Friday, July 13, 2007

 

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.