Sunday, October 21, 2007

working

rite.. i have been working for almost 1 month.. and teaching for 3 weeks. though it fills up my empty slots, and also put some cash into my pockets, i 1st and very 1st advice to those who want to look for jobs... GET SOMETHING YOU REALLY LIKE TO DO!!!

anyway.. teaching a very young kid is a very tough job indeed. Teresa has given warnings and advices that she got form her teaching experience and i really appreciate them. thanks ya =). but anyway some of them doesn't work on very very young kids.

anyhow here are a few things i gain from teaching my very young student.

young people have various mood
well.. the 1st thing you do when you start your lesson with them is to observe what mood are they in. playful?? bored?? happy?? or just plain normal(which i think i never see one normal mood). then, your lesson will base on the moods to counter them.. if they are playful, u b strict, if they are boring, u make it interesting, if they are happy.. erm.. well.. just be happy with them.. haha.. but usually happy goes with playful.. so means we need to be ready to be strictly happy..

jump on opportunity.
when a student is in a good mood, teach him more. teach and teach and teach. because good mood means he will listen to you more attentively. when he is in a so-call-bad-mood, no matter how much you teach will not enter his growing brain. so when you see him in a good, happy and ready, force all knowledge into him that time in a good way. they will remember usually. but be warn, good mood's doesn't last long and not all lessons have good moods... so observe and jump on any openings

get to know your student well
one must know the favorite stuff of the student. if he likes candies, bring some while teaching him. if he likes transformers, go read up a little on it. mine likes origami. so what i do is to open an origami book before any class to fold something interesting and put it on the table. and keep telling him that i will teach him fold if he finish all his work. guess what.. it works.. the bad thing.. i am bad in origami. haha.. of course you must have plan B and C's in his favorite stuffs. candies and plasticine are my plan B's. oh.. you cannot always use the same bribe all the time. they like variation.

they have short term memory.
yes.. what every you teach them, they won't remember. not on that particular day. but if u ask them the next day or the future, they might recall and answer you. so what u need to do is repeat, repeat and repeat. make him repeat after you. yeah.. its kinda makes you lose your head when you repeat and repeat and they don't remember, so what you can do is ask them at intervals of time.. maybe at the end of lesson or while you are correcting his books. make it a conversation and not a task. the good side?? well when ever they ask you something that you don't want to answer, just tell them "i will answer you when you finish your work". and that all.. they won't ask again. haha

look at their writing
their writing shows a lot on the mood of the students. if they are writing normally, means they are still in good condition. if the writing goes huge, forceful and erm... ugly, well better change the topic, or let him take a break. drink his water, let him blabber a few things of his own, and then call him continue. it kinds of reset his brain.. or like what we say.. stress release.. haha..


yupp.. so far thats all.. but one very very important thing is patience. lots and Lots and LOTS of patiences... cute or not, naughty or not, or playful or not, PATIENCE in what ever you do. you may curse, you may be angry and piss off.. but just remember, no matter how long is the time, it will pass. try to imagine something funny while you teach, it makes u feel better.

most of all, GET SOMETHING YOU REALLY LIKE TO DO.. wait,, did i say that?? yeah.. i did above. i dare not say i enjoy working there.. but i was not, am not and will not say i hate my job. my main purpose i join the working society is to get some new friends to talk to. but sadly in my current job, there are not much people i can talk to. my boss and my boss's sis. thats all. and not all of them are there all the time. in another words, i am usually working alone(i hate being alone... remember???) most of the time. which is sad and it did not fulfill my main purpose of working. yes.. teaching is in my blood. i have both parents as teachers.. but what they like doesn't mean what i like right?? everyone is different and i wonder whether they understand. my student's mother commented that her son like me.. i should be happy with that right?? sigh~ anyhow and anyway, complaining won't help to improve my current condition.. wait.. i am complaining now... all right.. i will stop now.

2 comments:

Amelia Tay said...

wow. i am totally amazed by the amount of dedication u haf. wud've been glad to haf a teacher like u wen i was young.

sadly, i can count wif my fingers the teachers whom i haf really loved and admired since i went into playschool right up to college. those were the ones who really cared n did stuff (like u mentioned) wif us.

most of them spend their entire teaching lives being unfair and scolding their students. sad case, ryte?

neway, all the best in teaching ur students n i hope u will tahan teaching those kids cos teachers like u will definitely make a huge difference in shaping their lives and nurturing them.

believe me, they ALWAYS remember u. =)

^^ good luck!

Unknown said...

oh ya, promised to leave comment on ur so-called teacher-life blog =P haha... Eh, enjoy working with kids la, don't you wanna be as childish as them? i would love to! well, i know ur gonna say i'm as childish as them right? haha... wish i could go back to my childhood time... climbing trees, burning leaves + grass + woods + newspapers + etc... haha.. and study just to get presents from teachers =P haha... so better treat ur students nice ah! they'll tell their parents that "qiqi goh goh is so nice! i wanna play with him more often!" haha... take care buddy =D