the teaching chronicles 1

Hiee!

yes time flies and it has been a blur. the school has given me the "relief teacher's" classes so i have social studies and health ed for a myriad of classes from p1 to p5, plus a little art and music scattered around. bcos i have so many classes and see most of them a period (30 min) a week, i have trouble remembering who the students are and where i've stopped! also since i'm taking the lite subjects, it's hard for students to take me or the lesson seriously. some classes are challenging. i do remember the notti students' face though haha.

most of the colleagues are nice. some have a certain "kuan", like overpromising and not delivering, or being somewhat impatient. my reporting officer is friendly but not very detail-oriented. my buddy is kinda slack, i have to chase him for things n then i feel bad for being an added workload. i feel that support for work has not been sufficient but i realise that they are all busy mid-term. so based on what is provided, i just try to get through the work & keep a low profile. on the bright side my subjects are non-examinable so i don't have exam pressure, just need to cover the subject objectives by mid-year, with the freedom to plan lessons my way. in that sense i'm v fortunate, so no point to hiam too much. my objectives in class are to maintain control, attention, n try to enable students to absorb some new info while keeping lessons somewhat enjoyable haha.

the good news is that i have a lesson observation coming up, it's next wed, and if favorable, school will recommend me to enter NIE this aug/sept. i'm excited & keeping my eyes on the prize!

teaching has really opened up my eyes abt classroom management - it is the most challenging aspect for me. i realise it's not about the level, but more about the mix of students. some classes have super-disruptive kids, worse still like 3 or 4! others are tamer. sadly i feel i am in control of half of my classes, and ineffective for the other half haha! i also think it is sad when some of the children need more personal attention because they are slower or on the other hand, because they are good, but cannot get it due to time constraint or because i'm focusing on keeping the class in order. i plan to request to sit-in my buddy's class to see how the pro does it before my observation - hopefully i'll learn something.

today i yelled at a kid to "show him as an example to the class", then i realised that he was low IQ. the other classmates warned me earlier - "teacher, his mind got problem one" - but i thought they were insulting him. i felt so bad n so silly after that. :( that's a lesson i learnt today, to be more mindful of the low ability one, not all notti students are deliberately disruptive.

hear fm u soon!