to emotion and feeling. The best of teachers are able to touch lives, arouse interest, inspire learning and motivate achievement. Emotional intelligence is needed for a meaningful interaction with students.I have learnt, from personal experience, that no matter how knowledgeable, passionate, prepared and ethical I was as a teacher, teaching was only effective if I was able to evoke a yearning to want to read, understand and appreciate knowledge in my students. 

Developing an out-going personality wasn’t enough. It had to come in tandem with a persuasive way with words, actions and facial expressions. It’s no joke being a teacher!
Students are naturally drawn to teachers who appeal to them emotionally which is why young teachers must work on their people skills in order to generate warmth and affection in their charges. When they teach, they have to be audience-sensitive.
Are their students interested and attentive or bored, restless and tired? How do they create a positive emotional response in them? This art of being interesting, kind, understanding and approachable while remaining firm takes time, skill and experience. Academically-weak students need an extra dose of empathy and compassion. Being credible, logical and compassionate is what ethos, logos and pathos are all about.
If you are interested in being a person of positive influence, then the three words should not be all Greek to you! As Aristotle himself put it: “Quality is not an act, it is a habit.”

Source: Lesson Reinforced

The benefits of study group

Since young, I have always enjoy teaching, I am often seen as a student who are willingly and enthusiastically to teach and share with other classmates of mine about school lesson that we learned and the exercises that we did. The teaching and sharing session is what we commonly called it as study group.

Study group has always been my favourite past time, the activities which I enjoy the most with friends besides hanging out together and chit-chatting in the mamak. The study group activity becomes more frequent during the time when I was in Matriculation and University. It has become so embedded in my university life that I view it as part and parcel of a preparation towards facing various exams.

The only study group which will prove to be effective is when you achieve the target or objective that you set at the end of the study group. This could only happen when your study group members are serious and have a strong desire to learn and study. It will only end up in a chit chatting session if one or more group members are not serious and joking around in the study group.

Of course, I am very glad to have found my own gang of members who are serious enough in study group, that we admit that we sometimes ( not all the time) did joke and tease, but ultimately, we managed to achieve the target that we set before the study group. Talking about it really make me miss the moment so much.

To those who think that going to tuition is a necessity to survive in the paper chase environment, you may consider study group as a viable option to excel in study without having to pay extra fees for tuition. I firnly believe that if you are serious enough to study, no matter what circumstances, study group will greatly help you in achieving the result that you want!

Life has to move on....

This quote is to to reflect the situation I am in and what I am up for currently!

Comic Fiesta @ Gurney Paragon

Well,  we never expect a visit to a Cosplay Fiesta after our movie at Gurney Plaza.

Wolverine. It is not a bad movie but the story line is typical, something which we can easily guess about the beginning, climax and end.

So, after having done with our movie, we head to stroll around Gurney Paragon. Personally，it is not much things to see and to do there except few fancy, expensive and branded stuffs on display and sale.

We walked to the main hall and saw a huge crowd, spotted some Japanese anime characters in real! That was a cosplay, indeed!

Which characters do you prefer? xD

They are so cool and yet so enthusiastic in posting with the crowds.

Lastly, each of us with our favorite cosplay characters! Xd

A TFM fellow's reflection after 5.5 month into teaching in high need school

I have stumbled upon a blog by Miss Sarah. I have not known her personally, but I feel what she write ought to be a reflective point to all teachers who are or will be teaching in high need schools in Malaysia.



[Warning: This post is going to be very long, honest and potentially quite brutal...let's see how I go.]

So. I have neglected this blog for quite a while. Truth to be told, I am not one for articulating my thoughts and feelings in writing, let alone on a blog. I am and have always been a talker so this would probably be better in a video format. However, somehow, today I feel like I just need to get all my thoughts and feelings down on paper. I feel like it is high time I wrote a true and honest reflection, and not only the ‘sugar-coated’ updates that I have been posting on Facebook. More than anything else, this reflection is for me. I feel the urgent need to just pour out my emotions and to clear my head. A billion people are coming to observe me next week, the NAZIRs (I think that is how you spell it?), TFM, IAB, etc. and I need to make sure I am as clear-headed as possible lest I blow or worse still, suffer another anxiety attack. I don’t even know where to begin but let me try. So here goes…


These past 5.5 months have without a doubt been the most DIFFICULT 5.5 months of my life. I thought that doing IB whilst being a prefect, prefect treasurer, the international students’ committee vice-president and juggling a billion other clubs and societies was quite challenging. I thought that being the President of MUOSS together with committee positions in 3 other clubs and societies, whilst juggling university and my social life was at times difficult. I thought honours was the most challenging thing I had ever experienced, well parts of it at least, but this, this makes everything seem like a walk in the park. I am one of the most optimistic people I know, and yet I will be honest and say I have never complained, cried, swore, gotten angry, upset and just been plain negative so often in my life. I have cried in front of my students, my teachers, my principal, my LDO, my fellow TFM-ers, my boyfriend, my parents, and probably to lots more other people that I don’t even know about. For someone who does not have mood swings, well these past 5.5 months, I have gone through the biggest mood swings I ever thought possible. I never knew it was possible to have so many extreme highs and lows within a period of the school day. To be honest, I even fear that cancer cells are starting to breed within me.


Everyone keeps on telling me to lower my expectations, to relax, to be patient, to not care so much, to not worry so much about PGDE, what others think, etc. But what they don’t realise is that for a high-achiever and perfectionist, this is quite impossible. Everyday I feel like I am failing. Faiing my students, failing myself, failing TFM, failing the Principal, failing my LDO, my mentors. I feel like I am already trying my best, lacking sleep, getting so stressed to the point of suffering an anxiety attack, and yet, it is not enough. How do you live with these feelings of not having done enough? How do you live with the knowledge that perhaps you really are not that great as your CV portrays? You are really not that ‘transformational’ after all? You are really not able to make a difference in these kids’ lives???? What if, all I am doing is just setting up my kids for failure?! I do not know how to teach English. Heavens, English was always one of my least favourite subjects and yet here I am teaching it and trying to convince my students that it is the most interesting subject in the world. Worse still, I am teaching it in an environment where my students and I can barely communicate due to their weakness in English and mine in Malay, Tamil and Chinese. I feel like a duck talking to a pack of dogs.


Over the holidays, I told myself that I would start trying to detach myself. I would try to stop caring so much because I know that all that is causing is the deterioration of my health. I told myself I would take the initiative to be more professional and to ‘man up’. Yet, after doing quite well for 3 days, today, I gave a stern talking to 3 of my 4 classes. With the first 2 classes, I was still okay. I just wanted them to know that they had to improve their work ethics and take the initiative to study and complete their homework. However, by the time I reached the 3rd class, my final class of the day – 2 periods with my ‘most aspring’ class. Well, by the end of it, I was ready to showcase my bodycombat skills on at least 3/4 of the class. Don’t worry, I restrained myself and stuck to a stern talking-to. Yet, even after scolding them in English, Mandarin and Malay (which is really difficult and really takes the steam out of your words, especially given my limited vocabulary), a few of my students still had the nerve to laugh and talk about a completely unrelated topic. That was it. I could not take it anymore. I knew I had to leave the room lest I say something I regretted. I packed up my things, ignored the students’ calls and stormed out of the class 3 minutes early.


Talk about feeling like even more of a failure. I could not even stick to my own ‘objective’ for more than 3 days. How do they do it? How do they get under my skin like this? Why do I care so much for them? Even when I tell myself that I don’t want to care anymore? That I can no longer take the disappointment and heartbreak I feel everytime they don’t hand in their homework, don’t study for their spelling tests, talk in class, even after repeated reminders and warnings.


Then, one of the teachers said something very interesting to me. He said, “Sarah, this actually shows that you are meant to be a teacher. You are only so angry and upset because you genuinely care for the students and you genuinely worry about their futures.”


This stopped me in my tracks. Here I was, doubting myself as a teacher. I was doubting my ability to teach my students anything of use. I was doubting the impact I was having on my students, if at the end of the day, it was a negative impact or if there was even an impact to begin with! To be honest, I am definitely not going to continue teaching after these 2 years as business is my true passion and I really am not one made for the bureaucracies and paperwork of being a civil servant. Yet, I have always enjoyed teaching for the the joy you get when your students, especially the ones who are really struggling, have that ‘aha’ moment.


The truth of the matter is this. I have thought about quitting, countless times, more times than I can count with all my fingers and toes. I especially think about quitting when I have had a particularly bad day, when I miss my parents, my friends, my boyfriend, when I miss MYSELF, ME as I used to be, not “Miss Sarah”. I think about quitting when the pressure from the school’s administration, TFM, the government, PGDE, but most of all, from myself, gets too much to bear. In my moments of self-pity, I even think about quitting when I think about the money I could be earning and the social life I could be having if I were not in this program.


YET. And I am going to write this next section in capital letters (bear with me please), because this is the overriding truth of the matter.


I AM NOT GOING TO GIVE UP.


I am not going to quit on my students, on the school, and most of all, on myself. My parents did not raise me up to be weak, selfish and self-pitying. I was not blessed by God to have such a happy and loving childhood only to continue caring only for myself and not sharing my luck with those in need.


No, I am going to pick myself up and persevere. Somehow, I am going to get over this vicious cycle of self-pity, negativity and thoughts of quitting. Truth to be told, I have never learned so much in such a short amount of time. I have never been knocked down and had to pick myself up so many times. I have never learned so much about the world, learned so many skills, and learned the true meaning of ‘grit’ and being grateful for all that I have. Most of all, I have never learned so much about myself. It is really true what they say, that it is in times of difficulty that you learn the most about yourself, about who you really are.


I must say I have not really liked certain parts of myself that I have emerged these past few months. I never knew I could be such a complainer, a weakling, so negative and so emotional. But. I cannot stand being a mere shadow of my previous self anymore. I cannot stand carrying this negative energy around anymore.


So, I am going to take action from this day forward. It is time for me to grow up and man up. I am going to cut these parts off as much as possible. I am going to exercise again. I am going to try and adapt to this small town. I am going to make the effort to make friends and assimilate into this society. But most of all, I am going to continue caring for my students. I am going to pick myself up, dust myself off, and continue trying and doing all that I can (without killing myself of course! ). I am going to do my best to help my students be whoever they want to be and can be.


This is my pledge because if anything I at least owe that much to my students and myself.


After all, isn’t this why I joined Teach for Malaysia in the first place? (:

Source: http://teachingchampions.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/reflections-after-5-5-months/

I salute your positiveness and strength. Be all well with you and your kids. ;)