Friday, July 13, 2007

 

oh yah. 7.45pm, on the way to hall. just left serangoon i think. i must remember to bring the vga adaptor back or i’ll live to regret it. sigh. actually left with the other scholars today and it’s rare that i get to talk to them. they apparently went to punggol plaza again. i dunno, i just dun fit into their batch. maybe it was a blessing in disguise that i took the very far away bench from the rest. i did up the staff room seating plan and passed to augustine (not before combining the last 7 tables under H) i think it will help him in planning tables, if only we can be assured that all unassigned tables are empty enough to be used. think ms tao’s storage table.

today was a good day. i didnt teach, but i felt very chirpy. maybe i just like administration work better, or maybe i just bounced back after severely feeling depressed yesterday. the reflection with mr yeo turned out more hopeful than i thought, not that he said very much positive things, but somehow when i try to list out what i did wrong, it didnt feel that bad anymore. there were some mistakes, sure, but they didnt feel like they were enough to pull me down.

i feel like playing ff12. but i’m already on the way to hall.

and, i spoke to almost all the remaining teachers about the exchange video project. now i have a few things outstanding.
1. execute the ceremony on monday
2. brief the participants on the video project.
3. borrow the dvd camera from mr yeo, together with accessories
4. prepare the portion that will portray the school.
5. monitor the 4 boys doing filming.
6. compile the video within a day, or consistently.
7. check whether we can film the music lessons.

time to plan the video contents. last we said:
1. 20 seconds opening, introduce the school
2. 40 seconds from the opening ceremony
3. 60 seconds from the classes (PE, Art, M
4. 60 seconds from the excursions (NE style, but photos only)
5. 40 seconds from CCA attachments
6. 15 seconds featuring mind games
7. 45 seconds miscellaenous shots from whereever
8. 20 seconds credits with candid shots

shit i havent arranged for CCA attachment filming. read: going solo. oh yah today is friday the 13th. i also sent in my notes for separation techniques, only to realise that the printing room is busy trying to print out class test papers for next week. mdm hoon very stressed. and then i thought i will be teaching 1E2 on monday then ms yue came and tell me i cannot because i’m involved in the opening ceremony. so sad. i prepared very hard wor! okay lah decent. but i thought i was being much more efficient than the first time round. maybe one day when there are enough school teachers, we will have more time to prepare for our class teaching, and less admin work. the day may not be so far away after all,

tired. next stop harbourfront. then a bus trip to behind pgp and then start work. mingen dunno die already or not... but i think if i can argue and convince fushan to just do straight paperwork and no fancy stuff, then the job will be much much easier. let’s see how it goes. i just hope we dun fall asleep working out the details. braindead. augustine was obviously braindead today, and so was i, you could just see it in the discussion when we went around circles unable to resolve anything. i never confirmed the communications plan with him, so i have no idea who i’ll be talking to over the radio on monday. sigh. reach mrt liao.

Zhengyu wrote at 9:19 PM.

 

that last post was actually from yesterday, btw.

i just realised that teaching is not about knowing the content. it's more about delivering the content, which you might sometimes even not know about yourself. it's about inspiring, engaging, motivating, and alot of other big words that you'll probably not be able to do if you set out to do just that. it just happens when it intends to.

so far, i think i havent had a good shot at it yet. shall try harder next lesson.

Zhengyu wrote at 2:29 PM.

 

Reflections time. 7.11pm. I’m on the train towards harbourfront, just walked topunggol mrt with alan and augustine accompanying me. alan was on his bicycle, and showed me the way to the mrt. along the way they talked to me about many thiings. why they teach, what to work on as a beginning teacher, and so forth. about how i should focus on the thing i did well, one to encourage myself, and two so that i can continue to expand on that success, from that success. about how Passion with a capital P and a french accent is the most important ingredient in staying on in the line. Alongside with Passion, there’s Planning, and lastly Procrastination. Having mentioned planning, it’s not always the best outcome to follow. sometimes we even fail to execute what we plan. maybe simply blanked out when stepping into the classroom, when we turn into entertainers, and do our so called core business, that takes up about 20% of our work. Consider also whether your audience is able to receive your style of delivery. do they need to take some hands on to keep themselves interested? is 20mins of lecturing too long for them? And is your style sustainable? do you find yourself exhausted, trying to be who you are not?

after they left, i came up with two more thoughts.
1. you cannot give 100% to 3 different things at the same time. learn to accept it, or define how much you want to give.
2. it’s all about sustainability. can i go on teaching like this for another 2 years at least?

before i go on to thoughts about teaching, let me note that i have to reflect on today’s session in school first. the big highlight is my 1hr stint at 1E2 in the chemistry lab. chemistry. it’s like chicken feet for me, and i realised how much i referred to my own knowledge in delivery and i start by giving alot of examples. i did plan to tell them upfront about the lesson structure, but i forgot (probably too excited) and i went on to distribute notes and stuff. at least i did mention that we will spend time on theory followed by practical. i spent 30 minutes on the 8 slides, which on hind sight is quite long. maybe they got bored. i was not prepared to project so loudly, in fact i dunno if i was projecting or just plain shouting, because my voice gave way a few times. (sign of non-sustainability) and i think the students find that funny. that i got softer and softer in the first 5 minutes. i find that projection takes a lot of energy, because i have not been training on this i guess. the students may really be taking me too lightly because i smiled too much. but i must say i really appreciated mr yeo’s non-interference, and emilia’s shouting at a boy in the first row for repeatedly playing with the tongs. i had almost no awareness of classroom management, but i only had the sense that the general audience was still tuning in, but i didnt pick out any stragglers. but i hope i delivered my contents. i also wanted to remind them that graciousness can be small little acts like not dragging your benches. fortunately i charged my ibook before bringing it out of office. i felt quite happy when students asked me questions during the lab, although i must admit most of them are concerning how to carry out the practical in practice. pour water where? how to pour the powder into a test tube? it was a fortunately good decision to pour into the test tube, because the test tube would make the separation of sulphur and iron filings so much easier. i admit that i did not rehearse my delivery. but now i also want to say that that is not a sustainable practice. i should know my own style. by dynamic! go in and deliver what the children want, not what you want. one pair of students also didnt see the iron filing and sulphur separating, so i thought that was quite regretful. i tried to qualify what is the meaning of separable, but it was tough. finally, i remembered to let mr yeo collect his workbook (at the start of the session i forgot to ask them to distribute their practical book so everyone stared at me. but some one did tell me, so i got them to distribute the book while someone else distribute the handouts, which i thought was a good and flexible thing to do.but then i gave out the master and forms by mistake and then had to quickly call them back in after a while. my printing form is still not signed up to this time.) so at least i did something right. i however did not bring my vga adaptor for the ibook and had to borrow mr yeo’s and caused his computer to auto reboot when i pulled out the thumbdrive, plus he didnt have internet access somehow. so i didnt show the spare website to the students.

i need to go to sch tmr morning to write in the announcements. anyway that was in an hour. after that i had interactions with 8 student leaders, 6 of which were in the hongkong exchange programme, so i found the names rather familiar. nice kids, and they are pretty mature for being sec2s in the midyear. but still i found a lack of vision, perhaps by a pure lack of experiencecs that they didnt know their options and possibilities. i shared with them a relatively detailed background of my school experiences, but i think i bored them and my own peers alongside with michael. they also probably think i was a show off. ah well, i didnt think of anything else to share, so what to do. just fell asleep for a split moment. and then again. i dunno whether i;m just too tired to benefit from this attachment programme. today i got so fed up with things that i told jiayan i’m no longer going off from work at 5 or 5.30 sharp. i’m going to finish my stuff. i expect to be kept up to 7 pm, then reach latest 8.30pm. and why not? why should i be giving in so much to something that i *dun wan to give to*? i also worry about float. every night, i intended to at least, contact the float people personally to find out how diid they do. I only hope that I’m not over bugging them instead.

12.01am. travelling back towards punggol. finished my “prac” discussing choreo. i dun feel like coming. meisi brought up the disbanding issue which there was no intake for my batch, then we’ll be about there. i’m reaching potong pasir soon. very tired. i was thinking about attachment and everything, and now the only thing left on my mind is how to get out of this mess. why my comm members will mostly be absent for the first prac after handing over. why we just refuse to admit then we simply do not have the passion to carry this through? i’m too tired... gonna stop typing liao.

1.33am. reached home, showered, eaten noodles and read the popular catalogue. there were two articles on education, but i didnt give them a very detailed look. i’ll find time lah, some day. or so i say. i really wanted to go online to ask the floaters about today, but sis is sleeping and the wireless router is hidden in her room off. so i have no access to internet. incidentally my neighbours have secured networks so i cant do illegal tapping. so no internet, no progress update, no checking of mails. without these options i’m more or less useless. so here i am doing reflections, but i can remember little of the school day anymore. i need to tell augustine that his av boys may have class test though.

oh yes. i wanted to say that for a while i wondered if i really should be in this line. from the chat on the way to punggol plaza, i considered whether the present circumstance of being ripped between 3 different commitments added to the stress of the situation such that i am getting overwhelmed by 3 moderate shares of a pie. and i think, it would only be fair that i give teaching the benefit of the doubt. at least until i get stressed out even without the other commitments. i seem to be the only fool amongst those others that i know that are still engaged in school activities. not to mention 2. i regret taking up aca champs because it has been an almost zero-learning experience so far, and i also regret not asking the seniors to disband the club. but i think that that question only serves to make people think about what they are really thinking, and i dun expect anyone to answer yes.

Zhengyu wrote at 2:27 PM.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

 

slack day. slack day is defined as working until 6.45pm. so i dun work the additional 4 hours.

ah well. now to do the floor plan that i really needed to do... how can this office survive without one????

Zhengyu wrote at 7:58 PM.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

 

reflection time. Mr Liu called me to remind about the way i carry myself. I must admit, sometimes i call myself "free" even though i think most people would call it "have sufficient time to drink water" when they see me. my endurance level was raised over the few years of administrative work. but all the same, i should reflect and stop pretending to be free.

about the hk-sin exchange video project. i would very much like to get more hands-on, or more takeaway anyway. ms yue didnt look like she was impressed enough to grant me my first wish so now i'm thinking about whether i should gather a group of students from infocomm tech club and guide them through the process. now i should go talk to augustine regarding the opening ceremony plans. i should have done it today though. as i said today, i wished i could stay longer in school, but typically, i cant. i'll just end up being late for practice, or scarificing precious time that i can afford to spend with float. i'm going to ignore the numbness in my finger for the time being.

okay i just fell asleep on that last statement. good sign that i should go sleep liao.

Zhengyu wrote at 2:54 AM.

Friday, July 06, 2007

 

4th day of attachment. i'm doing this now only because i saw eileen typing reflections while i was passing info around, then i realised that i havent been doing all that much reflections.

basically it has been a very long week for me, even though it has only been 4 days, but 0720-0000 days are really quite something to handle. and bouncing between 3 different things is like the ultimate that i've handled thus far (then again if you consider the dual chairmanship and studies with another few small things, ok maybe this one is easy.)

i've watched quite a number of teachers teach, and with effect today i have seen the different streams' classes, although whether they are representative i cant comment. there have been teachers with excellent repoire with the children, to the extend that they wholeheartedly listens to their teaching, and seriously reflects if they understand or not. (not like the "yes we understand so now move on please" type) i'm confident that class will progress well. i've also seen teachers who hasnt quite gotten the children to believe in them, that they are still slow to responding and distracted easily. The problem is, how do we get to the first case, from the second? surely we mostly start in the second case, with most classes! but the results are heartwarming. i've also seen a teacher struggle to teach a class that is almost completely disinterested, yet he has to teach both behaviour and academics. it was difficult, i must say, and i tried my best to help him handle 3 children i was seated near to.

there was also problems with how to handle a large class. more so then not, there would be differences in the children's learning abilities, so how do we tailor a lesson that benefits the weaker ones as much as possible but yet not let the stronger ones feel bored?

okay time for lunch first.

Zhengyu wrote at 11:16 AM.

Monday, July 02, 2007

 

blogging. i should be doing up my schedule instead but wtf. waiting for meisi to call me anyway.

i noticed (finally) that participating in the competition might bring trouble later. ie obligations. last year we had the problem of people jumping off the team after the competition, which caused some unhappiness. i think this year it's gonna get worse. i dunno if we should still register for it, cos i never brought up the issue of all these things before. perhaps tmr we can talk at practice, if it happens. if it doesnt, then tuesday ba. i'm not keen on reminding.

head going all floaty again.

i talked to meisi about edmund's request. i'm not keen because i have always been against people giving partial commitments to membership. like no one knows anymore if those people are still in the club or not. so why do what you have been against? as SAFTI MI would teach, Lead By Example, or LBE for short. I think it's a great way of doing things, although it gets tiring, but at least it's consistent with maintaining my level of guilt as low as i can.

i have not updated my schedule. this is not going to be good.

Zhengyu wrote at 1:29 AM.