Why so serious? Why so serious?...

Another time, another day, that's how I procrastinated in posting anything here. It's the school holiday now and I finally have the time to do not-so-teacherly stuff like sleeping in late on a weekday ( well, thank God we've got the Friday free from going back to the campus), stuffing myself silly with chocolates ( makes you feel Happy and a bit less serious) and finally, finally to watch the most highly- anticipated movie of this year, Batman : The Dark Knight ( for those who have not watched it, the penalty for you is to be to be either gagged or bound to the cinema and plunked on the seat, because it is simply too amazing to be missed).

However, this break is no real break for us because we had to spend a lot of time to run the walk-a-hunt activity in the campus. I did not pull a lot of weight in my Hunt committee and this confirms my affirmation that in group work, it is always bound to have a few member who put in extra work than others and it happens to be me who is the lackadaisical one this time. Nevertheless, I do wish that we could glean some experience from organizing this thing to help us in our future undertakings, be it in school, NGO or any other field. One thing for sure, I can't wait to participate in a treasure hunt myself in another time, another place, so there you go again...

In The Dark Knight, the Joker keeps taunting about why do we have to be so serious all the time and I think this could or could not apply to us who are undergoing the teaching practice. As I have said, teaching is a roller-coaster of a ride and it is only us who can pull ourselves up again and learn from our mistakes at the same time. I think it is not the case of looking at the glass as half-empty or half-full since we have to get more serious as the observations passed by because by hook or by crook, we can only improve and not deteriorate as the days go by in teaching practice. Unfortunately, sometimes I feel like my zeal and enthusiasm to be a creative teacher could never match that of the first two weeks.

My second observation came and gone on the last day of school before the school holidays. This time, I had more kids in the class and the atmosphere was more livelier, if not cheekier. It was with 4C and you know I have always yakked about searching for ways to engage the bunch of boys there. Therefore, this time I did something that I thought might interest them because there are many of them who play Frisbee in the class. It was a writing lesson and they have to write a persuasive speech on "Why Playing Frisbee is Good for Students'. I told them that I thought Frisbee was some kind like the name of some breakfast cereals and got them to explain the rules of the game to me. The plan kinda work because clearly it's not a boring subject to them but I think I have staked my lesson too high in the materials that I used to teach them the techniques of writing a persuasive speech. I know that at their Form Four level, a persuasive speech is just like any other factual essay that they might write but I have always believed in employing the authentic materials to make students see how learning is relevant to their lives. Thus I gave them the paraphrased version of Brutus' speech after Caesar's murder in Julius Caesar to highlight the rhetorical questions, parallels and contrasts used in order to make a speech more persuasive. Then, I distributed an example of a simplified version of a speech by Obama to show them that 500 years on, the same skills are still being used to make a more convincing speech. Well, this may all sound very well on the paper but in practice, many of them did not get the idea and apply what I have told them when they were writing their own speech on the Frisbee topic. For one, 4C is a mixed ability class and maybe the materials have been a tad too difficult to understand. Besides, they are just 16-year-olds after all and maybe those concepts are not within their grasp. Mistake : not using materials that are appropriate to the proficiency of the majority of the class.

However the problem with me is that I usually think like how the good students think. I don't know I am doing this to unconsciously appease my own ego or what but the whole situation is a dilemma because I feel defeated when the good students get bored and I feel even more terrible when the weaker students could not follow the lesson because I have failed them as a teacher because they are the ones who should get the most attentionin the first place. Instead of teaching them anything, I murk the water by further confusing them instead. Mistake : It's not about creating a win-win situation or whatever it's called, but on catering to the needs of all students

On the brighter side, I am getting it on with 4A. Since we had covered all the texts in the literature component, I gave them some other texts to read so that they can appreciate and understand the literary texts in the component better. Besides, we talked about how did the poets' personal life relate to the themes in the poems as literature mirrors life. Furthermore, since Sonnet 18 tops the list of their favourite poems, I let them read another sonnet by Shakespeare, Sonnet 130, My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun, which contrasts the whole idea of eternal beauty perpetrated in Sonnet 18.

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130)
"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips' red: If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks; And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak,--yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go, My mistress when she walks, treads on the ground; And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.

It was a very humourous poem to read and I tried to keep a straight face while reminding the boys to control their hormones when they asked me to explain the line 'why then her breasts are dun' ( they were not pulling my leg, they truly did not get the meaning here, it was not very politically correct to favour fair skin anyway and the boys think that Shakespeare is a pervert). Besides, I asked them to write me a piece on which of the two sonnets that they prefer and a girl raised a very interesting question when she said that if beauty is in the eye of the beholder , why then Shakespeare complained about his lover's flaws? I just quipped that love is blind, but Shakespeare was just half-blind when he wrote Sonnet 130. Now I just wonder whether I would let 4C read this because even the girls there don't like Sonnet 14 and I don't want to blush in front of the very cheeky boys there.

Now it's two more days to go before going back to school for the last three weeks. I kinda missed my kids on Monday but now teaching i.e. waking up dead early, going to class, wearing skirts everyday, talking to people 7 years younger than me...are completely out of my system for the time being. Who says I am going to miss teaching?

p/s : yea, maybe, I will really miss teaching.

B for Boring

Ok, it's boring, not bored. So far, I have not come across a student who said " I'm boring, teacher". Thank goodness for that, for
1. They are good enough to know the difference between boring and bored.
2. My students do not suffer from low self-esteem and think of themselves as boring.
3. Well, at least they are polite enough to not to tell it straight to my face even though a few of
did break into a muffled thud on the desk.

That said, I have to admit that my kids are getting bored. If I want to take everything with an extra huge chunk of salt, then I will say that novelty has worn off and my kids are getting used to my style ( i.e. amiable, gentle : won't get into a barking mode if their attention starts to wander off). Meanwhile, if I want to be honest and a little hard on myself, I can only say that my lessons and teaching are indeed getting boring.

I have always wondered how my kids in my two classes got on in their English lessons with their own teachers before I came. This is something that I will never find out for myself because I had made the decision to not to observe how my mentors conduct their classes as I wanted to start off everything with a clean slate sans any indirect influence or baggage from them. Besides, being kids as they are, I think students will always go out of their way to put on their best behaviour when someone is observing them, which brings to mind a remark from a compatriot who said that teaching is a whole faking business. The theories and the simulation during the first three years are not real, supervisors who do not understand how things go on at the grass roots level, students who put on their pseudo alert mode when someone is sitting at the back watching their every move, etc, etc.

I have never blamed my students for getting bored in my class. In fact, I feel really, really bad for them because it is always the teacher's fault for falling to engage the students, good or weak. It is my failure, not them. Therefore, the only thing that I can do is to make the lessons more interesting for them. But how to?

Sometimes, I feel it is not the content of the lesson which bores the students but the way the teacher conducts the lesson. My kids in 4C get all excited while learning about something like homographs when I let them off the hook and we had Chuck and Larry jokes (note the homo there). Hmm, being politically correct is not that much fun all of the time. I think it's time to let the abui ( for your information ma'am, abui means fatty in Hokkien and all the gorgettes who love me call me that) in me come out in the classroom, I mean at least most of my friends are not bored with me, are they?

Okok, now I am being bombarded with the suggestions of bringing fun learning activities into the classroom. The thing is, it does not matter what kind of activities that the teacher uses, what matters to me is the teacher's personality in the classroom. For example, how can you expect a teacher with a stiff upper lip to conduct say, a lively beauty parade like what Anantha did, but it's not that I have a stiff upper lip anyway. I am not saying that teachers have to make a fool of themselves by clowning themselves in front of the students but they really must speak in a way that can engage the students.

However, this is also not to say that the activities and the contents of the lesson are not important either, what counts is bringing something that is engaging and constructive to the students. Moreover, my kids are very used to the chalk and talk way of learning, they are not interested to participate in some outrageous, over the top activities that they feel that they will learn nothing from. A case in point would be the speaking lesson. We have always planned a 35-minute or so speaking lesson with role-playing, etc in our simulated but it just won't work in the real classroom. I have discovered that role-playing, presentations are only for very good, outspoken students because the rest of the kids will not pay attention to their friends unless they have something very interesting to watch, which makes me feel bad all over again for asking them to speak and having no one to listen to them. Besides, the weak students are just not confident enough to speak and we are making everything worse for them for making them embarrass themselves and not learning anything. Thus, everyday should be a speaking lesson and integration is the key to make lessons less boring.

As I have said in my earlier post, kids come to school to learn and they expect to learn something whether they realize it themselves or not. Making them aware that they are learning something is how I feel we can get students to respect us and be less bored with our lessons. For my one class, I can go into the very technical areas of the language and still not see blank stares but for the intermediate class, it is more of a balancing act of catering to mixed bunch of them with different needs and personalities. It is not until my first observation that I realized that I have been taking them for granted and not paying attention to their real needs. After all, they are still kids and they need a lot of guidance especially in literary texts for the weaker students. There are also more boys there and sometimes they are more passive than the girls in my 4A class. Engage, engage, engage is the answer.

Anyway, my first observation came and went. As usual, my Achilles heel is on giving clear instructions, come on, not everyone can read your mind, abui. It was with 4C and Dr R said I have to cater more to their needs and not set tasks that are too difficult for them. Dear, dear, my poor, neglected kids, I am boring them and not teaching them anything sometimes.

Alright, there is always so much for me to vent here. I have to write more frequently in order not to make each post too tedious. I think this is one of my weaker posts here, perhaps the title is already defeating it. To make it up, here is something I have shared with my kids while teaching about organ donation, yes, Kugi from 4C, sharing is caring (he always tells me this when he forgets to bring the textbook and shares it with his friends and I will tell him off that it will apply during Christmas) and teacher hopes to share more things that teacher likes with you all so that you kids won't get so bored.

p/s : one thing that I have discovered about teaching is you start to speak in third persons.

To Remember Me

By
Robert Noel Test
(1926-1994)

---

The day will come when my body will lie upon a white sheet neatly tucked under four corners of a mattress located in a hospital busily occupied with the living and the dying.

At a certain moment a doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and that, for all intents and purposes, my life has stopped.

When that happens, do not attempt to instill artificial life into my body by the use of a machine. And don't call this my deathbed. Let it be called the Bed of Life, and let my body be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives.

Give my sight to a man who has never seen a sunrise, a baby's face or love in the eyes of a woman.

Give my heart to a person whose own heart has pain.

Give my blood to the teen-ager who was pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play.

Give my kidneys to one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week.

Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in my body and find a way to make a crippled child walk.

Explore every corner of my brain.

Take my cells, if necessary, and let them grow so that, someday, a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain against her windows.

Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow.

If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weaknesses and all my prejudice against my fellow man.

Give my sins to the devil. Give my soul to God. If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you.

If you do all I have asked, I will live forever.