MORE FROM BOONYEW

In reply to Kalas's comment:

Thanks for your SMS, Kalas but sorry that I didn't reply immediately.In reply to Kalas's reaction towards her students, I feel that more than that could be done.

In both my past postings I told of how I mistreated my students. But do note that these are individual cases which I consider isolated.I feel that in order for us to save ourselves, we must understand why these students become rebellious and retaliate the school system. It is imminent that we diagnose our children from the root.Try to find out from them why they become so.

You may say that you are a female (or soft, for our dear Tan Eng Choung) teacher, but I think we are capable of reaching their depth if we sit with them to get to know them.Do remember that these students do not come under us for only a year. They will be with us till the end or their school life or our school life, whichever is earlier. We will deal with them directly till either party leaves the school.Therefore, we must learn to survive.To do so, we need to help them to help ourselves. When we give goodness, we beget goodness.This is what I do with my students. Hehehehe... this time the good part :-D

Take some time off teaching. When we get students who are rebellious or who find us boring, there must be a reason for this to happen.Don't teach for the sake of just to teach and finish the syllabus. These type of students do not need to finish the syllabus. They just need enough to survive in the real world outside. What is to them when we feed them with Life's Brief Candle or If or Si Tenggang?? They do not need these to survive later.
Take time off from teaching. Get to know them from inside. Ask questions that will sound as if you're concern about their well-being. Make them feel that they are important to you and that you are there to give them a helping hand. let them know that you are not to teach them to become professors but just to survive in the real world when they leave school.

A very important part that I have learnt about these type of students is that we must try to know their family background. Once we know the type of life they live at home, we try to adjust ourselves to meet their sufferings.
I have said before that there are several standard questions that I will ask on the very first day I go into the classes. They are,their names (eminently important!), where they live and what their parents do.My students are mostly from the lower rung in the society where books are not the utmost important element in life but money.I have tried my level best to shift their contemporary perspective. They must be made to understand that knowledge will deter them from being cheated when they grow up later. Especially when legal aspects are concerned.

Tell them that they need to be able to understand basic language to avoid being cheated.Then, because language is a problem for them, we have to learn to use their language too. Teens today don't talk the way we do. We have evolved away from our teenage years but they are just there now. Update ourselves with the latest teen trends. Watch KungFu Panda (my nickname in school now. Hehehehehe...).
Live with the nicknames that they give you. Be appreciative that they give you one. Turn their insult into a gift and these kids will be confused and will start to accept you. Don't get angry over these names because it can become a weapon that kills you. Just like a knife, it depends on which end we hold, it can become a friend or a foe.Yes, we can tell them once or twice but they won't listen. But once or twice are not enough. Already their brains are as hard as granites so that they can't even absorb lessons, I think we need to repeat our nags to pound good moral values into their heads.I will ask every student to tuck in their shirt each time I see one hanging out. I repeat this to everyone of them. Now that it's 2.55 months, they know it automatically that when they see me they'll check their shirt ends.
Another of my nagging is foul language. To my 2E class, they have promised me to cut down on using these flowery languages and each time any of them utter a foul word, they will be told. Now, they are very alert of my being around or near them. They check their vocabs :-).
Those who are in Form 5 and some in Form 4 who had tasted my medicine still remember and they are extremely polite whenever they meet me.But remember too that we tell them with mild tones. Just like how our mothers talk to us when we are sick. No one likes to be shouted at so flare out your patience to them as much as possible until you run out of it then hehehehe... manhandle them :-DAll the above examples use a lot of 'I' and 'me' pronouns.
But I believe if all of us work together in the same rhythm, our students will learn to grow up being better beings in the society. They don't need books more than they need morality. Buddha did not emphasise on every human reading his sutras, nor did Jesus wanted us all to read his bible, in fact he did not even write a single word in the bible. As well, Nabi Muhammad did not force all Muslims to memorise the Quran.Final words are, get to them bottom of our students' problem, take time off from teaching to know them, speak their language, be part of them in order to mould them from the most basic, teach them to survive the real world.
One question: Why do we need to do this?
Answer: It is for the safety of our own children. If we don't prepare our students to be good citizens, our own children will later live in a violent environment, or some of us may even start to think if we need to have children to suffer in their later life.Till later...