:MY DaY MY WaY:

Thursday, May 24, 2007 It has almost been two months since I last posted. At first sight, it seems that I am indeed the busier for it, being in my new profession. Well, to speak the truth, I have been finishing earlier, at average times of about 3-4pm. On some good days, and if I figure that students are less eager to look for me (due to factors like bad weather or bad mood or bad hair), I hit the food court and home at 2, on the dot. ~ ~ This week is what the teaching service will term "post-exam week". As such, I ended up bringing taboo and playing that with the kids in my secondary 1 classes, chaperoning kids for arts workshops, National Education (NE) trips and possibly manning a booth in the school's education fair tomorrow, in terms of advanced education or ITE. In addition, I will be doing a panel meeting for underachievers and deserving students of my classes respectively. So far, I have not mentioned anything about teaching as it is. ~ ~ Some friends asked me whether I prefer to do invigilation, where I spend a good 1 or 2 hours of my time walking around, chewing on sweets to keep awake, or to teach a lesson. Seriously, I will rather do some teaching, since I get some interaction, and it is no fun at all during invigilation. I cannot embrace my sadistic nature to yell at a kid during his/her examinations, which is a pretty mundane chore to say the least. During lesson time, I had taken out a few kids for scratching each other, dealt with the instigator of a broken chair that was meant to collapse with the victim when a person were to apply the slightest pressure on it, and inadvertably neutralized (at least I hope so) an incident involving girls. ~ ~ Incidentally, I reprimanded two girls not unlike a courtroom trial, and later they came along and poured their hearts to me about some problems coming their way that caused them to behave the way they did. Their friends were no slouches either and provided good support. I am glad they chose to trust me to help them, and to make sure they were taken care of, outside of my classes, I took the case to the student welfare department. Ever since, the group seems pretty cordial in my class, and I presume I was successful in mediation, although I do not know if they thought I was too meddlesome in alerting the SW department as well. Sometimes, it is just angst, full of air and nothing else. You just need to provide a listening ear and to give them a chance to let go. It will be good if everyone can give and take a little, and not seek to oppress. On the other hand, one of my students apparently saw me counselling the girls, and questioned, tongue in cheek, "so many girls and one man". I would have stuffed him, but not before I made him apologize to the girls. ~ ~ So far (independent of this one-off incident), I think I am more chummy with the girls than the guys, since it is incidentally always the gals that call out when I am far away. Speaking about being chummy, I do feel a tinge of sadness in issuing the results, particularly English. Apparently, I was looking through the absolute marks, and some of the English results are a problem. The crux is that if the boy/gal fails English, he/she cannot be promoted to express class, if he/she was in the stream previously. Relatively, when compared against cohort scores, I amazingly had only 4-5 kids that actually did worse in English, compared to their schoolmates' scores based on PSLE scores. That is to say, even if they had failed (meaning they were expected to be at the bottom end of the proverbial bell curve, the defining point was that their scores were less from the margin than previously anticipated), they had actually improved in their grasp of English compared to their cohort. The irony of it all. ~ ~ So it pains me when I see some of my kids scoring about 40-49. Those below will be hard to salvage, but I sure do know some of these kids do work very hard, and it is only English which fails them. Some of them were appealing to me to add a mark or two somewhere (to make it 50) and when I see these young little souls pleading with me, almost on the verge of tears, I know I had to try. Unfortunately, in the name of fairness (and not because I did not want to) , I could not squeeze anything extra or add anything, simply because I did not mark their composition scripts. Rechecking their comprehension papers myself with the answer scheme did not help either, since the marks were justified and marked correctly. It was a painful experience, I assure you. ~ ~ Examinations aside, I had quite a bit of fun during the last 2 months, but more of the time, it was about discipline. I think I was pretty lax with class management, so I will use the tokens of punishment more liberally after the June holidays. Maybe I will get less call outs and more snarls, but ultimately, I do not want them to suffer when they receive their results, year-end. It is about giving them the best possible chance, which was my duty in the first place. To think about it, I am holding the educational careers of so many express kids (80) in my hands, and considering this aspect, it is tough to tell kids who worked hard or simply some who I warm up to (I admit I am biased), that they failed my subject. As for my secondary 4 students, it was a mix of results, and hopefully my extra lessons helped in some way or another. ~ ~ On a happier note, I met up with my ex primary-school classmates last weekend, and it was good game. Maybe it was not perfect play, considering that some of them seemed really tired, but the idea was there. We should have more fun when schedules are less demanding. weijie froze in time on 24.5.07

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