The school is getting noisier everyday. Students shouting at each other as if everyone is deaf. Teachers shouting in the classroom because the students are shouting don't help either. A few teachers teach with microphones and this do make matters worse. As such students talk even louder.
I could sense a great lack of dignity in the students in everything they do. From wearing the school uniform to the way they walk around school. Teachers are tired. Very tired trying to keep up with the discipline and teach at the same time. Where is the dignity?
I have been walking into class and tell the students I am teaching that everybody has problems. It is already so difficult trying to keep things straight in the home, so why not make school more fun? Make school a place fun for everyone by respecting each other and themselves to begin with. There is a serious lack of character development for the students. They are self-centred. They are suicidal. They are unloved. They are really thinking they are no better.
In one of the classes I am teaching I spoke to them instead of teaching for the last 15 minutes. When I told them that I actually enjoy teaching them, they were stunned. They couldn't believe it. One even asked me again if I really like teaching them. I affirmed him and said I do because I learn so much from them already.
One of the biggest obstacles in teaching in the top schools is that everybody doesn't think we can survive in the most notorious neighbourhood schools at all. Well, I am learning and each day, I gained more strength and wisdom to handle these students. They are beginning to see I really want to teach and I make an effort to make learning fun. It doesn't take much from me and I do get all of them to sit up and listen to my teaching. I have tricks up my sleeves though.
My 2N2 class was in full attendance and that means I got to teach the naughty fellows too. One of the things they feared most is that they will not understand me. Well, they realized that day that I make my English simple enough for them. I even got one Nepalese boy interested to answer one of my questions. All common sense.
With Nepalese I have an upper hand because one of my ex cedar student is their tutor now. Babita is about 38 now. Lily and Babita were in the same class. I am trying to contact Babita through my students and I hope she calls soon. I really like her. A very quiet girl, tall in stature and very teachable. I recall how I would speak to her in English and she has to translate for her mother in Nepali. So when I mentioned Babita, those naughty Nepalese give me a lot more attention.
But I was disturbed by this thin and somewhat under nourished Malay boy who deliberately wanted to pick a fight with me. I called for help and then the discipline person came. The first thing he did was asked the entire class to shut up. Then he marched the disruptive student outside my class and shouted at him. I went to the door and told the discipline teacher to take him somewhere to be disciplined because I wanted to teach. The entire class was quiet. Yes, I mean business. I want to teach.
Of course there were other defiant students. One wanted to punch me because I said his parents never really taught him manners since he called me "A...h..e". But he was pinned to the table by another Indian boy. Mind you it is a Chinese boy who was going to punch me. What kind of a school am I in? Well, I like it though.
Like it because it is a school where there are tons of behavioural problems I cannot handle and I just have to give them to God. I don't have to come home worrying because if I ever do, I will go mad. I looked at the colleagues I am working with, they are happy. Truly happy. They don't do much work because the students don't do work. It is a chaotic school where colleagues are cordial and will cover each other's back to make things work everyday. So I like the school for that. But I am rocking the school a little.
The exam papers are being set. I am tasked to check a few. I really don't mind. There was not much standards to the paper setting. I am glad to use what I learned in my previous school to help improve the format and layout of the paper and to highlight some technicalities so we can condition the students better for exams. I will be speaking to the top management real soon about some changes they may want to consider making in order to help the students. One of them is to stop shouting at them. Teachers need to learn not to react. Instead, think, then respond. Think about why the students have to behave this way. Many of the students here come from single parent homes. They need to be loved. But there is the flip side. Too much love can become toxic. Some are spoilt rotten and refused to grow up.
I thank God for Shi Jun. This young man taught me how to handle some difficult students. He got a long fine with them. He sits and listens to them and wins them over. I took him out for lunch yesterday and we shared about our vision and mission for God. He hopes to be an evangelist one day. May the Lord bless Shi Jun and may Shi Jun continue to look to God for directions in his life. God is so good. I have a wonderful helper.
When I decided to take up this position, I know the school is the bottom of the pile. To have gone up to the top and to fall so low, that feeling was great. Because it is this low level that makes the climb exciting and sensational.
I pray everyday before I walk into the field. Not a battle but a field. A field of potentials and opportunities. A field of very gifted students who are now lost. A field where there are teachers who care enough to be patient and find humour in their work.
