Thing are going fine in school, not absolutely great but I’m doing slightly better than just surviving. I was marking my students papers and very very sadly, most of my classes did pretty poorly. Obviously, it’s not any of my students’ fault and I’m glad we still have a few months to work on our weaknesses before I leave.

Yeap, this is my last year teaching. The program is ending this year and unfortunately, I will not be continuing my career here in this school. I like it here, I like the students, the school, the community, but I just can’t continue travelling so far and being away from home anymore. I know it’s a weak and lame excuse, and I feel terrible for leaving.

I told my students to write a letter to their future teacher, the teacher who will be replacing me (hopefully there’ll be one..). I told them to write anything they want and be sure to write a good one so I can use these letters to encourage people to come and teach them.

The results were something I didn’t quite expect. Their letters were AMAZING, so filled with emotions and were very inspiring! I really hope that these kids will get an even better teacher next year because they totally deserve the best education despite being so far away from civilization.

Any beautiful woman wants to be this teacher’s pet’s teacher? Haha! He’s actually one of the cheekiest boys in class, always interjecting my lessons with irrelevant (but funny) comments.

Can you expand her horizons for her? I can’t believe the depth of these letters. All they really really need and want is someone who can show them what’s out there, what lies ahead beyond their small village.

HE knows you can do it, come and guide them so you guys can create history together! These kids are 15 by the way.

They need someone patient and caring, someone who can show them English is important and can be exciting too.

Seriously, rereading these letters make me feel so bad for leaving and so terribly guilty because these kids are incredible. Of course, this job is challenging as hell but accepting the challenge has made me such a changed person.

Most of my students are at least FIVE years behind their grade level. These letters here are from my best class, and my four other classes can barely string a sentence together.

This is the results from my weakest class. I was devastated when I finished marking, and was really depressed for the entire day. But then I realized something. They ALL tried their best! Nobody left their papers empty, nobody scribbled nonsense or gave up upon seeing all these words they don’t recognize.

Success doesn’t come easily and seriously, when you’re in this profession, you’ll realize that what doesn’t kill you REALLY does make you stronger.

Happy Teacher’s Day to myself and to all you amazing teachers out there. I bow my head in respect for all the hard work you’ve put into making your students better people everyday without fail. I have the highest respect and admiration for teachers who remain positive and passionate even after being in this profession for many many years.

“Jika hari ini seorang Perdana Menteri berkuasa
Jika hari ini seorang Raja menaiki takhta
Jika hari ini seorang Presiden sebuah negara
Jika hari ini seorang ulama yang mulia
Jika hari ini seorang peguam menang bicara
Jika hari ini seorang penulis terkemuka
Jika hari ini siapa sahaja menjadi dewasa;
Sejarahnya dimulakan oleh seorang guru biasa
Dengan lembut sabarnya mengajar tulis-baca.”

- an excerpt from Usman Awang’s Guru Oh Guru

For my other classes, I can do a mediocre job planning and it’ll still be fine but with THIS class, they’ll slaughter me alive in five seconds flat if I come in unprepared. Sometimes I tell myself that I hate them so so much, and yet I know they are the ones I would go the greatest lengths for.

This class has a huge problem with motivation so today I thought I’ll bring the world to them. We wrote an essay on our dream holidays last week and almost all of them wrote their dream holiday is to go Seremban or Malacca. They basically don’t know where else they could go otherwise!

So today we looked at pictures of Paris, London, Egypt, the seven wonders of the world, Disneyland! the Aurora!, Hawaii! and while I got more and more excited when I talked about those places, the kids got less and less interested and more belligerent.

“Ala who cares about those places!”

“What is that mouse in front of Disneyland?? Why would I want to see a mouse??”

“Big Ben? Big Bodoh la!”

Honestly, I was super heartbroken la. First of all, I spent hours preparing for this lesson and felt like a fool standing in front getting all excited for nothing. But then it sank in. Of course they don’t care, they don’t even know what Mickey Mouse is!!!! They don’t grow up watching western shows and reading about these places, so of course it meant nothing to them.

After like 30 mins of me basically trying to get them to be excited by masking my disappointment and maintaining my enthusiasm, they reluctantly started writing their letters on their dream holidays to Sawittri.

But what I did not see coming was while they worked on their letters, they started getting interested in those places. They started asking questions about Eiffel Tower, and how much would it cost to fly to London, and if Taj Mahal is really that beautiful, and teacher, best tak pergi Disneyland?

They came to my computer and started drawing the places in their letters and putting so much effort into making the Eiffel Tower more beautiful than it already is.

I was so close to giving up on them, and what they really needed was for me to be really REALLY patient and to show them what they’ve been missing out on. One day.. my kids will conquer the world and will then realize what their teacher was so excited about.

(I know sometimes I sound so positive in my long posts but in actuality my kids are still as challenging as always, stealing my cellotape when I was collecting their letters, throwing papers everywhere for this maid to collect and shouting like hooligans when I let them out of class..but I guess a little positivity won’t hurt)

p.s: Loga’s letter was the most impressive one. after getting the instructions, he took his chair and went to the furthest corner of the room to finish his letter. he pasted bits of TFM’s logo (don’t know where he got them from?!) and added so much stuff into his letter. SO PROUD CAN CRY.

I told my kids two lies today. Firstly, I have THREE massive pimples on my face (like seriously will eat your face up that kind) and to save myself the embarrassment, I told my kids that I went to see the doctor and he told me that if I get stressed more, more pimples will pop and I will eventually die. “Anyway, the doctor said I have a disease called pimplocitis and if I get angry or raise my voice, I’ll get another pimple and if they finally cover my entire face, I’ll…..die.”
My kids got SO upset omg I feel so bad now. They were seriously well-behaved and kept trying to make me laugh hahahah

But I said all these with a straight face and immediately moved on with the other part. They finished their unit test last week and today I gave them their papers back. I only marked half, and gave them each a friend’s paper and got them to finish marking.

After they’ve totaled the marks, I told them this: guess what? You’ll be getting the marks of the paper you’re holding now! So if the paper you marked got 50%, that’s your mark which I will write in your report card.

I asked them if this arrangement sounds fair, and they immediately shouted no. Asked why, they said because “this is not our paper!!”. I said: “Well because as a class, we must work together as a team. If your friend didn’t do that well, shouldn’t it be your fault for not helping him/her to begin with? Sounds fair to me..”

Their mouths dropped and they couldn’t believe it. Then, out of the kindness of my evil heart, I said, “ok fine. if you’re not happy with it, you can choose to get your own marks, but 5 marks will be deducted from it. You have to make this choice WITHOUT looking at your own marks first and once you made the choice, you can’t go back and take this friend’s marks”

For eg: Syafiq, who is holding Elly’s paper (52%) can choose to take her marks or take the risk (depending on how confident he is of his own paper) and take his own paper back -5 marks.

With this arrangement, half of the kids chose to stick with their friends’ marks while the other half still wanted their papers back. I finally realized the joke is getting too far (though it’s quite a good lesson), and told them if they could give me a good reason for their decision (whatever it is), I’ll grant them their wish.

A girl, full of confidence, said “teacher, I want my own paper because I worked hard for it and I’m confident I did well”. Fair enough, so I gave her her paper back and she got her 80%.

A boy surprised me by saying “teacher I know I did well but I want whoever who has my paper to keep it, we’ll just work harder together next time”. He actually got 85% on his own paper, and the paper he was holding was 52%. T____T

After a while, I decided to just tell them that this is a joke. and that I’m not dying. They laughed and told me their hearts actually stopped beating for a while hahah.

But I’m actually quite serious about the working as a team part and I need my kids to be more confident of themselves!

“So….teacher…can I ask you a question? Are you still…dying?”

#dramaqueen #aprilfools

It was also because I don’t think I’d feel right serving underprivileged kids, only to drive the few minutes back to my comfortable suburbia house, back to the warmth of my welcoming comfort zone.

But…..barely a week into moving here, I’ve already started regretting it.

This place is perpetually filled with bugs, the water makes me sick and gives me rashes, I can’t sleep at night for fear of being eaten alive by spiders, there is practically NOTHING here but two rows of shops, the nearest civilization (KFC) is 45 minutes away, and the list goes on and on.

My stomach is filled with dread so heavy it sinks the entire universe every time I have to drive back here, so much so that I’ve chosen to just drive back every Monday morning instead (waking up at 4.30a.m has taken its toll on me).

I remember how I kept finding excuses to go back too, despite the crazy tiring drive. Whoops I left my charger at home teehee I guess I have no choice but to go back midweek and leave this horrible place for the night!
Whoops I brought one less baju kurung, time to go home now!! Whoops “accidentally” left my students’ books, must go get them!

And it went on like that for the rest of the year..

Along the way, I’ve completely forgotten why I chose to serve here. I’ve completely forgotten what I came here to see, to experience. And if I keep finding excuses to slide back into my bubble, I would have wasted my two years here.

I was reflecting on this as I was cycling around the paddy field the past few days, and truly for once, loving every moment of it. I came here to see and live the challenges the rest of Malaysia faces and I feel like I’ve failed myself by not gaining enough perspective before the year ends.

I realized that I can’t hate this place because then, it defeats the purpose of me trying to change the lives of the people here. If I can’t understand how they live, if I can’t empathize with them since I don’t try to live like them, then I’m in no position to decide what’s better for these kids.

Never thought the paddy field, the goats, the smiles of the farmers and the laughter of kids running barefoot would give me such a humbling experience.

I came here to teach, and I’m taught so much more in return

So in an effort to win back my readers, I’m going to blog as often as I put pictures on instagram!! *cheers

Well I’m going to TRY my best since it’s actually quite a lot of hassle to post at so many different places, but I will cos I’m still a blogger at heart

For this post, I’ll post up a few of those I’ve already posted on fb with the same captions too.

March 5

“I try and try to no avail everyday, but I’ll get up, dust the hurt and frustrations off my knees and try again.”

Wrote this after a TERRIBLE class and I needed to motivate myself to get back up again.

March 6

“You can destroy the posters all you want, but I’m just gonna make some more #nevergivingup”

After the terrible class, I made a new poster of the rules/policies of our class since they tore down the previous one.

March 7

“I don’t know what it was that made this super challenging class so amazing today – maybe cos I called the naughty ones out in assembly yesterday and they’re all scared now, or the change in seat arrangement to sitting in groups and giving group points (they could never do this before), or the fairly interesting activities, or maybe just their current mood, OR even a combination of all the above – but I’ll take whatever little or small successes I can get right now #smallsteps”

Tried out a few new things and surprisingly, that same crazy class went REALLY well that day!

March 8

“So glad that all the preparation for these centers paid off but still need to find ways to push my kids further and not rely on me too much!

Today I took the role of a cameraman in class, and told them that I’m not a teacher so they can’t ask me questions and they will have to figure out the answers among themselves.
Still need lotsa work to get them to be more independent, but they really did try hard today *proud”

This was another class. Remember I spoke about incorporating values in class? This was me trying to instill the values of independence and teamwork in the lesson.

Okay these are just the teasers, I’ll post more in a few days! (che wah got teasers some more hahah)

#hardworkingblogger

So last month, I had the amazing opportunity to attend a really awesome conference in India! It was a conference under Teach For All, so we got to meet all the other teachers under the Teach For programs from close to 26 different countries!!!

India was an eye-opening, heartwarming, breathtaking experience for me. Before I went, my boyfriend warned me that I will see and learn so much from India, and I’ll experience the best and the worst of humanity there, so I was definitely quite prepared for it. I was very cautious with my food and drinks, and survived on trying to refrain from street food as much as possible (which was super hard for me).

we were very very fortunate to be able to stay in a REALLY awesome hotel. This hotel (Kempinski) just opened, and gave us a really good rate so it was truly a blessing

This is an autorickshaw, and was my absolute favourite thing ever! They don’t really have taxis there, and the streets are packed with these. You can fit up to 4 people in here (sometimes even more, people will sit on laps etc) and it moves really dangerously on the streets, but definitely an incredible experience.

I was in the auto late one night, zipping around the streets of India with the wind blowing in my hair and the cacophony of chaos around me, and I looked up and saw the full moon shining brightly on to the messy landscape down below. That was when I realized that I’ve truly fallen in love with this country.

and all its amazing children!

I met some of the most wonderful children on this trip; all of them so bright-eyed and eager, so enthusiastic and full of live despite all the challenges they face.

This kid was explaining to me a project they did in the classroom, and he was so SO full of energy! I was just walking around when he came to shake my hand and to introduce himself *impressed

Teach For India has done such amazing things with their classes and is definitely an inspiration for all of us here too

and this is the ugly part of the country, which I was not quite prepared to see. Children begging everywhere on the streets, slums and slums painting the sidewalks, poverty staring blatantly at everyone.

It was hard to train myself to ignore the beggars but it was so hard when they are very young children with huge sorrowful eyes.

This is one of the classrooms we visited and it was amazing to see how possible it is to really change lives with a really good strong teacher.

And on our final day, we visited…..

The Taj Mahal!

What an incredible sight!

I mean, I’ve seen so many pictures of it before, but to see it with my eyes is a whole different experience. It was majestic and soooo beautiful too!

And the whole Malaysian delegate wore sarees that night! (i’m the one in light blue in case you’ve forgotten how I look like T__T)

I was really inspired by my India trip, and I came back feeling like I’ve definitely NOT worked hard enough to ensure success for my kids. There are just so much we can do and I really want to go all out before my year ends!

(this bit might bore readers who are not teachers)

I realized one of the most important things we have to instill in our daily lesson plans is the concept of values. Not just using the term “values” as a catchphrase, but truly internalizing it and getting the students to embody it with their actions.

I’ve been trying to do that more now because I believe that teachers, especially those of us who teach kids from underprivileged and more chaotic and challenging backgrounds, have the biggest responsibility to ensure that our kids turn out to be good people.

Sure, grades are important but I need to make sure that when I leave after 2 years, my kids are on the path to be successful people with strong values, not just A-churning robots.

Trying to internalize the concept of values in my classes is really not an easy task, but completely do-able. For example, we were learning about road safety and I got the students to stand on both sides of the “road”.

They closed their eyes while I played them a video of a horrific car crash (with super dramatic sound effect – idea taken from my other awesome Teach For Malaysia fellows). Then I read them an excerpt of a news report on an accident, and we stood in silence for a while mourning the death of the people in the accident.

We spoke about the fragility of life, about the real importance of taking good care of ourselves and people around us. I don’t want my kids to just learn about road safety because it’s a topic in the textbook, but because they truly think it’s an important issue to discuss.

(this was another class but we were learning the same objective)

After all that seriousness, we took a 5-minute break at the end of class to play “On the line”, a game inspired by the movie “Dangerous Minds”

So basically students will be on both sides and there’ll be a line in the middle (the road drawn in the beginning of class). I will read out statements and if anyone agrees, they’ll come forward and stand on the line for a few seconds, then move back for the next statement.

The statements got deeper each time and I encouraged the students to be honest but it’s really up to them if they want to walk forward.

“I have many friends in school”

All of them came forward.

“I like coming to school”

All of them came forward too. This is a pretty good class so it’s not surprising.

“I love learning English”

Threw this in just for fun and immediately they all RAN to the line (*heart leaps in joy!)

“I have a boyfriend/girlfriend”

Hehe I’m so sneaky. A very small handful came forward.

“I’ve lost one parent”

About ten kids came forward.

“I’ve seen my mother/father cry”

Half the class came forward.

“Sometimes I cry myself to sleep”

This was a tough one but I was surprised to see about fifteen kids come forward. The other kids (boys especially) started laughing at the fifteen kids. Good, because this is exactly what our lesson is about.

I told the fifteen kids that I cannot believe how brave they are to admit something supposedly so shameful as this, and only the strongest people admit their weaknesses. The other kids stopped laughing.

Now this is where it gets tougher.

“I get abused at home”

Half the class came forward.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m a useless person”

Almost ALL the kids came forward.

“Sometimes I feel like I have no hope for a better future”

A handful came forward, some on the verge of tears.

“Sometimes I feel like killing myself”

This was the most surprising one for me. More than half came forward and my heart stopped. These are 13 year olds! It breaks my heart knowing this but I took mental note of this, definitely something that needs to be addressed.

When the game ended, the kids told me how much they loved it because they got to know more about their friends and about themselves too. Though it wasn’t super explicit, the objective of it was to get the kids to realize that despite all their physical differences, beneath everything, they’re all made up of the same thing: flesh and blood. They all experience happiness, heartaches, sadness and pain, and should learn to be there for each other.

The value that I love the MOST is definitely perseverance. Last week, I went on a Bollywood binge a little and sang “We Shall Overcome” (the song in My Name Is Khan) with the kids.

This week, I gave them the reading diagnostics and it has five levels and it gets harder with each level. I was expecting this class to only reach level 3 or 4 before they give up, so I didn’t print level 5 for them. But they surpassed my expectations and almost all of them asked for level 5!

Although maybe 1 or 2 of them managed to actually do it, the rest worked relentlessly to finish the questions. One boy had his head bowed, brows furrowed, and started singing “we shall overcome..we shall overcome..” while doing the paper.

Amazing. My kids give me so much hope to push on everyday!

Wow ok this has been a crazy long post, but I hope you enjoy a short glimpse of my classes!

Will blog again in a month hahaha (ok joking ha ha ha)

I posted this on my Facebook eons ago but here it is! I really like this post because it gives me so much hope, and it makes me love my kids more each day.

——-

My journey as a teacher is a massive roller-coaster experience. Some days I feel like I’m wasting my time with these kids, but some days I truly feel so contented that I feel like I can do this forever. Thankfully, today is one of those days that trumps a million of the other bad days

I taught my Form 3 class about Martin Luther King a few days ago and told them about his “I have a dream” speech. I was supposed to move along the syllabus since I have to finish it by July but decided to screw it and took both periods today to get them to learn more about MLK instead. I watched his speech again the night before and got goosebumps all over, and thought I could inspire my kids with it as well.

In class, I wrote out quotes from his speech and pasted them all over the room. I briefly spoke about what some of those quotes meant and the kids got more and more excited about MLK. I think listening to stories beat doing more grammar exercises and writing boring essays anytime!

“I have a dream that one day, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as brothers and sisters”

I spoke about how bad the slavery condition was in America and how blacks couldn’t even board the same bus, use the same toilet or the same water fountains as whites. The kids were appalled and got riled up about it. They couldn’t believe how bad racism can get and we discussed the importance of civil rights and equality.

We then read out my favourite MLK quote: “I have a dream that one day, we will live in a nation where we will not be judged by the colour of our skin but by the content of our character”.

Before we watched the speech, I got the kids to write out their own dreams. They could write about anything they want, as long as those dreams are big enough that they seem impossible.

Then they pasted their dreams next to their tracker and we watched the speech together. They watched a few minutes of it, noisily commented on everything, before telling me that they couldn’t understand much of what MLK said.

I was a little sad that they couldn’t experience the same goosebumps I had but after the video ended, I asked if they would like to hear my dream now.

“I have a dream that one day, all 31 of you will be sitting in your university dorm room one day and will remember this moment. Then, you will go on youtube to rewatch this speech but this time, this time you’ll be able to understand every word in MLK’s speech and will be inspired by those words as well. I have a dream that one day, you too will fight for something you believe in, just like how MLK fought for his own rights”

Wah suddenly I’m like MLK hahaha.

I choked midway while saying that because I was so emotional about it, so emotional about the thought of my kids achieving that dream. The class was silent for a while, and one boy quietly said “Teacher, I want that dream to come true too..”

While they worked on their work after that, I read all their post-its in awe.

“I have a dream that one day, people who are stupid like me can be geniuses too”

“I have a dream that one day, I will fight for poor people like me and help change their fate forever”

“I have a dream that one day, everyone in this class will own expensive cars like Ferrari, Porsche, Audi, McLaren…” (he listed down like ten different cars, obviously written by a boy hahaha)

“I have a dream that one day, I can burn Rosmah’s ugly hair” (seriously…. a kid wrote this -____-, before I told her that her dream has to be beneficial to someone, so she changed it)

“I have a dream that one day, my village will be proud of me and will not look down on me or my family for being poor anymore”

“I have a dream that one day, Malaysia will be the best country in the world”

“I have a dream that one day, everyone in this class will be astronauts and we can live on the moon together”

One after another, big dreams, wonderful dreams, inspiring dreams.

We then spent a few minutes reading about the guy who shot MLK and the kids got extremely angry at him, which made me really happy because it shows how affected they are by what happened.

I’m thinking back at this moment and I realized that I don’t know if I will ever feel such a strong rewarding and fulfilling feeling again. You know how people use the term “once in a lifetime”? Why go bungee jumping, why go climb mount everest, why do a million other things that you can do once in a lifetime when you can teach, once in your lifetime? When you can change lives, once in your lifetime? When you can get kids to dream big, to want to achieve more, to want to succeed, once in your lifetime?

I have a dream that one day, …

WHICH MEANS! I wake up at 5 am every Monday to drive back to school T_____T It’s hell seriously, especially when I’m so not a morning person. Why can’t school start at 9am or something??

Anyway, I was REALLY dreading the drive here this morning. I’ve been listening to podcasts on my drive here (a little digression. PODCASTS ARE THE MOST AMAZING THING IN THE WORLD! I’m so mad at myself that I wasted the whole of last year driving countless hours listening to crap music on the radio. I’ve been listening to podcasts on education, philosophy, health, politics, current issues, humor, you name it! They’re so amazing and best part is it’s free! It makes me get a little more excited about driving now My ultimate favourites are This American Life, Risk, TED, The Moth. Seriously check them out, if you find yourself bored with our national radio stations on your sucky drive to work/when you’re stuck in a horrendous traffic jam)/end of digression

Where was I?

Oh yeah so it was a sucky morning. I was beginning to feel so lazy after the long weekend that I dreaded coming to see my students, especially when I had class with the most challenging class today *grumpy

And we all know a grumpy teacher is not a great teacher, so I tried to make myself feel happier before going to class. My first class was really good. Kids were angels, they did my work so quickly, they were enthusiastic, they worked hard in class despite being weak in English, absolute joy for me!

My second class was great too! I played them soothing relaxing music while they worked on their essays. I spent the whole of Sunday marking their essays and marking every mistake, so I told them that I’ll be really sad if they don’t rewrite their essays with the corrections. Don’t know if this guilt-tripping worked, or if it was the music, or both, but they worked on their essays so diligently the whole class! T______T <– tears of joy

Then…it came to the class I dreaded going in the most. I know it’s mostly psychological as well. The more I dread the class, the worst it’ll be for me. I’ve tried being positive about it, but that class always kills me. It doesn’t help that it’s the last freaking two periods of the day. Kids were tired, hungry, angry, irritable. I can’t blame them, it was 1.20pm and they’ve had a long day.

So anyway, I went in super confident and determined. I delivered my lesson the best I could with this class, with half of them walking around restlessly, fidgeting in their seats, playing around. They do that all the time and I’ve tried EVERYTHING I could think of (giving consequences, getting help from discipline teachers, calling parents, motivation, being firm etc) but I’ve given up on trying to get them to sit still. As long as they do my work, I’ll have to live with it.

And they always do my work, although they don’t always master the lesson objective of the day.

But today, this…really challenging kid, who had been behaving SOOO well lately and whom I’ve praised to his father a few weeks ago, started getting restless. We already finished the exciting activities and now it was time to sit and write a REALLY short paragraph. He was the only one who did a sloppy job on his work, so I wasn’t satisfied with it. I told him to rewrite it but he ignored me a few times. I was pissed cause he’s been so good and I know he can do it!

So I did what anyone would do: I held his bag hostage.

No cop out in my class. You WILL do my work to my standards, or I’ll keep your bag in the darkest of all dark dungeons and not feed it for days. I might even shred it to pieces, depending on how you behave the next few days.

So this kid, who is one freaking menace-looking kid (he seriously looks like he can harm me real bad), stared at me angrily and threw his book at my face.

The whole class stopped moving and breathing (everyone is terrified of this kid) and stared at me. I know that look, they were anticipating my next move. I know I have to play my cards well now, cause if I don’t, I’ll lose the entire class.

So I calmly looked at him and said I want him to take the book now and finish my work.

The whole class moved their heads to look at what his next move would be.

He stomped out of his chair angrily, grabbed the hostage (his bag) from my hand, and went back to his seat. He sat still for a while, then eventually took out a pen to finish his work.

I don’t know what it was that made him do his work. Maybe he felt bad for me since he clearly had been very nice to me before this, especially after knowing that I praised him to his very fierce dad, or maybe because I held my grounds and he knew he’d have to do it eventually.

The class then turned to look at me again and I tried my best to mask my anger and fear. My legs were shaking a little (dude I’m really terrified of this kid) and my face kinda hurts from being thrown with a book. The class then erupted into its usual noisy chatter again (I always ask them to stop behaving like zoo animals, cause they literally behave like that. Some kids actually crawl around just for fun, some kids climb up their friends’ legs, some walk around making animal noises)

I waited a few minutes, then walked to that kid and told him I know he can do this. I watched him a little, corrected some mistakes, then told him that I do not want him to behave like that again. It’s unacceptable and I know he can be better than that. I asked him to promise me that he WILL be better.

He looked at me for one brief milisecond, stood up, and walked away.

“I’m taking that as a yes” I said to him. If anything I was just trying to comfort myself; he was already far gone by then.

When the bell rang, they ran helter skelter out of class and I sat down to compose myself. I know many of these kids have really rough childhood. I can’t begin to imagine the lives they live. I’ve been to their houses, spoken to their parents, and I can’t imagine growing up in that condition.

But still, it’s not an excuse to behave badly in my class. I will be compassionate, I will be loving, but I can’t let you have your way because I know if you try harder, you’ll do wonders. Even if you don’t know it yet.

While I was sitting down thinking of my kids, Jaya came in and caught me sitting alone. She asked if I was ok, and I asked her to read out the work we did in class today. She still couldn’t read. She struggled at every word, she read “tell” as “past” (she was just guessing the words) but when she was done reading (painfully), I told her she did well and asked her to correct some grammar mistakes.

I have absolutely no idea if she learned anything today. I have no idea if she could read by the end of this year. We tried whole of last year but now she’s back at square one again, and I don’t know what I’ve imparted on her, or if I’ve made a difference in her life at all.

But I’d like to think that if I continue trying, it will make a difference someday. Maybe not now, but someday, one day.

It’s the third week of school and things have settled down a little so I have time to do a lot of things these days. For example, yesterday I spent all night on youtube watching random videos for fun. Yes, for fun…Everytime I do something for fun, I feel extremely guilty because MY STUDENTS ARE STILL WEAK, THEY STILL CAN’T READ, THEY STILL FAIL AND I’M WATCHING VIDEOS FOR FUN?!?!?!

*breathes in and out furiously

But I figured, I MUST not burn out so soon like last year. Last year, when March rolled around, I was ready to pack my stuff and leave this place because I was sooooo burnt out! I was sleeping 4 hours every night, printing worksheets till the wee hours of the morning, planning and thinking about my kids all night. But nope, this year, I figured I gotta work hard but I have to relax a little more too. I’m running a marathon here, so can’t compromise my sanity so soon!

Ok so blogging is part of my strategy to maintain sanity, especially blogging about something other than teaching. Yay!

Last month, I visited my best friend in China! We haven’t seen each other since we graduated 1.5 years ago so it was really good to know that we still haven’t really changed much (though admittedly we’re more serious and boring now cos we’re both teachers and we spent half the time talking about teaching strategies -_- )

Chengdu was really cold since it’s winter now and I spent 6 days there wrapped in at least 5 layers of clothing T___T

Ok I’m a lousy tourist cause I don’t remember names of places so this is umm..a fashion street in the city. Lots of people just like in Hong Kong!

You know what I can’t get used to here?

Not the rude people, they’re not that bad here. But the toilets. I CAN’T stand squatting toilets, despite coming from a country where we have them too. But in China, there are NO sitting toilets except in very fancy hotels. It’s really gross cause when they have sitting toilets, people squat on them and leave shoe stains!

This is Li and me. She’s Shanshan’s cousin’s girlfriend who is super chatty and cute. We’re eating icecream in this freezing weather cause we’re cool like that. I think some of my brain cells froze to death that day.

We ate at this tea house that has Sichuan opera! Crazy amount of food (people eat like crazy here but I’ve not seen a single fat person)

The famous face-changing performance! Basically they will change their masks just by turning their faces slightly, or using a fan to cover their face for literally 0.1 second. It’s a secret technique that noone outside their clans would know, super amazing to see it in person!

AND!

THE MOST AMAZING THING I SAW ON THIS TRIP!

BEHOLD LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!

PANDASSSSSSSSSSSSS
(Well, a panda here)

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it! It’s such a surreal feeling to see something you’ve never seen in real life before, like seeing a unicorn or a flying pig!

More pandas! Everyone there was just aww-ing and ahh-ing at everything the pandas do. Pandas eating bamboo, AWWWWW! Pandas got up to get another bamboo, OMG CUTEEEE! Pandas playing with their bamboo, AWW *heart melts

Seriously, life is good as a panda.

Shanshan and I! and a random angry lady behind us wtf

MOAR PANDAS FOR YOU!

All they do is eat and eat. They don’t move or do anything cute also!! Feels a bit cheated wtf

Intermission: here’s your favourite beautiful Shanshan! As beautiful as ever. And she’s single now! She lives in the States though so if you’re ready for a long distance relationship, apply within wtf

Baby pandas sunbathing AWW
We thought they were dead though cause they didn’t move AT ALL hahaha

Oops I ate too much teehee I’m so cute no matter what I do cause I have black patches around my eyes teehee

Baby panda sho cuteee

The end of panda pictures, here’s me eating some street food. All I do is eat and eat, cause it’s so cold must keep warm ma!

Chengdu’s favourite past time: have your ears dug by professionals on the street! HAHAHA not even kidding. Shanshan said it apparently feels REALLY good cause they got skillzz

Some old street #lousytourist

Some sign I can’t read. By the way, my Mandarin improved by like 2384910826 times in that trip cause NOBODY SPEAKS ENGLISH in that entire city.

When we spoke English on the train, some guy actually approached us to say how admirable it is to see two chinese girls speak English. At first it was flattering but he kept standing really close to listen in on our conversation -____-
Seriously, out of all the places I’ve been to, China has the least amount of people who can understand and speak English. Maybe it’s because I didn’t go to major cities like Beijing or Shanghai though.

Starbucks in the middle of ancient town, a sign of modern capitalism. It costs a bomb though, everything there costs wayyy more than in Malaysia to my surprise.

Reminds me of the very beautiful Lijiang

I think there are more pictures (mostly camwhore pictures) but I think that’s it for today! Must maintain the suspense so if you don’t see my pictures too often and when you do see it, you’ll feel like how I felt when I saw the pandas wtf *perasan

When I told my kids I went to China and Thailand during the holidays, they were like “yer teacher you’re so rich!!”. I think I’ve been very lucky to be able to travel so often. Tickets to Thailand was ridiculously affordable even on my meagre teacher salary, and Shanshan sponsored half my ticket to China! (and I didn’t spend a single cent there )

Another good news is I got selected to represent Teach For Malaysia to a conference in New Delhi, India! It’s fully sponsored too, so I’m counting my lucky stars again I’ve always wanted to visit India, despite the new outrage, so I’m quite excited about the trip!

That’s all for today. Long day tomorrow since we are having our annual Merentas Desa run (cross-country run) and I’m stationed at the paddy field checkpoint (my favourite place here).

I can’t help smiling when I see the kids running past me with their eyes furrowed intensely, shirt drenched in sweat, pleading for water. Most, if not all of them, even greet me midst run. “Good afternoon teacher!” So cute lah cannot tahan. I don’t think I’ll have the energy to even look at people during a run, much less greet them!

The cutest of the lot are the small tiny ones running with so much enthusiasm. The young ones are always the most enthusiastic about everything and always have so much zest and happiness. I love kids so much. I love interacting with them, I love watching them get excited about things, I love getting all this positive energy from them! Though some of them are real devils, but I couldn’t have asked for better clients to work for everyday

Ah what the hell, it was terrible!!!! T_____T *bawls eyes out *wipes mucous all over failed lesson plans

To be honest, my heart did drop when I found out that I will be teaching the weakest and most challenging class in Form 2 (I know it’s terrible to feel this way but I taught them last year and they caused so much misery for me). I expected them to be tough on me, but they were beyond tough, they were BRUTAL.

The first day of school, I entered the class with my pretty solid classroom management plan and had my game face on since I want to be a lot more firm this year. They slaughtered me alive within the first ten minutes. They started acting out, being rude, couldn’t pay a single ounce of attention, running around, wounding my pride as a teacher who practically stood there and waited for them to settle down. I never believe in shouting, yelling or resorting to violence (which a lot of teachers do to command respect and fear) so I just spoke really firmly about working together this year.

After what seemed like an eternity (40 mins), the bell rang and they all ran home. I called out a few names to stay back but guess what? They all ran away on me *flails arms and cries harder

I was heartbroken, dejected, demotivated and honestly just wanted to call it quits. I teach a total of 5 classes and my other 4 classes are pretty awesome. I don’t have to try that hard with this class since they clearly don’t want to learn anyway.

But I remembered the few pairs of eyes who stared back at me with sadness when they saw that I couldn’t control the class. There are 31 kids in that class, and about 11 of them are really disruptive. The other innocent 20 kids couldn’t do anything and stared back at me helplessly, pleading for me to start imparting knowledge on them, which I obviously couldn’t since those crazy 11 kids were belting out songs at the top of their lungs, hitting each other and running around.

I really felt like I’ve failed my students and I felt so much anger for those kids who took learning away from the “good” students. They don’t respect me because they said I’m “not fierce at all” and they think they can bully me.

Today, before I entered their class again, I was honestly extremely nervous. Can you believe it? These are 14 year olds, and are barely taller than me, and yet they can cause such a deep gut wrenching feeling in the pits of my stomach. But I had faith in my management plan that I’d spent 3 hours the night before preparing. I had faith that if I continue persisting, they WILL yield one day. A part of me felt silly for having so much faith, because it was almost exactly the same last year and I had failed.

But I wasn’t going to let those days of humiliation and pain last year go to waste. I’ve reflected and reflected thoroughly and I know what I need to do to fix things. I need to persist, I need to be consistent, I need to show them that I mean business, and I need to be firm. Last year I was too emotional, and they knew they could get to me easily.

The class went a lot better today, but towards the end the kids got crazy again. I felt so angry because the other innocent kids were again, staring at me with those sad eyes. They need help so badly but I’m failing them yet again with my inability to control the class. I’ve tried everything I could; I was firm, I was prepared, I had consequences, I used everything I know! And yet..

There goes another day of failing.

I just called one of my disruptive kids’ parent, like I said I would in class. I was telling his mom that I will try everything I can to make her son learn and after she thanked me, she sighed a painful sigh. The same sad sigh I’ve heard from all the challenging kids’ parents. I know they need help too, and there must be some ways that we can work together.

I need to be better and I need to do more because I don’t want to end up at the end of my teaching stint, wishing that I had tried harder to help all my students. I still have hope.. and my hope is now.

I feel like I’m absolutely not prepared at all, no matter how much I’ve prepared for it! GAHHHHH *flails arms wildly and screams for help

I am panicking and I don’t know why?!?!?!?!?? I’ve done this before, so I can do this…right?

Wrong.

I’m panicking because I know how it’s going to be like. This time last year, I was crazily excited and not nervous at all because I didn’t know how bad things could be. But now that I know how challenging being in school is, how nerve-wrecking it is to stand in front of 40 kids who clearly don’t care about you, how daunting it is to know that these kids’ future lie in your own hands, it feels a lot scarier to face my first day of school.

I CAN DO THIS! I just need to walk in a lot stricter this time, maintain better structure for the class, be a lot more prepared, be consistent with my rules and consequences, and I’ll be fine. I hope..

I’m entering my year 2 of teaching but I’m still going to say this again: teaching IS rocket science.

This is possibly going to be the craziest thing I’ve ever done in my life, but I know I’ll miss it so much when everything is over. Bring it on, 2013! You are scaring me out of my wits, but I know that whatever happens, there’s no way I’m going to do worse than I did in 2012. It’s only going to get better from now on! No harm being optimistic about it

I was using Zooomr for a while but now that they decided to go private, they took all my pictures with them too T_____T And I’m too busy/lazy to reupload them elsewhere and put them back up again.

Fear not though because today I woke up with this sudden spurt of energy and suddenly felt like blogging! Though I have no idea what to blog about…but one thing I do know is it’s NOT going to be about teaching woot!

To be honest, this holiday has given me some time to reflect on things and I realize that I’ve spent 80% of it thinking and doing things that are teaching/student-related. Talk about being married to the job! Even when I’m sitting in the car on a long drive, or when I’m reading an unrelated book, or when I’m talking to friends, my mind is perpetually on my kids. How to be a better teacher next year? How do I ensure success for my kids? How do I make sure we reach our goal blablabla

I am actually so sick of it. So utterly sick of being so passionate about something that I eat, breathe, sleep with the cause in my mind every single waking moment of the day. As of now, I have the next EIGHT days before my first school meeting, and I’m making it a point to only think about school for a maximum of TWO hours a day (only because I have so much stuff to do before next year). That’s my pact to myself so I remain sane. And I’ll spend the other twenty two hours not being a teacher for once.

See, don’t want to talk about teaching and yet..

Anywayyyy, I went to Phuket last week! We saw that Expedia had an amazing offer of RM500 for flights AND accommodation for 4D3N so we jumped on it. 9 of us went and had a very interesting time at probably one of the dodgiest places I’ve ever been to.

It was a well-deserved holiday and despite the fact that all 9 of us are teachers, we surprisingly did not talk about teaching too much! We spent most of our time walking around the town, getting cheap massages, reading at the beach and eating.

In the tuktuk with Aishah and Karthik

The crazy cables all over the island

Our awesome ride back to the hotel. The driver blasted out party songs and turned on disco lights for us to dance!

Oh!!! I almost forgot. I got into an accident the second day in Phuket. You know how I’m super proud that I can now ride a motorbike thanks to my students right? Yeah, so we rented a bike and wanted to ride around the island with it. The bike was only RM20 a day and I was super confident I could ride it, no problemo.

So I went to test the bike on my own and barely FIVE minutes after renting it, I got into an accident -_______- I tried going up a really steep hill to practice (stupidity point 1), and when I fell, I picked the bike up without turning it off first (stupidity point 2). So I accidentally rammed the handle and the bike dragged me into a drain where I almost broke my neck (thank god I was wearing my helmet).

Luckily, I only suffered minor injuries but on many parts of my body

In the end, I had to pay RM300 for the bike damage, had to spend an hour cleaning up my wounds and couldn’t go for full body massages and swim at the sea. Blessing in disguise somewhat, cause who knows I might have gotten into a bigger accident if I had gone around the island with it AND my friends had someone to take care of their things while they swam (aka bag-caretaker).

—

I’m going to China in two days! Shanshan, my best friend in college, invited me over and offered to pay half of my flight ticket so I thought I’ll grab the chance! Not everyday that you have someone who want to see you so bad they’ll pay for you wtf

I’ll try to be more my old self and try taking more pictures and blog more! The thing about not blogging often is after a long period of time, you just forget what you want to talk about entirely. And after a while, even if you remember what you want to talk about, those things seem so unimportant and boring in retrospect that you don’t feel like talking about them. Le sigh, for the umpteenth time, I MUST blog more often!

1. The message of the entire two-day conference was clear: we NEED to reconsider the role of school leadership and think of students’ learning experiences. We can no longer adopt the traditional “I teach, you learn” mentality and we should move towards empowering students to take responsibility for their learning instead.

I really like this idea because 90% of my students are hardly responsible for their own learning, not because they don’t want to but because they are just so used to being fed information. So it was definitely good to learn other innovative methods I can use to cater for individual needs in the classroom.

Kasim Kasuri, CEO Beaconhouse, speaking at the School of Tomorrow Conference

2. I really like the focus on “inspiration”. Teachers should inspire the children to learn, to be curious, to be empowered, and this is something I definitely don’t see in schools today. The talks and workshops also challenged the role of the teacher, and posited that the teacher should act as a facilitator to help kids learn.

To be honest, although I do believe this as well, it’s extremely hard to practice it because of the huge class size in schools. But of course, nothing is impossible so it’s really up to the teacher to make the extra effort.

Speakers (from Left to Right): Richard Mark Gerver, Alma Harris, Diana April Laufenberg, Zarina Mobarak, Pamela Mundy and Kasim Kasuri

3. The concept of assessment is also severely questioned throughout the conference and I absolutely love the exchanges of different ideas! (teacher nerd) We re-examined the traditional assessments in schools (UPSR, PMR, SPM) (though PMR will be abolished from next year) and discussed how assessments can be used to support learning instead of being used to undermine learning.

All in all, I really enjoyed the entire conference and was really honored to be able to meet so many incredible and passionate people. I’ve never really thought about this before I became a teacher, but now I definitely see how important education plays a role in affecting so many aspects of a nation. If we want a better future for our country, there’s no doubt that we should reexamine the concept of education in our schools.

Personally, I feel that we’re still a long way to get all our schools to that ideal concept of education, but if we don’t start somewhere we’ll never get there.

So basically right after our school holidays started, we had to spend days organizing our data of our students’ achievement (in my part, lack of achievement T____T makes me question whether if what I did this entire one year was even worth it) and reporting them on an online portal. It was excruciatingly tedious so I haven’t had much time for anything else.

The week after that, our postgraduate diploma in education’s classes started and life has been crazy since. We have to attend classes five days a week, from 8-5, and we have TONS of assignments to work on just like any other college student. Presentations, reflections, papers to write, readings to read and generally just no time for anything else.

I’m not complaining, since technically I’m getting my second degree but I just really realllllllllly need a break. I need time to plan for my next year and it’s absolutely crucial I enter my classrooms next year very well prepared, but I have NO time now to even think about next year. Not only that, every TFM fellow, in their second year, will have to run a community project and we’ve been up nights thinking about what we want to do next year that can help change the school and community.

I’ll talk about my project later but if you went to my TEDx talk, you’d know!

Speaking of next year, I’ve been feeling really stressed out for a multitude of reasons.

1. My last one year in school has been somewhat….wasted. I mean, I’ve worked extremely hard but it’s so painful to see almost no improvement in my students. I know what I’m doing is not going to be successful overnight, but it’s been a YEAR! A WHOLE freaking year, and what did I do? Absolutely nothing. My best class’ results increased…by 2%. TWO percent.

Lately, I’ve been trying to adopt a more positive way to think of things. I’m going to look at things and compartmentalize them into two categories: TRUTH and HOPE.

So here it is. The TRUTH is, I did not transform my students’ lives. There was little to no progress, and my illiterate students are still illiterate. I’ve failed to be an effective teacher to my students.

But here’s the HOPE part. I’m still going to go back to school next year and I still truly believe in this mission to end education inequity. I still believe that my students can achieve so much more, if I find better ways to help them. I know there are so many of them just waiting for me to help unleash their potential in them. Their hope is me, and my hope is them.

Which is exactly why I’m feeling so stressed, cause I know I can do so much more for them but I don’t know how to. I need to plan plan plan PLAN better for next year to make sure our goals are achieved this time! I need to because it’s my last and only chance. And I hate to think this, but it might even be their last and only chance.

2. It might seem like it’s too early to think about it, but I’m really thinking of what I want to do after the fellowship. I know when next year comes, we will not have time for anything else. I need to think about what I want to do after next year and start planning towards it. I want to continue teaching, but at the same time I want to try out sooooo many things as well. I want my Masters, I want to work in a corporate firm, I want to get all kinds of experiences, I want to be challenged in ways I cannot comprehend, I want to do so much, and yet I don’t even know what I want.

These thoughts are seriously driving me crazy! I have a stack of articles to read and papers to write, but my mind is so occupied by all these worries that I can’t even focus on anything. I’ve spoken to people about career options, but the more I talk to people, the more I realize that I want to do everything!

So here it is again:

Truth: thinking about all this is making me go crazy.

Hope: my enthusiasm is what fuels me. I realize that despite all this stress and worries, this is potentially the most exciting part of my life right now! Here it goes, one more year to change lives.

–

p.s: I want to take this opportunity to thank all my readers for going through this journey with me. I started this post feeling so overwhelmed, but writing about my hopes and dreams make me feel so energized and enthusiastic about everything. Now I feel like anything is possible!

If you couldn’t make it, you can watch the video later (will let you know when it’s up!). I spoke on my experience as a teacher and spent most of my talk focusing on the literacy issues in my school/community. I think (and hope) it was quite shocking but enlightening for most people since a lot of us hardly recognize the problem brewing in our own country.

I think it’s quite clear by now that education is an issue that is very very close to my heart (since I talk about it in every blog post haha). People often ask me what I plan to do after my two years with Teach For Malaysia, and though it’s a hard question to answer mainly because it’s so loaded, I’m extremely certain that I will stay in the education line. The short answer is: I’m going to teach in a primary school after this.

After teaching secondary kids for a year now, I realize that if I really want to tackle the issues I see in my kids and school, I have to go even deeper into the root cause of the problem. Kids are illiterate at 15 because they, somehow or rather, had slipped through the cracks when they were in primary school. It’s wayyy easier to tackle these issues if we arrest it earlier. If we could recognize learning disabilities sooner, if we could teach the basics sooner, then these kids wouldn’t be at the stage they are right now.

Since I’m already talking about my future plans anyway, I might as well say it here now. My long term plan is to eventually start a kindergarten of my own. I’ve thought about it since my last year in college, and now that I’ve been teaching for a while, the urge is even stronger. There is such a HUGE need for a quality education, especially for underpriviledged kids, and where better to start than from a top quality early childhood education?

I’ve been looking at a few models and schools in this country and was very glad that I got invited to attend the Beaconhouse Group’s School of Tomorrow Conference! Beaconhouse Group is one of the largest privately-owned school systems in the world and it’ll be awesome if I could learn from them.

It’s actually happening today and will feature many leading educationists and thinkers, including Professor Alma Harris, Dr Heather Terrill Stotts, Professor Kathryn Riley, and Dr Christine Wise, all of whom are internationally recognised for their work on school improvement and leadership and management. Several specialists including Gigi Schweikert, Pamela Mundy, Ayesha Kasuri and Saira Butt will be leading sessions on early childhood and primary education.

The panel discussions all look extremely interesting as well, covering topics such as innovation in teaching primary students, employing collaboration and leadership techniques amongst students, how to cater to individual needs in classrooms – all topics that have been talked and thought about many times between the other TFM fellows and I. I really believe that if we want to pay attention to education, early childhood and primary education should be invested more heavily on.

Super excited and honored to be invited for it so I’ll update more on the conference!

As you know, I was invited to speak at TEDxYouth and it’s such an honour to be able to speak to such a large crowd! I’m really excited to share my teacher life with everyone but also crazyyyy nervous. I mean..I speak in front of so many very unforgivingly, ruthlessly critical kids everyday but it feels strange to speak to people who are older now haha.

Anyways, if you’d like to catch me and the other inspiring speakers, do come to the event!

Details:

TEDxYouth@KL 2012: Mountains Are Doable

November 17, SSM @ KL Sentral

Get your tickets here: http://www.tedxyouthkl.com/

You can read more about the event or about the other speakers on the website!

OR!!!

You can also read this writeup by The Star on the event. http://rage.com.my/content/stories/make-ideas-happen/

p.s: Don’t judge, it was the only teacher-like picture I have so I had to give them that picture.

p.p.s: Hope to see lots of you there! Please clap extra loud for me so when I come out it doesn’t feel awkward wtf *cricket sound

In that particular scene, I was people-watching during the brief 10-second interlude in that awkward moment of flipping into another chapter of the book. I call it the awkward moment because that is when I usually have to shake myself off the story and bring myself to face reality, and sometimes I’m so immersed in the book that I can’t even discern which is the reality anymore. If I take too long of an interlude between chapters, I lose the connection with the fictional world I was in and succumb to my reality. that’s when I lose interest in the book so I always make a conscious effort to minimize the interlude time.

so back to the scene in my head while I was washing dishes (now I’m confused which is the reality – pretty sure the reality is me washing dishes). It was a very very brief scene in my head, probably not lasting more than 2 seconds in total. But why I even bothered thinking about this incident again the next day, and taking the time to actually type this down, was because of the feelings that overpowered me the moment that scene overtook my thoughts.

It was a feeling of absolute happiness, of utter calmness. Though brief, I felt like that was what I am destined to do, what the purpose of my existence is in this confounding world, what my calling is – to find that moment of happiness.

After the scene had played in my head and I had come back to my reality, I spent the next few minutes wondering why that scene had so much weight and stirred such mixed feelings. This is not the first time it had happen and every time it happens, it was always when I’m doing something completely mundane. When I was showering, when I was putting moisturizer on my face, when I was starting my car, etc.

the worst part is, I’m always left feeling very confused if that scene was a scene from a dream I once had, or a reality I had once lived in, or an alternate reality my alternate self is currently living in. I know this is all quite bullshitty but ever since that first lapse of that scene, I’ve always wanted to re-live it. Maybe that is my ultimate nirvana? Maybe when I reenact that scene in reality, I will achieve the enlightening state that everyone has been yearning for? Funny how my nirvana is when I’m reading a book and people watching somewhere in Europe.

but sometimes i wonder what is reality anymore. The lines between dreams, reality and alternate reality all seem so blurred to me now. All I know is I need to get myself to that cafe, somehow, someday.

Last week, something horrifying and traumatizing happened, and it’s especially scarier now that i’m a teacher so i feel like a parent to all my kids.

After choral speaking practice, the kids left and went back home. I drove out to get lunch and I saw a crowd a little further down the road from school. I rolled my window down to ask if anyone needs a ride, and the sight that greeted me back shocked me so much my heart stopped.

Before I went in the house, all my kids who were already there rushed out to warn me of how gory his face was. I cringed but rushed in to see him, and found him sitting sadly on the couch. His face was indeed a mess – he had seven stitches on his forehead, three on his lips. His lips were swollen to three times its size and he’d lost a few teeth. His whole body was covered with wounds as well, and he can’t walk nor move much. He also broke a rib.

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1. I’m making a more concerted effort to blog more again for several reasons. Firstly, it doesn’t actually take thaaat much time and I’m a lot more free these days (kids are having their exams next week!) so no excuse not to blog!

Secondly and more importantly but shamelessly, I need to start writing advertorials again to earn my side income so I have to blog more to maintain/increase my traffic. Recently, we TFM fellows got a pay cut. Seriously don’t ask why, I don’t even know why too. All I know is we had to resign a new contract, got a pay cut AND worst of all, have to pay back for the increment we got since January. It’s a heck lot of money, money I don’t have. So don’t mind me if I start putting ads again on my blog ok? A teacher’s gotta eat.. (though I’m trying to lose weight these days..)

2. I learned how to ride a motorcycle!!!!!!!

I’ve never really wanted to learn before but recently, I’ve been peer-pressured into it. Well, peer pressure is the wrong term to use because my kids are the one that influenced me, so it’ll be like…”student-pressured” into it? Haha. ALL the kids here can ride a bike, and they made fun of me for not being able to ride one!

“Hahhhh how can teacher? It’s soooo easy!”

“Teacher, you can’t be like us kampung people if you can’t ride one!”

“What?? Even a 10 year old can ride a motorbike!” (it’s true)

See, such bad influence!

Anyway, I’m actually pretty good at it now! And the worst part is, it’s super addictive! Hahaha this sounds like a vice already. But after learning how to ride one, I really get why my kids love to ride around the village “just for fun” because damn, it’s so freaking fun! The wind blowing in your hair, the adrenaline rush, the DANGER, the power in your hands…

So, I’ve been grabbing any motorbike I see and begging the owner to let me ride. They let me use it all the time cause I’m a teacher ma, and they respect me a lot here. Then, I’ll bring a random student to ride around the paddy fields and the village to sightsee, and we’ll talk about all sorts of profound and thought-provoking things like the latest gossip in school and how their lives are like.

It’s really moments like this that I will remember for the rest of my life once I leave this place.

Me, riding a motorbike around the village and in the woods, with teenagers, who would have thought?

3. Speaking of kids (am I not always talking about them anyway?), I’m really REALLY sad today. There are these two girls (who are sisters) whom I’ve been hanging out with everyday, playing badminton or basketball, or just talking about life. I know their whole family and I’m like the resident guest in their house. Their mom cooks for me and gossips with me, the baby of the house clings on to my leg when I visit, and they always fling the door open excitedly when they hear my car engine outside.

I found out today..that they are shifting away next month T____________T

I was so upset when I heard it because they’ve become my best friends here. They confide in me all the time and I would always talk about life with them. I’ve shown them my pictures overseas and shared with them all my experiences. They’re only 15 and 16, but seeing their excitement and love for me everyday makes my day.

And now they’re moving away forever T____________T

I was seriously going to cry when I heard it. I’m never supposed to invest my emotions so heavily on my kids but it’s hard when you live in a place where there’s no one you know with no family. They ARE my family.

I think I’m going to cry buckets later when I bid them goodbye. I HATE losing my kids, can’t imagine how I’d feel next year when I leave.

4. This is a bit of a good news to end the post. Recently, our school’s choral speaking team was invited to perform for the Teach For Malaysia 2013 Cohort’s opening dinner! When I told my kids, they were ecstatic!

“Teacher, we’re good enough to perform for people!”

YES you are! So proud of all of you

So we’ve been practising everyday with the script I wrote from scratch. It’s been quite tough because their exams are next week and the performance is in 3 weeks! But we still have to use a new script anyway cause half the team consists of new members who begged me to let them join in after seeing how fun it is.

The best part of my week today is when this boy (who joined the choral speaking team that won the district championship last time but didn’t want to join this time) came to me and said this: “Teacher, can I join the team? I told my dad that I didn’t join this time and he scolded me. He said I must join because I can improve my English!”

It completely makes my day because it means my effort to build relationships with the parents have been worth it! I’ve spoken to his dad before and have said many good things about his son, and how he should be proud to have a son like that and how he has done a good job raising him. So for him to actually tell his kid to join despite the exams shows that he really believes in me to help his kid’s English Can’t stop smiling!

The kids have also been working very hard. I’ve started putting my dictator face on again so every practice has been quite challenging for me and them. I need to be hard on them because I expect so much from everyone and I know they’ll do amazing.

Then, a girl who just joined the team told me today that choral practices are what make her days now. She’s having so much fun and although it’s tough but she loves it! These kids hardly speak a sentence of English in real life but they have to speak FIVE pages of English confidently and enthusiastically now.

Haih just talking about how awesome they are makes me want to weep like a baby now.

Sorry for this really long post but I hope you enjoyed reading about what I’ve been up to!

p.s: thanks for subscribing to my mailing list! Will definitely try to write more protected posts so you don’t sign up in vain

First of all, thanks for sending me an email to be added into the mailing list. My previous mailing list is a little messy and has too many people in it. With google+, I’m going to create a new circle meant for readers so I can manage the list better. So, sorry if you’ve already sent me an email last time to be added into the previous mailing list but if you would like to read my password protected posts from now onwards, please drop me an email again!

(NOTE: People who have sent me an email since Jan this year, you don’t have to do this again)

Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for reading I think I’ll be posting more private posts since I like the idea of still being able to write more personal stuff despite being a teacher now.

I’m also re-doing this because the previous mailing list may have people who have stopped reading my blog and might not be interested anymore. Later scold me for spamming them with passwords wtf *sad

As usual, if you would like to be included in the mailing list, please fill up this form with your REAL name, email address and in the message, I would like you to talk about yourself in general (not your whole life story wtf) and any other information you would like me to know about you. I will then email you the passwords to this and future password protected posts.

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SORRY guys! My mailing list is now closed due to an overwhelming response from everyone and I have no time to add more people in. sorry again!

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Let me start off with teacher-related stuff first.

When I walked into school today, I immediately got a barrage of wishes from my kids. They knew it was my birthday because I have the same birthday as one boy and I once told him that only awesome people are born on this day (also gave him a fist pump after that -I’m such a cool teacher hahaha)

So I was feeling quite happy and excited about today before my classes already!

During my first class, I wrote on the board (amidst notes on grammar and boring stuff) “Happy Birthday Syahfiq! Only awesome people are born on 24 Sept!” and everyone broke into laughter before wishing him as well.

After the class ended, the monitor went in front and cleared his throat.

“Attention class!”

Then I made fun of him cos he sounded so serious hahahaha I’m such an evil teacher! Gonna get bad karma.

Then he continued. “Today is a very special day because it’s someone’s birthday…”

“I want to thank Teacher Suet Li for being our teacher, and would like to wish her all the best. We promise to do our best in our English exam as your present! Stand up class.”

Then he got everyone to say happy birthday to me in unison T_________T What did I do to deserve this T_______T

I was soooo freaking proud of him cause he said the entire short speech in English and he was clearly very nervous to stand in front and to speak English!

Some of them gave me cards after. I am so touched but cannot cry must maintain cool macho persona wtf

Then, in my second class, they sang me a birthday song the moment I stepped into class. I stood there awkwardly (I am SUPER awkward when people sing me birthday songs, please don’t ever do that to me!) and tried to smile but was blushing intensely.

I can’t believe my kids are so sweet! They kept saying sorry for not giving me presents but I told them I really really just want them to do well, not just in exams but in life. So teacher lah me.

Anyway, now here comes the lengthy introspective serious part haha.

Come to think of it, I have so much to say that I don’t even know what to say. Birthdays are a great time to reflect on our lives so I guess I’ll attempt to do that..

The past one year since my last birthday had been a complete 180 degrees turnaround for me. During this time last year, I was going through an incredibly tough time that had caused me to doubt my sanity and integrity as a person. I was in a really bad shape then and I don’t think any of my friends could really recognize me much too.

In fact, I was really hesitant on starting my journey as a teacher because I was in such a bad emotional wreck that I thought me being a teacher would just be a hazard to my future students!

Thankfully, I went ahead with it anyway because it seemed silly to give up something I believe in because of a feeble excuse of a problem that I could easily fix (though it didn’t seem easy then). I am also just really REALLY thankful that I had a great bunch of people as my support system when things were crazy. My family, my friends, my readers even, were all there whenever I needed them. So thank you everyone for hoisting me up to where I am now! My students have you to thank too :’)

Actually, I’m trying really hard to word my “lengthy, introspective and personal” birthday post because I’m no longer at a position where I could just babble on about everything freely. I can do a password protected post, but it just takes too much effort to deal with the mailing list and sending out passwords (but thank you everyone who has been emailing me to be included in the mailing list!) so I guess this will do.

To my long time readers: I’ve really changed, haven’t I? From a super happy-go-lucky and silly, naive, immature girl, to a really dark, emotional person last year, to this person I am today.

This is actually my first birthday in 4 years that was spent very low-key-ly because the past few years had been quite crazy. In school, birthdays for me meant it was time to get allllll my friends together in my house and talk until midnight! In college, frankly, birthdays were just a time to party like crazy and to get err, intoxicated. It was great fun but I really wanted something quiet this year! I spent an awesome time with my loved ones this weekend, and today with my kids. I couldn’t have asked for a better celebration

To myself: I’m glad you’ve become a better person this year and though there are nights where life uncertainties still creep up beneath you in the dark, know that life will always get better if you want it to be. Also, please always remember to appreciate the people around you and to appreciate all the little moments in life *getting cheesy wtf

Happy birthday to myself, and to all September babies!

This is a glorious month because it’s my birthday month! So I vow to keep my excitement as each day comes because we all know that an unexcited, passive, boring teacher is the worst teacher to have in a classroom. It’s good that I’m an easily excitable person so everything that happens everyday always keeps me genuinely happy anyway.

I have pictures to share and an exciting news at the end of the post! I think I’m using the many derivations of the word exciting too liberally haha. Going to start off with some teaching-unrelated pictures first.

This was taken two months ago at my best friend’s wedding. Can’t believe it’s been two months since that incredibly exciting (here I go again) day!

Me with Angie who flew from Canada just for that weekend. Angie is always an amazing company because she’s as easily excitable as I am! Everytime we see each other again after a long period of time, we always get along so well as if we never parted

I’m also overly tanned here because it was the weekend after my Sports Day where I got baked like crazy.

Seeing Audrey in her wedding dress the first time made me cry T___T I think I’ll cry like a baby when I see her first baby bump too T___T Can’t believe she’s all grown up now T__T

At the wedding dinner with the super cute Up house! I’m the one in white in case you have forgotten how I look like since I don’t post that many pictures of myself anymore haha. L-R: Tze, Jiameei, Angie, me, Huiwen, Jolene.

Ok that’s it, on to teaching pictures! Keep in mind that I can’t put too many personal pictures because I have a lot of students and teachers reading my blog.

Yes, I’m now an Arts teacher too! I have no idea what to teach them so I just teach them what I know best – how to draw humans/anime-looking people haha

This was taken during extra class one day. My extra class is super muhibbah one cause I have Chinese, Indian, Malay and orang asli students. This is a proud teacher moment, my kids teaching the other kids

Another super super proud teacher moment too! I had the kids write an essay and told them to be very creative with it. This is a boy reading another boy’s essay (really funny essay) to another boy and laughing about it. LOVE it when they have fun with English!

This is so logical I absolutely cannot find a flaw in her premise hahahaha I love my kids.

Another proud teacher moment! Maybe I should just name this post “Proud teacher moments”. These are my kids editing each other’s essays before sending them in. I gave them the criteria I use to edit their essays and they switched books and marked their friend’s essay.

After 40 minutes, none of them finished marking and complained “Teacher, it’s so hard to mark!” I used that opportunity to give them a lecture on why it’s important to read through their essay first before handing it in. Imagine 40 minutes per essay x 30 essays. And I have 5 classes’ essays to read so 150 essays x 40 minutes = 6000 minutes!

“Imagine I have to spend 100 hours to mark all your essays every month! That’s if I don’t sleep, eat, go toilet or take a break at all. It’s so sad ok, when my friends ask me out I have to say no. Do you want me to have no friends, no life and to die a lonely death by the river???!”

Kids: Noooo teacher!

“Yes! So pleaseeee check your essays first and please don’t make so many mistakes. Or I’ll haunt you forever”

Dramatic betul lah teacher ni.

One cheeky kid asked: kenapa nak mati tepi river teacher?

“Sebab macam kesian sikit hehe”

Class erupted into laugher. This class really knows how to feed my ego!

This is Jaya reading Peter and Jane Book 3A !!!! PROUD MAX! It took her 9 months to get here though but we’ll still soldier on! Target is Book 5 by the end of this year. Although she can read better now (can pronounce words), it’s still hard for her to comprehend what she’s reading. Slowly..slowly.

Anyone knows the Oh My English crew? If you can get me connected to them, my kids and I will be indebted to you forever!!

This is why I need more books! I’ve been buying them for some of them (they love love love the Wimpy Kid’s Diary series). This is from the best class so they can read higher level books. Please donate more books to me if you have some that you don’t want anymore! Not too high level please, my better kids can only read books like Wimpy Kid’s Diary, not even Enid Blyton yet.

To above and beyond! Misty drive back to my kampung.

Tyre suddenly erupted when I got into the highway on the way home last weekend. Thank god the ronda guy came to my rescue!

And I’m soooo thankful it happened at the highway. To get home, I have to go through 1-hour of isolated kampung roads before reaching the highway and if my tyre burst then, I wouldn’t know what to do. There’s no phone reception most of the journey and I don’t know how to replace my tyre too. Actually, I do but I’m a chicken and am always scared to get out of my car if anything happens.

Thank you again LEKAS ronda guy! Don’t know why so bad luck tyre burst for no reason

Amazing relaxing time with my abandoned 1Q84 and a cup of sweet potato latte and great company

Can’t wait for December holidays although TFM fellows only get about 3 weeks off. Lots of work to do before then, and lots of planning to do during holidays too but I can’t wait for not waking up at 6 a.m! I hate waking up so early can I just teach somewhere where I can wake up at a decent hour!

Anyway it’s late (11.30 pm GASP) so time to sleep. Thanks for reading!

OH YEAH. Almost forgot my exciting news! I just got invited to speak at TEDx youth KL. Say whaaaaat?

p.s: sorry for the liberal use of exclamation marks and sorry if it got annoying. It’s an exciting month so must punctuate with !!! to show how exciting everything is!

WOOT! It’s an achievement for me because I’ve been a very very bad blogger and have stopped replying to comments since I started teaching. I remember the old Suet would reply to every comment thoughtfully because I know every reader has put a lot of thoughts in writing his/her comment as well. The old Suet also has tons of time at her disposal which I don’t now T__T

Someone mentioned that he really misses the pre-cikgu suet posts and I could not have agreed to it more. I miss my old blogger self too. Aside from my vain, narcissistic side, I thought I was a lot more outgoing, chill and fun too. Now I’m so serious and boring! Yeah I’m inspiring now but I feel so grown up! I feel like I don’t have a personality anymore where else I used to think that I was a person with lotsa character (chehhhh perasan)

It’s funny though, because I feel like I’m really my old silly self when I’m in front of my kids. I would dance (yes -___-), sing off-key (cause I’m tone deaf), tell very very stupid jokes and am generally very stupid with them. But because my blog is public, I feel soooo constrained with my thoughts and writing. I can’t be my true self (true self is actually quite bimbotic) for fear of being judged as not being a good educator. Truth is, why should your ability to teach and how good a teacher you are be measured by the personality you exhibit? Is there only one type of person who can be a good educator?

When people found out that I’m a teacher (people who know I have a blog and who have seen my blog – but don’t necessarily know me), they are genuinely surprised that someone as vain and bimbotic as me can be a teacher. So I post pictures online, so I like makeup and wrote about clothes, does that mean I’ll be a bad teacher/role model to kids? The society is so harsh that it scares me. A person’s substance, intelligence, level of perseverance and heart should never be judged based on how much she cares about her looks.

Vanity and intelligence are not mutually exclusive. So my blog used to have a lot of pictures of myself, but I’ve also written many many many deep and thought-provoking posts. How come people don’t take the time to read those first before jumping to conclusion on who they think I am. I’m perceived as shallow and superficial, but not taking the time to read beyond the pictures makes them worse.

I meant for this to be a short one paragraph post but I’ve gotten very rambly :/

I think it’s because I have nothing to prepare for tomorrow! Everyone is in Raya mood already and I’m actually really excited for my 10-day break as well! Though I think 10 days for this is a little too long and we have to replace back some days for Saturday classes anyways.

Anyway, have a good Raya break and Selamat Hari Raya to all my Muslim readers! In my ongoing effort to foster a better relationship with the other teachers, I’ve bought a few jars of Raya cookies -___- The staff room has turned into a bakery these days and we have all kinds of cookies left right center. I’m really excited to be opening them up and to be able to eat them in public after Raya! Haha.

Today, I saw a diary entry from one of students that got me thinking about what I’ve been doing here.

“Teacher, I want to read more English books so I can speak with you in English. I’m sure I can do it”

I just need to say this. Everything that I’ve done for the past almost one year is so freaking worth it.

From that moment in March when I made the random decision to apply for Teach For Malaysia, from when I decided to accept and sign the offer letter despite resistance from my parents, from when I took weeks to ponder on my decision and to convince everyone that it’ll be worth it, from when I decided to challenge myself even more and choose the most rural school on the list, from the first nerve-wrecking day of school, from the fatigue of 5-hour sleep everyday the first few months of teaching, from the tears I’ve shed after exiting classrooms, from the tears I’ve shed while IN the classrooms, from the many sleepless nights worrying about everyone’s progress, from that moment I heard my illiterate student read flawlessly..

Everything about teaching is so worth it. I don’t know how to articulate this better but if you want the most rewarding job in the world, one that will challenge you beyond your capabilities, one that will teach you humility and kindness, one that will give you as much as you’ve given, do teach.

Teach your siblings, teach your family members, teach your neighbour, volunteer to teach at an orphanage, seriously just teach your heart out!! Teachers are not born, they’re made. I really never thought I could teach ever before because I’ve always been impatient and arrogant, but teaching has taught me the value of patience, selflessness and humility. Teaching has taught me so many things I never thought I could still learn.

I think what I’m about to say will be super cliched, but teaching has taught me the value of life, the meaning of my existence and most importantly, it has taught me to be a much better person.

The girl, Jaya, could not read AT ALL 3-4 months ago. She does not know how the alphabets sound, much less read words. When she first came over for extra class at night, I was so shocked to find out that she couldn’t read the first few words in book 1A. Peter, Jane, and, here, the, dog. It has never crossed my mind that a child would not be able to read at all at age 13!

Thankfully, Jaya is a very determined girl. I started with alphabets with her, and she learned wholeheartedly. She wasn’t angry that we were doing something so “easy” and would constantly try her best. We then moved on to phonics and sound blends, before moving on to one-syllable words.

I gave her a kindergarten sticker activity book once, and she came back excitedly the next day with the whole book completed. She never fails to amaze me with her determination and persistence. When I gave her the Peter and Jane book to read at home, she copied the ENTIRE book in her exercise book so she could read it over and over again.

In the recent few months, she has been begging me for extra class almost every night. It’s a big commitment for me since I have tons of work to do at night so I often found myself telling her “maybe not tonight, next week ok?”. When I finally said she could come over, she would be very happy and would come 1-2 hours earlier than the time I’ve set.

Sometimes, I have about 6-7 kids over and can’t pay full attention to her, but she’s never whined nor asked for the attention. She would just sit and read out loud alone so I could hear her. I’m very sure whatever progress she has made thus far is 99% due to her own hard work and perseverance.

This is her, a few months later. When I first heard her reading one-syllable words independently, I was so excited I just wanted to cry and hug her. It’s been a long road for us to get to this point, and I’m sure she was as happy as I was!

Jaya gives me so much hope and she’s sending me a very strong message: to never give up on them. It took her 3 months to be able to read book 1A flawlessly, and god knows how long it’ll take for her to be able to actually be reading at her age-appropriate level.

But I need to remind myself that it’s not the duration that matters, but the fact that she can actually read now! I just need to start the motion for her, and hopefully she would be motivated enough and have enough basic knowledge to read more difficult words on her own later.

p.s: the video is a little long, but it’s worth it! at least for me it is ))

Last week, we were told of a new system to be carried out in 1000 schools almost immediately. All Form 1 students will take an English diagnostic test and will be placed in different classes based on their level of English. They will no longer be in the same conventional setting in existing classrooms but will move to different classes based on their English proficiency. I loved the system when I first heard it cause I have classrooms of kids from varying levels so it’s hard to teach sometimes.

But as usual, all the great changes with our education system come with their million challenges in tow. First of all, there was only ONE English teacher in the entire Form 1, and that teacher was me. We are incredibly short of English teachers and this system will not work because we need 4-5 teachers to teach all the classes concurrently. But since this is an order from the ministry, we have to roll out the system by nook or by crook. In the end, they took away all but 2 of my Form 1 classes and I was given a Form 4 class and two Art classes to teach.

So, almost overnight, I went from a Form 1 and 2 English teacher to a Form 1, 2 and 4 English teacher and a Form 2 Art teacher. Talk about flexibility!

Worst of all, I was given one weekend to prepare for my new classes and I’ve not seen the syllabus before so it was quite tough for me at first. Anyway, I’m not here to complain since I’ve resolved to work with whatever I can within my capacity so here are some pictures! It’s been a while since I last posted pictures and my past two months have been quite eventful so lots to talk about

This is a picture of the river near my school, and I go here sometimes after a really tough day teaching. It’s nice to just stand there, think and reflect a little and calm down before I go back to lesson planning

This if my favourite quote from Dr Seuss so I made a poster to put in the reading corner of my class!

Kids reading at the reading corner. Thanks to all the books donation (from UBS and you guys who donated through my FB page!), we’ve gotten enough books to fill a whole cupboard! Would definitely love to have more, ESPECIALLY low level kids’ books with interesting pictures. Do let me know if you have some stowed away at home and you don’t need them anymore!

My goal is not to have kids who can suddenly speak, read and write English, but all I really want to start from is to instill the habit of reading English books first. The more you read, the more things you’ll know!

This is one of the fellows, Aishah’s idea! Spent the whole day making the poster but didn’t laminate so now it’s a bit worn out It’s been working well in my classes though. I use it so my students know exactly what is the accepted voice level for each activity in class.

I’ve been using this to cold-call students too and it’s been quite useful. Their names are on the ends of the sticks and I’ll randomly pick them to answer questions in class/read out loud. I also call them out very dramatically like I’m calling the winner of the grand prize of a lucky draw (drama queen teacher haha) and they love it!

Our place is not called Simpang Durian for nothing hahah. Durian season is here so here we are, enjoying some of them in between classes. There’s a sack of at least 20-30 durians for all teachers to eat for free. AWESOME!

Sports Day! I loved Sports Day when I was young cause it’s so exciting! I was probably the most gungho teacher that day, screaming and cheering till my throat was sore but it was all so worth it cause Blue House won!!! wooooot. And the best part is, the girl I coached got Sportswoman Of The Year!

Everything about being a teacher is so incredibly rewarding you have no idea.

Except this…………..

I forgot my sunblock (what travesty!) so here is my two-toned arm. My face is also as black as coal now -___-

Went to class the day after Sports Day and everybody was too tired to learn, so I took these kids out and read to them for two hours. They have never ever been read to before so they really enjoyed the simple books on classic fairy tales. Thanks for the book donation again guys!

Students from the weakest class getting really excited about finding meanings of words from the dictionary! I was so happy when they were genuinely interested in finding the words and some of them are actually opening the dictionary for the first time. The kid on the far left is Rakis, I’ve blogged about him before Really happy to see him so invested in the activity!

By the way, see the kid on the far right being disturbed by another kid? Here’s a story I’d like to share about him.

Let’s call him B. He’s one kid I’ve been having a hard time with lately and there’s no happy ending to the story, unfortunately. He’s one of the weakest kids in the class because he cannot read at all and I’ve been giving him extra classes at night for the past 4 months or so. At first, he was doing ok but after a while, he began to lose interest and started disturbing other kids. I told him off and said that I’m not going to allow him to come anymore if he’s not going to take this seriously. Bad move, because he started hating me since.

He stopped coming to extra class and started losing focus in class. It doesn’t help that he’s been bullied so much in class too because he’s the really quiet kind. I’ve sat him down about 3 times after that, asking him what’s wrong and telling him how I want to help him.

This week, they took away this weakest class from me so I don’t have to teach them anymore. The kids in this class were very very upset (some begged me to teach them back, some so upset that they started cussing at me and telling me that I was a bad teacher anyway. Some were also very rude to me and said they want to beat me up. These are kids I’ve invested in the most and I know they’re angry because it seems like I’ve abandoned them despite me explaining the reason of the change)

Anyway I went to the class and said that I’d still continue giving them extra class at night cause these are my kids and they will always be, although I won’t be their English teacher anymore. (The rude ones immediately said “who cares, go away!” It broke my heart but I don’t blame them for their hostility.)

This boy, B, came that night. There were 8 other kids who came and we all had dinner together. One of them cooked for us as gratitude for giving her extra class. Anyway, B came into my house smelling like smoke and we knew he was smoking before so I talked to him about it (very nicely). We let him in after that, of course, but he got really upset since. When I sent him back, he refused to speak to me the entire car ride and he hasn’t spoken to me since then. I saw him again yesterday and brought him out to lunch before sending him back. Again, he refused to speak to me.

That’s him, walking back to his house.

I really don’t know how to get to him, especially now that I don’t teach him anymore. He’s so weak that he has shut off in class for every subject and I’m so so so afraid for him. I’ll keep trying because I know if I give up now, then nobody is going to care for him that much anymore and I’ll live in regret forever for not “saving” him. He’s so quiet and invisible in class that a lot of teachers don’t know much about him, especially when they have to pay attention to the really naughty ones in class.

This is his friend, C, who is also very weak but he’s been showing progress in extra class. I gave him some Peter and Jane books to read at home and he actually copies the entire book in his exercise book so he could read it later!

Over lunch one day, C asked me a lot of questions about KL. He then told me that he’s never been to KL and the furthest place he’s been to is Seremban. I made him a deal after that – if he does better in his English class and if his English teacher says he’s improving, I’ll bring him to KL with me. He was overjoyed at that proposal and nodded vigorously, saying that his parents would be fine with it for sure!

I’ve already decided where I’m going to bring him to, and I know it’ll be a trip he’ll never forget I just wish I can bring alllll of them with me!

The kids came for extra class that day and I surprised them with a movie night!!! We used the projector to project onto mahjong paper and had a really good time

I thought of adding some teaching-unrelated pictures, but this post is already heavy enough as it is so that’s all for today. Thanks for reading and thanks for all the donations!

p.s: watched batman yesterday and it was SO GOOD. watch it!

I haven’t blogged in a month. A whole month! That’s unprecedented. There are a few reasons why I haven’t been blogging, but I suspect the main reason is because suddenly, I’ve been getting a surge of people in school coming to tell me that they have read/ are now reading my blog. I mean, I know they will eventually find it, but I didn’t really think that there will be thaaaat many people reading and the depth of what they will read.

For example, two weeks ago, a bunch of teachers told me that they’ve seen my pictures when I was in the states. Dude…that was like a year ago? And I’ve disabled the sidebar so you can’t go to the posts based on the monthly archive/category archive so they must’ve pressed the previous page and read through every page?

That’s not the worst part. Students (classes I teach and classes I don’t teach) have been coming to me and asking me the most randomest questions about my blog. “Teacher please tell us how you lost weight!” “Teacher, why did you cut your hair so short?” “Teacher, your dad is in Abu Dhabi right?” “Teacher, you went to London last year?”

I was seriously quite dumbfounded to hear all that. These are things I blogged about a looooooooooooooooong time ago!  And I know most of them only look at the pictures since they won’t read the words (not being patronizing but I know my students, they won’t/can’t read English. Unless they google translate it haha. Even the teachers told me they don’t read the text cause they can’t understand much)

So yeah, I think that could be the prime reason why I’m a little wary about blogging. Granted, I only blog about school these days but it still makes me worried about what I should/should not talk about. Talking about my personal life is completely out the window, since they’ve also begun to look through my tweets/pictures I’ve tweeted. One girl came to me and talked to me really seriously about my boyfriend (his looks, his race, his hair etc) and she told me she found a picture of me and a guy on twitter and assumes he’s my boyfriend.

It’s very scaryyyyy! I think they’ve never had a teacher who is so open with her life (I always go into relief classes and tell them all about my life and experiences, they love my stories!) and are very curious about me. Also, when a student finds out things, that shit goes viral very quickly. And I don’t even have to tell you how gossipy they can be. If they see me with nice earrings, they’ll start talking about how expensive they are and how rich I must be (my earrings are always the RM10 for 3 pairs kind wtf). It’s quite amusing.

But my students can be so adorable too! One boy came to me one day and whispered cautiously in my ear, “teacher, jangan marah ye, tapi saya google name teacher. Lepas tu saya pergi tengok image. Saya nampak gambar teacher! Banyak sangat!!” (actually a bit lazy to translate but he basically said he google imaged me and saw a lot of my pictures)

My heart kinda stopped and I was flooded with a million thoughts. What kinda pictures are they?? Omg I hope I wasn’t wearing anything too sexy. Oh god why am I teacher now?? Was I being inappropriate? Never in a million years did I think this situation would arise two years back.

Then, in a meek voice, he asked, “Teacher, kenapa teacher takde jerawat dalam gambar dulu tapi sekarang ada?” (why didn’t you have pimples in those pictures but you have them now?)

-________________________________-

I mean, this boy just went through all my personal pictures from before, and this is all he’s asking me????????

I was obviously quite speechless for a while and he thought I was angry that he was googling me, so he kept saying that he was using the computer at the computer lab and apparently he typed “s” and “suet li” came up so his defense was someone already googled me before therefore it’s not his fault.

HAHAHAHHA don’t know whether to laugh or cry. So I just told him that I’ve been getting pimples because my students are driving me crazy (true story).

A few girls, in their English journals, have also written to me and asked for my advice about losing weight and cutting their hair. I guess it’s a good thing after all haha

Anyway, I can’t believe I’ve written a whole post about this. It’s been an extremely tiring day so I’m going to sleep now! (it’s 10 freaking p.m.) We have our sports day tomorrow and I’ve been working like crazy decorating the tents and getting (begging, more like it) students to help me with the march and forcing them to participate.

I never would have knew this before I was a teacher, but being a teacher is seriously the craziest job in Malaysia. We do every single thing imaginable and it’s really quite draining. Aside from being an educator, we’re also clerks (oh god, sometimes I feel like I’m more of a clerk than a teacher, with all that filing, report-writing and paperwork), we’re also drivers, painters, builders, coaches, interior designers, odd-job workers, negotiators, NANNIES, guards, parents, and the list never ends.

Just today, I was scurrying my kids to the river because there was a water cut in our area. Some kids have been coming into our house to shower, and there were too many of them so I brought them to the river instead.

In all honesty though, it’s been fun. I don’t think I will ever forget my two years here.

———-

p.s: remember A, the boy I talked about in the previous post? After our talk, well more like after my talk with him checking his nails, he’s been doing great in class. He’s also been talking to me more, always chipping in with random comments and greeting me shyly whenever he sees me. I’m really glad things are working out with him

p.p.s: I’m actually realllllly frustrated with a lot of things the government/ministry is doing now but I shall bite my tongue on this. I just have to say though, they are really making our lives a lot harder than they already are. Sigh.

Going back to school is daunting and scary. I woke up to the realization that I only have four more months left of 2012, and most of my kids have not shown progress at all. What am I to do?? I try my best everyday, they too have tried their best (most of the time), but none of this has bore fruit. My kids who can’t read STILL can’t read. My kids who can’t write STILL can’t write. My kids who can’t speak STILL can’t speak.

Their exam results are not improving, their behaviors are still unchanged. What have I not done?

Yes, sometimes I get the occasional ray of hope, the silver lining, but it is really not enough.

Teaching IS rocket science. There are so many elements to it and even if I’ve checked all the boxes, sometimes it’s still hardly enough. How do some teachers do it? I have passion, A TRUCKLOAD of it. I have persevered, every single freaking day. I have planned for many excruciating hours. I have invested my kids. I have reflected and have written points to improve on, and yet, it still feels like I’m back at square one.

Take today for example.

There was this boy, let’s call him A. He is usually quite defiant in class but in a quiet way. He doesn’t disrupt the class but doesn’t like doing his work. He’s alright in English, not failing but not getting As either. Today, he slept when I gave out work. This is one of the better classes, so I cannot tolerate having a student sleep in this class.

I walked to him, asked him to take out his book. He ignored me. I gently tapped his arm and asked him politely to take out his book. He ignored me. All his friends kept calling his name, telling him that he’s being rude, he ignored them. Finally, I raised my voice and said he’s following me to the principal’s office after class. He woke up, stared at me angrily and kept his stare the entire lesson.

When the bell rang, I walked to him and asked him to follow me. He didn’t budge. Everyone was around us now at this point and when moments like this arise, it really feels to me that I’m playing a very risky strategy game. In fact, I feel like I’m playing a strategy game in school everyday. Every move I make has to be thought through carefully first, everything I should say or do has to go through an elimination process in my head. If I don’t deliberate all my actions cautiously, my actions may backfire and may not have the intended outcome.

In this situation, I know I can’t back down. If I just leave him be, no one would take me seriously when I give out my consequences next time. But if I have a screaming match with him, he would win because I would be embarrassing myself. While all this is going through my head, he left the class.

He freaking walked out on me.

I’m glad that it was a good class and I have some pretty rational and respectful kids. They went after him to talk to him and asked him to follow me. Finally, I walked to him with my box and asked if he could help me with it. He just needs to bring it to the office for me. He took it grudgingly and followed me.

Yay!! Suet – 1

Ok, now, if I bring him to the principal, she’s just going to lecture him and maybe even cane him. He’d hate me after, and would only do as told in class due to fear. That’s not what I want either. So I sat him down in an empty room and told him that I want to hear from him. I want to know why he’s acting that way in class, how can I help him better, how can we work together etc. He did not open his mouth at all.

I asked him where he lives. Silence.

I asked him if he hates me. He shook his head slowly.

I asked him if he would tell me why he doesn’t want to do his work. Silence.

This went on for the next one hour. ONE HOUR. I sat with him, him with his head down, me with my gaze on him and hand clicking on a pen. After a while, the silence is beginning to bore me so I babbled on about my life. I told him why I wanted to be a teacher, where I was from, my college. I told him that there are other students who are crying for help because they’re so weak, but despite me helping them it’s still really hard for them. I talked about kids his age who can’t even spell, who can’t even write.

After a while, my stomach groaned. I haven’t eaten all day and it was already past lunch time. I told him I was starving, and that he’ll do my stomach a favour if he speaks up. Silence.

I told him I will never give up on him. Even if I die of starvation. Silence.

Then, another teacher came in and asked what happened. I told her that A slept in my class and immediately, she came towards him and pinched his arm really hard. “You’re lucky your teacher doesn’t beat you, but let me help her” she said. I was kinda glad she did this because maybe this kid really needs a spanking but I will never hit a child so it’s good that she did it haha.

Finally, I had to leave for another class. I asked him if he has anything to say to me before I let him go. He nodded slowly.

He licked his dry mouth, cleared his throat quietly and muttered “I’m sorry teacher”

“What are you sorry for?”

Silence.

“There are other kids who need me as much as you do, A, I’ve waited one hour for you to say something, anything, so better say it fast!”

Silence.

Suddenly, a tear rolled down his cheek. He took out his glasses and wiped his tears, but remained silent. I had to look away because seeing him cry makes me want to cry too T____T #weak teacher

The bell had already rung. I’m entering my weakest class after this, the class with kids who don’t even know what’s “big” or “small”. I told him to write  to me what he can’t say today, and that I will be waiting for his letter.

“Bye, A. I’m sorry too.” I said quietly when he stood up to walk out.

He didn’t look back.

I watched him walk down the stairs and back into his classroom, took my box and went to my other class.

—–

I’m writing all this down with every detail that I can remember because I’m going to miss these moments when I’m done with teaching. I don’t know if what I did with A was right but I have a feeling that he will open up to me in due time. Heck, I gave up my lunch time for him, he better! hahaha.

But today has taught me something new about myself. I’ve never been a patient person AT ALL, not to my family or friends or anyone! But there I was sitting with this kid who only uttered two words in an hour, who tested my patience greatly, but I kept telling myself that I won’t give up. He needs to know that I care about him and what he did was unacceptable. I was the most patient I’ve ever been in my entire life, and I thought to myself this while A was still examining his nails in great concentration:

“I think I’ve found my calling. These kids are the bane of my existence sometimes but I love them with all my heart. I think I want to be a teacher for good. Maybe I won’t be a great teacher for now, but I will be.”

Sounds super cheesy but I really did think that wtf. Sometimes, I drive the two hours back home from this godforsaken place and all I can think of is my kids. I think of their smiles and their stubbornness and their defiance and their jokes, and I smile to myself. You can’t get anymore passionate than this, right? So why take a different path if you already know what makes you happiest? Some people go through life not finding their passion, but I’ve already found mine.

So scrap everything I said in the first few paragraphs. I may not be making progress now with my kids academically, but I will be soon. That day will come, I have to have faith that it will.

HELLO!!!!!!!!!

Sorry for MIA-ing! I haven’t been particularly busy but just couldn’t find the energy to blog. I know I said I won’t be talking about teaching in this post but I seriously tried sitting down to think about what to write besides my life as a teacher…and I couldn’t think of anything! I guess I live, eat, and breathe teaching. My whole life revolves around it so much that it’s so hard to separate cikgu suet from normal suet.

But the good news is…school holidays are coming!

I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS HOLIDAY you have no idea. For the last school holiday, we had to go for training 24/7 and had tons of assignments to work on, but we’re absolutely freeeee this holiday! It’s TWO glorious weeks of not having to think about school! Well, not really. I have lots of exam papers to mark and to key data in to analyze. I also have to dedicate at least a whole day on planning better for semester 2 of school. My class culture is spiraling down to the depths of hell and I need to reinforce the culture of achievement again in class.

But can you believe it?? Semester 1 is coming to an end! I’ve been a teacher for half a year! This is both a happy and scary thought, because although I’ve survived 5 months, I also realized that I haven’t actually done enough. Progress has been excruciatingly slowwww and I need to work much harder for the next semester. I can’t let my kids finish this year without making incremental changes. Actually, I can’t let myself not be a good enough teacher to make pivotal changes for them.

Will think about that later, right now I just can’t stop thinking about next week.

I will be going to Perhentian next week so I’m incredibly excited about it! Sun! Sea! Sand! Serenity! I can now finally read a book for fun (been dying to read my unopened 1Q84 for months now)! I just want to lie at the beach reading my book with my Ipod and with amazing company. I’m going with my fellow fellows and since we’re all poor teachers, the trip is gonna be super low budget too so don’t have to worry about overspending!

Here are some pictures I took over the last few weeks, most of them are quite interesting! (of course, my life is super interesting ok. I was just telling my boyfriend that I cannot imagine how it’ll be like after the 2 years. ANYTHING I do after that will pale in comparison in excitement since it’ll definitely be nowhere as challenging anymore. I really should cherish the remaining year and half!)

So let’s start from where I left of the other day. Remember we got into the state championship for choral speaking?

These are my choral speakers practising hard in the bus on the way to the competition. It was a 2.5 hour bus ride so we were really nervous and went over the script a few times!

Unfortunately, we lost The competition was crazyyyyy and my kids were so intimidated when they heard the other schools speaking in English to each other too! We lost to SMK King George V but they were absolutely amazing! Top-notch performance so they deserved the win!

We were sad but also inspired to try better next year. When I told the kids that we’ll still have KFC anyway (that was what they wanted if they had won), they were ecstatic! Ah kids, so easy to please.

This is my most challenging class. I took this cause I was so happy that they were very engaged that day! This is an activity where I divide them into groups and give each group a plastic sheet (cheaper alternative to a whiteboard) and marker pen. I’ll write questions on the board (usually grammar ques) and they’ll write the answers!

One student’s depiction of me with glasses haha I look like catwoman with baju kurung!

Ok this is SUPER cute! I get my best classes to keep a journal each where they’ll have to write about the topic I give them and about their reflections of the class. This really helps me to know them better personally, and especially if they understood what I taught that day. I also get them to write about what they like/dislike about my class so I know what to improve on.

The topic of the week was on “love” and the girls went crazy with it! They divulged pages and pages of their innermost feelings on the crushes they have and it was so nice to read! Haha actually I’m just a kepoh teacher.

I love getting them to write in their journals cause it shows them that English is beyond just memorizing grammar rules and churning boring essays for exams. English should be fun! and they need to practise more than just writing in class.

So after reading a few journals about crushes, I was laughing out loud when I saw this:

HAHAHAAH! This was written by a boy and it was soooo adorableeee!

These are all from students from my best class, who are all averaging at about 60% right now. Quite a depressing figure, so can you imagine students from other classes? Lots of work for me to do still.

The scary road I take to send some kids home after extra class. They did well that day, so I rewarded them with burgers from this burger stall in the middle of the darkness just a little further down this road. We ate our burgers in the dark in the middle of nowhere while discussing about the huge snake (7 ft long!) they saw and how monstrous it was etc.

I looked at them in amusement while they were animatedly talking about the snake and thought to myself, “these kids know more than I actually do in some aspects, and to think that I pity them for being illiterates when they’re probably thinking the same about me not knowing their world”. It’s defining moments like this…….

One of the journal entries. hahhahahahaha!! Never thought me wearing makeup will make that much of a difference! She said my eyes are too small without makeup and it makes her feel sleepy!

How to write a narrative. This is why it takes me forever to prepare lessons, I usually have 3-4 mahjong papers for each topic!

The sad reality of our current education system, where students literally lift model answers from books and memorize them for exams (something I was guilty of doing before too). How do you learn the language this way?? This was for their BM class. Say no to spoonfeeding!

With Angie and a few other teachers for Teacher’s Day! My first ever Teacher’s Day T____T We had to play bola jaring, I missed it so much!

With some of my Form 1 kids. I need to take more pictures cause I know I’ll miss them so much later!

Teacher’s Day gifts! So nice of them to write me cards and buy me stuff *touched

So I wrote them thank you cards in return

After the other students saw this, a few started making belated cards for me too haha

Invigilating is the most boring job in the entire world. Being a teacher has given me the superpower of having 360 degrees eyesight, so no one dares to mess with me when I invigilate. Kidding..they mess with me all the time cause I’m not strict at all T__T

One time, they were done with their exam papers and were making so much noise, so I had to resort to creative means to quiet them down. So I put a bottle on my head and walked down the middle of the class to divert their attention. I started putting more things on my head and tried balancing them. They probably thought I was a super sohai teacher T_T

Half the stuff that were donated to me and sent to my school! Thank you so much everyone for everything, these things have been soooo useful! I give the gifts out as rewards and my kids love the wordsearch books

Recently, an anonymous donor donated a whole bunch of stuff to me, and these are very very expensive stuff too so I feel incredibly blessed! Thank you so much for all your support *tear

I was so excited when I did this cause I’ve always seen teachers back in my high school doing this and it looks so convenient!

But my excitement quickly dwindled down when I realized that it’s no longer fun when you have hundreds of them to do. Still got essays to mark *wails

And marking is the easy part. Data tracking and analyzing will be hardddd. Who wants to help me key in marks?? I belanja teh tarik.

Boys watching nervously as the girls check their bags during spotcheck. Super nostalgic! I was once a prefect too haha

I was marking papers in class and when I looked up, this was what greeted me  -_________-

This boy is super cheeky but in a adorable loving way! Once, he came to me hurriedly when I entered the class and asked if I’d like to see my future. I was like “errr..sure…” and he drew a very old wrinkly woman on the board, explaining how I get the wrinkles and how my hair will be white and eyes will be blind etc. -_________-

Bought this yesterday cause I was so depressed after marking their papers. They didn’t do very well and it made me doubt if I’m doing enough but it’s okay, will work harder!

Came back from class today and saw this on my table!

It’s a bunch of letters by this girl and she thought she’d write to me a chronicle of her life so far since she was bored during exam one day. and the best part is, they’re all written in English!!!

Lastly, I really wanna end this post and semester on a good note so I’m glad I saw this while flipping a student’s book! I wrote her a comment after her essay, saying that she’s doing really well in class and asked her to keep it up. This was her comment to me after that.

T__________T

No, thank YOU for inspiring me to soldier on everyday.

Okay that’s all for today’s update! Gonna watch an episode of Grey’s Anatomy since I don’t have to lesson plan for tomorrow (exam week). Thanks for reading!

i have so much to talk about, but blogging seems to be so time-consuming. whatever happened to me! i keep wanting to document every little thing but have been very bad at it. anyway, i’m actually pretty sick of teaching-related posts so the next post will be about me! finally! but you’ll have to bear with this one first.

if there’s one phrase i can use to describe teaching, it’ll be “it’s worth every damned thing”. here’s why:

i’m super proud of my 34 kids who have been practising everyday for the past month for the choral speaking competition. on the very first day of our practice, i told our principal that i will make sure we win the district championship if she allowed me to take school time to practise. i went to my kids after that, worried, because i just made a really big (seemingly impossible) promise. we are a kampung school, english is not their first or even second language, 90% of the kids had no experience with choral speaking, AND even I don’t have any experience with it, how are we gonna win the more elite schools??

but we kept working hard anyway. whenever they faltered, i pushed them further, sometimes to the point that i feel was quite evil. i told them that if we don’t do our best, we might as well not join the competition at all. what’s the point of joining for the sake of joining, if we’re only mediocre? i swear i heard them muttering angry words at me with their teeth gritted when i made them repeat the same stanza a million times until they got it nailed.

anyway, guess what? all the hard work paid off cos we won the district championship! to be honest, the competition was meh, but it’s still a huge milestone for all of us! our school has never won anything english-related before, so everyone was beyond ecstatic!

they screamed when we were announced as the champion and immediately hugged me. the conductor (who also won the best conductor award) counted “1,2,3″ and everyone said “thank you teacher!!!” and bowed! wanted to cry then but have to maintain dictator face lol. most memorable moment of my teacher life so far T___T

this is a picture i took of them when they were on stage. i thought they did a pretty bad job (which i berated them for later, i’m so mean). now that we’re going to the state championship, we have been working twice as hard! my motto for them is: we might be village kids, but we can win too! hahaha so lame but they love it!

thought i’ll share this simple anecdote of pure unadulterated joy with all of you. things have been a huge roller-coaster in school, but i’ll take whatever small happiness i can get right now. i know we’ll not win the state championship for sure, but to see my kids speaking a hundred times more english than they have ever spoken in their entire lives, to see them screaming in joy and feeling confident for once, is worth every second, every drop of sweat, and every sigh of fatigue for me.

camwhore teacher.

being a teacher really makes me feel like a celebrity sometimes, cos the kids love to take pictures with and of me! whenever they bring their phones, i’ll sometimes catch them sneakily taking pictures of me (eating, talking, doing work etc). and these are 13 year old girls, not even some hormone-raging prepubescent boys! and they’ll shower me with compliments everyday! “teacher you’re so pretty” “teacher your eyes are shining beautifully” “teacher your hair looks so soft” and even “teacher your nails are so nice!” (in malay of course). this is a very ego-boosting job wtf

anyway, that’s all for now. wish us luck for the state championship!

Remember I said I would create a facebook page to accept donations? I did it a few minutes ago so do check it out! I listed out some of the things I need so see if you have anything you don’t need and would like to donate it to me (especially books).

Here’s the fb page: http://www.facebook.com/events/213953588719579/

(29 March 2012)

Today, I went into my weakest and most challenging class to teach them simple adjectives like sizes, colours, and shapes. Thirty minutes into the class, even with a lot of activities and drawing and colouring, my kids got me very frustrated for not knowing words like big, small, long, short. I mean, what did 6 years of primary school teach them??

So I did something irrational after I realized that it’s been almost four months of school and they still haven’t learned anything! These 25 kids need serious help. So I put them into groups based on where they live, and came up with 6 groups of 4-5 kids each. I told them that from now on, they’ll have extra class with me after school/at night and I’ll make sure they attend, even if it means I’ll have to get them and send them back.

They were shocked and immediately told me that some of them live deep in the jungle and there are ghosts everywhere at night. I’ve been to their houses before, they’re about 30 mins away and the road is actually quite scary even in the day. But I told them sternly that it’s ok, as long as they want to learn, I will make sure they get to learn.

“Teacher, betul ke ni? Banyak hantu tau?? Kat tepi sungai tu ada batu nisan tau??” (Teacher, are you sure? There are a lot of ghosts!! There are lots of tombstones near the river!)

But in my frustration and gungho-ness, not even ghosts can scare me wtf. Plus, I have to show my kids that I will do anything to help them and hopefully they’ll want to help themselves.

When I exited the class, I immediately regretted doing that. Am I out of my mind?? Here I am, struggling with everything as it is, and I have no idea if I am mentally or physically capable of pushing so far. They live pretty far away so I don’t know if I could drive when I’m already exhausted from teaching all day.

But I remember Rakis, my orang asli kid’s face and the conversation I had with him yesterday. He used to be a really happy kid, but the past few months he’s been very sullen and angry all the time. He said it’s cause he can’t understand anything, and I can’t give my attention to him cos everyone else is crying for help/running around beating people. Plus, on that day, he actually crumpled up the worksheet I gave out because he didn’t know how to do anything. Rakis needs help, and I’m at my wits’ end as to how to help him.

So I started with him and a few of my weakest but less misbehaving boys. I got them from their village and it was nice to see them waiting for me by the roadside in the darkness, with their backpacks and jeans and best shirts and eager smiles. We had a very productive night reading peter and jane and reviewing stuff learned in school. This pic is of rakis reading with utmost concentration, and he was SUPER focused the entire time I just wanted to hug him and tell him that he’s doing great. When the other kids were playing around, he continued reading out loud. When I asked them to come up with their own sentences with a verb and noun, they kept asking me for help but Rakis sat there and thought hard for his own sentences.

Rakis

Iqmal, thinking how to read “Here”. Every page has the same few words but he still couldn’t read them, but he never gave up trying.

This was taken by my housemate, Angie, last month when I had the first extra class. We don’t have a table and can’t afford to get one, so we made one with cardbox and a broken cupboard door hahaha. It collapsed and we rebuilt it with tape again and again.

These kids are really really weak, but they are so eager to learn. After this first extra class, one of them asked me EVERYDAY if he could come again. But because things have been crazy for me the past month with assignments (for my diploma in edu) and lesson planning, I kept telling him maybe next week, maybe next week. After a while, he gave up asking So I’m glad things got easier and I could have him over again a few days ago.

Anyway, when I sent them back, we listened to hitz fm and had a karaoke session in the car (mostly me singing haha). They were bickering about what was the singer singing, “cikgu itu “happy” kan?” “bukanlah “here” lah!” “bukan lah “him” lah!” (the word was “hero” but that’s beside the point). I told them to read any English books at home despite not understanding them and to listen to English radio stations.Then, I met some of their parents. Some were indifferent and didn’t care where their kid was, some were very appreciative. But they all had one similarity: they all came from homes that are very not conducive to learning. Dilapidated, noisy, dirty..

I drove home drained from the long day but I could still hear their voices in my car. It’s defining moments like this that made me realize that they’re worth pushing myself for, even if I have to start from scratch, from peter and jane book 1a.

—–

I have so many more stories to tell! Some hopeful, some downright depressing, some frustrating, some angry, some happy, some really emotional. I’ll get to them slowly when I have time. Thanks for reading despite the lack of updates!

—–

UPDATE: On Friday, the day after the extra class in my house, a teacher reported to me that he saw Rakis reading an ENGLISH BOOK during moral class. I shook him and begged him to tell me more, and he said Rakis was reading about simple body parts like eye, nose etc and seemed engrossed. I wanted to burst into tears, mostly because I was so touched at his determination. Then I told myself: one step at a time, one step at a time. Body parts now, Stephen King next.

Sometimes I beat myself up so much when my day goes wrong (allllllll the freaking time) but I try to remain positive about it. There are a lot of things that are beyond my locus of control and despite me wanting so much for my kids, sometimes I have to resign to the fate that today is just not the right day for them to learn. I feel conflicted though, because we only have this many schooling days in a year and if today is not the day, and tomorrow is not the day, and the rest of this week is not the day, then WHEN is it the day for them to be good and to learn successfully??

Teaching is so tough and challenging. Sometimes I feel like if I had a chance to talk to my one-year ago self, I’ll tell her to NOT choose this. If I knew how much tears and sweat would go into this, if I knew sometimes, how little can a teacher actually do to help change circumstances, if I knew how broken down I’ll be, I would tell her to run far far away from making this decision.

Yes, my spirits are very low right now. My motivation level is hovering dangerously close to zero, encroaching slightly to the negative side. I am feeling very unorganized, there are a million and one things to do outside teaching and I have not done any of them successfully. That would have been okay if my teaching is going well, but I’m beginning to feel like I’m a lousy teacher. I used to think that although I’m nowhere close to being transformational, I’m still somewhat an effective teacher. That seems like an incredibly naive thought in retrospect.

But I know I have to be strong enough to pick myself up. To some of my kids, I may be their only chance to get help from. I know I can’t beat myself up if by the end of the day, my kids did not master English enough to make me a really transformational teacher in terms of boosting their grades. I know I’ve spent a lot of time making sure my kids are not driven by exams, I’ve spent class time not drilling them to answer exam questions but to tell them how the world is like beyond their village, to tell them what Psychology and Law and Medicine and Economics all about, to encourage them to do their best even if they fail their exams, to sing English songs so they recognize the words they hear on radio, to talk about love, to be there for them as a big sister.

And that for me, is enough for now.

Since all of us don’t have our diploma in education, we’re actually studying WHILE working full time. We’re currently enrolled in University Utara Malaysia doing our Post-Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) and will have to attend classes twice a month and almost every school holiday. Not only that, we have tons of assignments to do – just like any other university student! which is mind blowing because we barely sleep as it is with our full time teaching job.

But I’m not complaining cause after this, I’ll be a certified teacher and will get another degree so yays! Just that I’m really really…reallllly dying since I’ve feeling quite burnt out and still didn’t have time to recuperate just yet. I’m just taking each day as it comes but I’m feeling quite sad actually because I don’t have time to plan better for my classes. I want to do SO MUCH more and be a better teacher cause the kids deserve that, but I’m just swamped right now

Anyway I was feeling quite nervous to go back to school because

1. I haven’t had time to really plan my lessons properly,

2. I knew the kids would be out of control after the holidays

3. I knew I need to reset the classroom culture (positive and negative reinforcements, consequences, rewards, class policies, rules, expectations etc) but I didn’t have time to prepare much!!! GAH so angry!

BUT!  my kids were surprisingly not out of control like I thought they would. I was imagining monkeys being released into the wild, books flying in all corners, kids thumping chest on their tables ala king kong. but nada, just kids who didn’t do their homework. Phew!

I’m entering my two most challenging classes tomorrow so I really hope they’ll be somewhat controllable too. I just need more time to PLAN PLAN PLAN! I need so much stuff: books (ESPECIALLY books, all kinds!), stationery, papers, volunteers!!!!!!, gifts as rewards, more hours in a day…..

I’ve been getting lotsa emails offering to help, so thank you so much! I just need to set up an FB page to list down what I really need, but I don’t have time to T_________T Will keep you guys updated when I do! But I won’t accept monetary contribution because it’s quite unethical I think, to ask for money using my kids.

Breathe breathe breathe. Just gotta breathe first then I’ll have the energy to push on further. Should I start taking chicken essence wtf? Vitamin C? What gives you more energy?

Ok abrupt end cause gonna collapse soon. Nap time then continue planning the night away. Fun fun fun.

–

As I plan my lessons for tomorrow after a very tiring long day, I ask myself what I actually want for my kids. All I want them to do is to be able to read Harry Potter, Enid Blyton, Stephen King and all the amazing novels I grew up with. I want them to read so they can imagine a world beyond where they live in now. I want them to read Frost, Poe, Shakespeare and Kipling and be inspired. I want them to watch movies without having to miss all the nice parts because their eyes were fixated on the subtitle.

I want them to challenge what they read and to think critically about everything. I want them to have an opinion and to not be afraid to stand by it. I want them to truly enjoy learning, to tell me that I’m not teaching them enough and that they want to know more! more! more! I want their eyes to light up when they recognize a difficult word they just learned in the book they’re reading. I want them to yearn, to want, to be so hungry for knowledge that I have to placate them with more books. “Nah take them, take them all you educated monsters, you!”

I want SO MUCH for my kids but right now progress is so excruciatingly slow that I begin to doubt if I can ever achieve that. One day…

I teach Form 1 and 2 kids so they’re 13 to 14 years old. My kids are still young and very much..how should I say this..they’re more untainted. Although some of my Form 1 kids are very very naughty and they have the potential to go on to be terrible troublemakers a few years later, they’re still manageable now and I can still control them.

However, I definitely can’t say the same for the older kids. I enter Form 4 and 5 classes all the time as a substitute teacher, and I teach if they want me to but most of the time I end up just sitting down to chat with some of the kids. I always ask them how they feel about school, what they want to do after finishing school, what are their aspirations, their family background etc. Most of their stories are quite sad but I do try to maintain a certain degree of skepticism too with their sob stories cause they could lie sometimes.

Anyway, there are these two kids that stood out to me. One of them was A. He is the older brother of one of my students (who’s a pretty good student) and this A is in the “last” class. He told me he used to be as smart as his younger brother too but as the years go by, his results got worse and worse and he’s now in the last class and labelled as someone who can’t study anymore. In fact he himself told me that he can’t study anymore. He skips school all the time because he has to work to support his brother, his grandmother and himself since their parents had left them. He gets RM35 a day from working 10 hours in the farm.

A is a really funny kid actually and I love talking to him. He likes singing to the latest English songs and I was surprised that he could understand me perfectly even if I speak English with him. He said he wants to do so many things after finishing school, but he just doesn’t know if he can with his results (he usually fails all his subjects except English).

Then there’s this other kid, B. B is in the last class in Form Five and has always been in the last class for many years. When I spoke to him about his aspirations, he doesn’t have any because he told me he just “doesn’t know how or what to do”. He said he wants to study, but he doesn’t know how since he has never studied before all his life! He lives with his grandparents and nobody cares if he studies or not, so he just…doesn’t. He’s 17 now and realizes that he probably will fail all his subjects in SPM, but there’s nothing he could do because all his friends are in similar predicament as well and it doesn’t really matter anyway in this village.

I talked to him about many things, about having bigger goals and doing something bigger and going beyond the village etc, but he seemed really pessimistic. I can’t blame him at all, because that’s all he has ever been exposed to.

I’m sharing these two stories because they have been running in my head for a while. I’m glad I’m teaching Form 1 because I feel like I can still change things for them, I can still help them. For the older kids, they seem so resigned to their fate and the teachers around them have also subconsciously stopped trying with them. I can’t blame neither of them because I HAVE tried teaching them and it’s just really really hard. They have fallen so deep into the cracks of the failure of the system, and I think it takes a lot more than a teacher who cares to help them get out.

I walked into a form 5 class who’s having their exam today and I see half of them sleeping and half of them trying to do their papers but to no avail. The average passing rate for this class is 40%. 40%! Only 40% of them pass their papers! Not even an A but pass. What is going to happen to them when they finish school only with a pass? What is going to happen to the OTHER 60%?

All this makes me so upset! How did these kids got to where they are today without anyone noticing? Without anyone caring? There are tons and tons of them in my school, and this is such a prevalent issue in all schools in this country, especially in areas outside klang valley.  What does it take to help them? Can they even be helped anymore?

Honestly, I feel so helpless for them. I want to help, but I have my own kids to worry about first. I don’t want my kids to end up in that deep dark abyss and I want to get them out of the rut as soon as possible but even that is proving to be very difficult. So I guess in a way, these older kids’ stories, despite making me feel really sad and helpless, are inspiring me to help my younger kids.

But what’s going to happen to the older kids?

I guess they are just left with the way they have been for many years. They become the faceless part of the society, uncared for, uninspired, and life for them is just waking up each day and trying to make ends meet. They’re victims of the circumstances they were born in and the whole cycle just repeats itself with every generation.

This realization made me really sad today.

…except maybe for the weekend of March 17.

For that one day I get to leave all that stress of an educator behind in Simpang Durian, let my hair down, and dance to the Chemical Brothers, Flo Rida, the Wombats, Chase & Status, Tinie Tempah, Kid Sister, Kyoto Protocol, Grandmaster Flash (he’s still around?!) and my favorite…LCD SOUNDSYSTEM!!!! Well, actually just James Murphy and Pat Mahoney, but I don’t know why they’re not listed on the official lineup page :S

Future Entertainment and Livescape Asia were kind enough to give me two VIP passes to the region’s biggest music festival of the year! That means no lining up for hours on end for a stinky plastic cubicle, and comfy seated areas to watch over 60 acts putting on a show for 13 hours for an expected crowd of 30,000 people. 30,000!!!!! That’s like 100 times the population of Simpang Durian hahaha

Come join me at the biggest music party of the year! But no photos of me please, I have an image to uphold now wtf. No lah kidding, just holler “CIKGU SUET!!!!11” if you see me and we can have a blast together! Despite my profession, I still find the need to act my age once in a while

Log on to www.futuremusicfestival.asia or www.facebook.com/futuremusicasia for more information.

Event Info
Where : Sepang International Circuit
When : 17 March 2012
Time : 2pm till late
Admission : Super early bird RM98, Early bird RM138, Pre-sale RM158
Tickets : http://redtix.airasia.com/Events/FutureMusicFestivalAsia/

See you there!

My stronger class was top notch that day. I prepared an activity for them where they had to move around different stations to solve different clues before they could tackle the final mystery. The topic that day was understanding graphic materials (advertisements, notices, maps etc), but if I just got them to sit down and do the questions, they’ll really hate English. They loved it and moved around seamlessly whenever the timer (Mr Chicken) rang.

My second class was a weaker class and we did pronouns. I realized, while explaining the different rules of when to use what, that ENGLISH IS FREAKING CONFUSING AND DIFFICULT TO LEARN. So I decided to scrap the whole explanation and just played a pronoun game with them. We sang Bruno Mars’ Just The Way You Are together and circled all the pronouns. I personally don’t remember learning pronouns (or grammar for that matter) by memorizing the rules but just by gut feeling after seeing how it’s used many times. Then, I put them into groups and gave them a homemade whiteboard each. I put up questions on the blackboard and they have to compete by answering the questions on their own board and raise them up. I use this all the time and the kids love it!

My most challenging class was also super well-behaved that day! I’d given two kids special pens I bought from Singapore because they were amazing in the class before, and they’d gone back to brag to their other friends. So everyone was really good that day because they all wanted special pens too!

It’s hard to explain the special moments I had in that class that day, but I can never forget this kid, Rizal’s face when he became a superstar that day. He completed his worksheet in half the time other kids took, and spent the rest of the time standing next to me to help me mark other kids’ papers! T______T Rizal is the naughtiest but cutest kid in that class, and I was so proud of him. I saw him and his dad that night at the mamak, so I told his dad that he’s very lucky to have such a bright kid. Rizal was just smiling like crazy behind his dad and when I told his dad that Rizal is doing very well and is really intelligent (it’s true, he’s in the “last” class but this kid is brilliant), his dad couldn’t even believe it. I think I made his night

So overall, Tuesday was just a really good day for me. I felt like finally, the kids are learning and showing progress (albeit veryyyy slowly but I’ll take it).

Then Wednesday came and it was just a HORRIBLE day I wanted to cry. I found out that some teachers might not like me very much because I don’t help out enough with other work like decorating the halls, preparing for meetings, admin work etc. I’m already super worn out from preparing like crazy for my classes, so I don’t know how to find time to do those things! Apparently I should have brought my kids to the hall DURING my lesson so I could decorate the hall. This made me very angry but I can’t say much because it’s the reality that teachers have to do so much and it’s not the other teachers’ fault *bites lips

And my classes went really bad that day too. The kids were very agitated and tired because half of them went for some olahraga thing and had spent all their energy running and sprinting. I went to this somewhat ok class but that day they were just driving me up the wall. I slept really late the night before to prepare for this class, and seeing how they don’t give two hoots about my effort just made me really sad. I told them twice that if they continue talking while I’m talking, I don’t think today is a good day to learn. I gave them consequences, gave them yellow cards for first warning, put them in the focus chair etc but nothing worked.

So midway through my lesson where only about half the class was listening, I packed my things and told them that’s it, I can’t teach anymore. I told them to just copy the notes and study on their own for their exam next week. And for the first time ever since I’ve started teaching, I walked out of a class. I’ve wanted to do this many times with my challenging classes, but I’ve never actually done it.

Some of the kids came running after me and begged me to come back. They were at the corridor, some crying, some pulling me, some apologizing. I told them to go back in because they were causing a commotion, but they wouldn’t let me go. I was really mad at that class, but I realized I was being unfair to half the class who wanted to learn. So I walked back in, told them to sit down and just do their own work while I sit there to make sure they don’t loiter around.

One boy stood up, said “Stand up class” and tried to get everyone to apologize as a class but they were too afraid to stand/speak. One girl, who is sick that day and whom I spent two hours with at the clinic the day before, came to me with tears and asked me to forgive the class. I was this close to just bawling my eyes out to be honest wtf

Anyway, I took a few minutes to calm down while I prepared the materials for the activity, stood up and pasted papers around the class for the activity. I gathered everyone (who was all shocked and confused – “cikgu bukan tengah marah ke?”) and told them that we’re gonna play a game and the class went alright after that. Midway through, one boy came to me and asked me to forgive him, and I said I already did, that’s why we’re playing a game. (also wanted to cry at this point *crybaby)

Before I walked out of the class, I apologized to everyone for walking out and for being angry at them. I don’t want to be a teacher who likes scolding her students, and I told them to not make me be that kind of teacher. I just want to play games and have fun with them because learning IS supposed to be fun. The kids then came to “salam” me and told me they’ll not do it again.

So I guess…everything went ok…but I was really upset at myself for being so emotional that day. I can’t believe I let my emotions get the better of me and was so unfair to the kids who wanted to learn. I was tired and frustrated, but they are still kids after all.

I’m sorry this post is so long, but I want to record down everything that happened this week!

Today was thankfully a good day. There is this one very quiet kid in my really weak class who can’t read at all. This class is full of very noisy hyperactive kids, and I almost always miss this boy from my radar. Today I saw his work and realized that he hasn’t done anything all day. I got frustrated because he just sat there staring at me blankly despite not understanding anything! I told him (quite harshly) that I will see him in his dorm tonight to teach him what we’ve done today.

I didn’t think too much about it, but I heard from another teacher that he went to her with a huge smile and told her that he’s very happy because I’m going to teach him tonight. He said he wants to be good in English so he can go overseas. When I heard that, my heart melted into a big gooey mess. I can’t believe that despite my frustrated tone, despite my harshness, this silly boy was still so happy that I’ll teach him!

So I sat down with him during my dinner at the local mamak and we went through all the flashcards together. He cannot even read RUN and TRASH and ROAD and we just spent the 2 hours reading them again and again. Even the waitress kakak joined us and did it together with him! I could tell that he was getting frustrated for not knowing how to read but he went on and on. I told him to take a break, but he continued flipping the cards and trying to read them, his milo ais untouched.

Today, Loga has taught me so many lessons to be a better teacher. His patience and determination inspire me to try harder despite my bad days in school. His happiness to learn, despite me being frustrated at him, showed me that deep down inside, every kid wants to learn and wants to experience success. This is why I teach for Malaysia.

————————–

Here are two videos I’d like to share!

This is a combination of three of my classes singing songs and working in groups. (these are my stronger classes)

If you remember, I’m actually tone deaf and I can’t sing to save my life. But I’ve been using a lot of songs and have to always sing the loudest so the kids would sing along. I realize that if you want to have fun with your classes, you’ll have to make a fool of yourself first so the kids would feel more comfortable in class. Everytime I hear my voice I feel like cringing but they have never made fun of me *touched

TV3 came to one of my classes for an interview that day! Thank you Nazrul for this, my kids really enjoyed being filmed And the camera really added 10lbs to my face FML T___T

So! This reader has emailed me a long poem he/she wrote about me before and I absolutely LOVED it. Didn’t think that he/she would write me another one, but this poem is way more awesome and really good! Thank you, whoever you are, for taking the time to write this! I feel very very flattered and blessed to have a whole poem written about me

Like the placid stalk that holds the proud leaf
Through storm, wind or nightly breeze,
So is a teacher who molds the mind patiently;

But there is one suave Li who is learning not
Just to mold minds but inspire lives lovingly.

Like those tidal shifts that occur when the
Sun, Moon and Earth are jilted by gravity,
So will teaching have its set of difficulties;

But there is one cikgu Li who will persist
Unwaveringly as long as she can patiently.

Winter has its summer, Spring has its fall
Through yearly seasons they come withal
So is a teacher’s career that is a tall order;

But there is one sweet Li who will brave
Each season and leave a mark on pedagogy.

~

Teach! Oh teach, pretty Ms. Suet Li!
Teach until you would have inspired
And changed minds, lives and society.

Teach! Oh teach, young Ms. Sweet Li!
Until you see the child before you set
On a path of success and meaning.

Teach! Oh teach, mighty Ms. Sweat Lee
Until you would see a small spark
Ignite itself in the little growing mind,

~

Some days will leave you weary from
Planning each lesson meticulously
Only to realize they are not learning.

Some days will leave you excited from
Meaningful questions that are posed
In the way they ought to be.

Beyond this, you have the power
And capability to mold each mind
Patiently just by inspiring them
In each lesson constantly.

~

Teach! Oh teach, feisty Ms. Suet Li!
For you maybe on Earth for reasons
Beyond your understanding
But your student will always
Remember you for inspiring!

~Fashionablehost

that is all.

Read my article HERE if you want to know how I save money! Do like the article and the page too! I’m happy they chose me to write on this topic so I can spread my dogma on my kiam-siapness wtf

Do check out the entrepreneurs workshop that Prudential is organizing too if you’ve always wanted to know how to start your own business It’s on February 18th in PJ Live Arts Jaya One! More info here.

I’ve been having acute abdominal pain for the past two weeks since I moved to my new school. At first I didn’t think much of it since it could be due to the stress of settling in a new place, teaching or maybe the water etc. Saw 4 doctors and they told me it could be gastric/wind so I took lots of gastric medicine. The pain got much worse and some nights, I can’t move at all without cringing in pain. Miraculously, the pain would subside a little in the morning so I’d still teach (thank god).

But on Thursday night, the pain got so bad I can’t even do anything. Can’t breathe, can’t talk, can’t move. On Friday, I drove home (painful drive) and went straight to the hospital since there’s no proper hospital near my school. Saw a gastroenterologist at first cause I thought it had to do with gastric, then he referred me to a gynae cause it could be pelvic infection and finally I was referred to a surgeon cause it could be appendicitis.

The thing is, I’ve had the pain for too long for it to be appendicitis, so no one knows exactly what is wrong. So my surgeon gave me antibiotics and if I don’t get cured completely by Monday, I’ll have to have a surgery done to remove my appendix.

Surgery?? Now?? I am so upset cause I cannot afford to miss any teaching days or my kids would get soooo left behind. My mom was with me but she was more worried about me missing Chinese New Year wtf.

My parents are convinced there’s some black magic stuff and that I’ve been charmed (jampi-ed wtf) and got angry at me for choosing to go to a rural area. My mom called all her aunty friends to collect stories of people getting sick through black magic to scare me wtf. Also, the pain only started when I moved there but why would anyone want to harm a teacher?? They want me to transfer out now but no way I’m doing that. I’m sure it’s either just appendicitis or a case of very bad bacterial infection.

Anyway, aside from that I’ve been doing ok. I have so many stories to share! I spoke to this form 5 boy at length the other day and his story is quite eye-opening so I’ll write about that later.

I also kinda broke down for the first time last Friday after my very tough class with my more challenging kids. I taught them a song but only half the class would sing along, the other half was too shy/didn’t want to try. I sang the song to them over and over again, encouraged them, got them to pronounce the syllables etc but nothing worked.

I was also in pain so I can’t project my voice too much, then two boys started punching each other. The other boys immediately rushed to the crime scene, wanting to be part of the action too. I finally got them all settled down, sang the song, and talked to the boys about their conflict.

When I left that class, I felt my tears welled up. I felt like I just wasted these kids’ time because nothing probably went in their tiny cute heads. I had assumed that they could at least sing a song with me, I didn’t plan too much in advance and didn’t take into consideration their lower level compared to other classes. It was entirely my fault that the lesson went haywire.

And the worst part was, I only had 2 minutes to compose myself while I walk to my next class. 2 minutes to change from this distraught teacher to my usual cheery joyful teacher mode.

Life is just beginning to get a lot tougher for Cikgu Suet. But, all izz well.

I realized I haven’t blogged in weeks, but things have been crazyyyy! I wish I could get someone to blog for me because there’s so much I want to say but don’t have the energy, time and internet to do so.

So, I’m officially a teacher now! Students call me Cikgu Suet Li cause I think Cikgu Liew/Ms. Liew is too formal. I just drove the 2.5 hours home from a long day of teaching, so I literally  cannot feel my legs now but I want to update about my first week as a teacher in a rural school!

On the way to my school!

Yay, almost there! but another 40 mins more -___-

Cows crossing whenever they want, super scary!

The other day, I saw a goat lying in the middle of the road like he owns it. LIKE A BOSS!

My school! and view from my balcony. I live IN school!

I moved in last week and things were quite tough at first because we hadn’t got our electricity until two days ago. Use candle only T__T But! I surviveddddd. We also had to clean our inhabited house, we cleaned the cobwebs and dead insects and scrubbed the entire house! I’m very proud of myself that I survived cause I’m actually quite a princess. I don’t clean and I need aircon all the time, but now I’m such a kampung girl! *pats self on back

Angeline, the other TFM fellow, cleaning

Srs bsns

EUGHHHH. BUT it’s super clean now ^_^

Meeting my kids for the first time. So excitinggg

Anyway, about teaching! It’s been………challenging. Very challenging. I mean I know it’s going to be tough with these kids, but it’s beyond imaginable. First of all, I’m having problems with the boys catcalling and making kissing noises at me wtf. It sounds stupid but it’s a very real problem! Whenever I walk at the corridors, the boys will start, sometimes they even call out I Love Youuu.  I’m a teacher and this is really disrespectful! If it persists, I’ll have to talk to other teachers and get them to talk to the boys. They wouldn’t like it if people do that to their mothers/sisters too. Plus, I’m new, so maybe they’ll stop when they come to respect me later.

As for my classes, I found out that I have sooo much work to do with them. I was given the “back” classes for Form 1, and their diagnostic came up to be 0%. Some of them are illiterate, it means I have 7 years of catch up to do before I can end this year for them to be on par with the proper form 1 level. FEEL SO ANGRY that teachers let these kids waste 6 years of their lives! 6 years of going to school and coming back with absolutely nothing, learning absolutely nothing.

I guess that’s the biggest motivating factor for me. These kids don’t deserve to go back with another year of nothingness. They deserve to learn, they deserve progress and success. There’s absolutely no way I’m giving up until they show 7 years of progress in one year. It’s going to be hella tough though, but I’m glad my anger at the inequity is fueling my passion.

I also have one “best” class in Form 2. To be honest, I’d say they’re the best class only because they are well behaved kids. They don’t run around when I teach, talk or punch other people. Academic achievement wise, they’re averaging at a B-/C. Definitely NOT good enough.

Eventhough they’re well behaved, the other naughtier classes were definitely more engaged and active in class. The “good” class has a blank face whenever I talk to them, and would say yes in unison to ANY question; it’s as if they have been programmed to be that way from years of formal dictator-like schooling. It’s really sad and I’m planning to change that culture

My school is literally a drive-thru fruit farm! We have fruit trees all over and we can just pick the rambutan, durian, langsat etc anytime

It’s not official until you have your teacher name tag!

My poor kids had to carry their tables and chairs from the 3rd floor of a building to the 3rd floor of another building. They were so tired by the time they got to class!

Sometimes it’s Cik Sweat Li, sometimes Suet Le, sometimes Sweet Le -____________- Call myself Li la sigh

Meet Mr Chicken! He’s my timer for all my activities and I get the students to say “Hi Mr Chicken” and “thank you Mr Chicken” and they love it! Soooo cuteeeee

There are definitely plenty of challenges ahead but I’d say my first week of teaching went pretty well It’s just a lot of hard work so prayers/positivism/words of encouragement are welcome!

Will blog again when I have time. Thanks for reading, everyone. Sorry for the lack of updates!

Let’s backtrack all the way to where I stopped. Three weeks ago, Kem Skorlah ended very ceremoniously. It was a very exciting but draining week because we were putting in everything we had to make sure the kids got the best out of coming to holiday school, and we slept an average of 3-4 hours every single night. We all had a big goal, 30% improvement in English and Math, and the kids all knew and truly worked hard for it as well.

In Institute, we learned a great deal about investment. Our students have to be invested first before they can achieve success, and we have various strategies on how to make sure the kids know they can, want and will achieve. I think that’s really what’s missing in our schools. Teachers tell us to do well so we can get a good job yadda yadda, but there’s absolutely nothing beyond that. For kids who have families who care about education, you’re all set. But what about the many others who are not as lucky? They get left behind. Nobody tells them that they too can do it, so that’s why investing these kids is so important before we can even begin to change their life trajectories.

A secret trick to get them invested – give them food! Hahaha well not really lah, but making learning fun is definitely a good investment strategy.

Or you could get Deborah Henry to give them certificates! Haha.

To encourage them to speak more, I had an inter-class debate the other day. I gave the kids less than 24 hours to prepare and bear in mind that these are kids who NEVER ever speak English. They took the debate very seriously and all went back to prepare for it. Coincidentally, the media came over that day so they took lots and lots of pictures! The kids were so thrilled and excited to be in the limelight!

After the debate, we had a sharing session and my kids told me that they were really upset because they didn’t think they did well. I was just SO happy that they tried and were so into it despite not knowing how to speak at all, and I practically forced them to speak in front of a huge crowd with reporters and journalists and people from the ministry! Even I would pee in my pants.

We lost and they were disappointed but I was still so very very proud of them *tear. Thank god on that very same day I had to break the news to them, Deborah Henry was observing my class so I got her to give the certificates out. They were starstruck that they got to shake hands with our former Miss Malaysia and forgot all about their loss hehehe

I made a poster on the importance of punctuation! Found the idea online

The big day!!! We gave them a diagnostic on the first day and a final test on the last day to see how much they had improved. Remember, our goal was 30% improvement each.

We didn’t sleep the day before the last day of class cause we were up writing personal letters to all our kids. We want them to know that they can succeed after Kem Skorlah if they remain confident and if they continue believing in themselves.

Revealing the results! 31% increase for Math and 21% for English!!!!!!! We were all extremely proud of them, although they were clearly disappointed that they didn’t get the 30% increase for English. I told them that the 30% is our big ambitious goal and we purposely wanted them to aim high so even if they fall, they wouldn’t fall too far behind.

21% improvement in just 4 weeks, imagine what they can do if they had a year!

I was ecstatic for them! I had 3 kids who got more than 40% improvement, they went from a 40% to 80% in 4 weeks!!! From barely passing to an A!

When I broke the news to them individually, Fadzlan, my cheeky student who got the highest improvement in class was on the brink of tears. He couldn’t believe that he had improved, much less improve that much!!! When I told him that I wanted to call his mother to tell her that I’m extremely proud of his achievement, he couldn’t believe his ears. Seeing the look of pure unadulterated joy on his face made me want to cry so bad as well. He was so happy because he never thought he could do it at first, but when I asked him how he think he did, he was so confident that he did improve because he worked hard for it himself.

This is why I chose to teach, because kids like Fadzlan should be given the opportunity to experience such intense happiness from his own hard work.

We had a class full of crying kids that day. All of them had improved and they couldn’t believe it at all! “Cikgu, saya tak pernah improve langsung! Happy teramat amat lah! Tak pernah rasa saya boleh dapat penaikkan markah!”

It was such an emotional day, seeing their happiness and tears, bidding farewell to them, giving last minute parting advice. We told them that they had gone through enough negativity in their lives. Many people had told them that they cannot do it, that they cannot succeed, but today they really proved everyone wrong. They proved to the rest that if they worked hard and believed in themselves, they CAN achieve, and there’s no such thing as being born smart.

My first group of students, what a sweet memory.

Yay!

Ok I’m done talking about Kem Skorlah but there’s still so much stuff to talk about! Now you can see why I’ve been so busy. The only free time I have these days is spent either sleeping, eating or shitting. Sometimes cannot shit also T__T

This is from Inner Child Night! We spent an entire night playing and relieving all our childhood memories doing face painting, playing Twister, singing and dancing to Backstreet Boys, blowing bubbles!

Playing Pepsi Cola!

Childhood snacks! We even dressed up super kiddishly in our pajamas and were clutching our soft toys all night.

We work extremely hard and play hard as well whenever we could.

We celebrated Christmas yesterday! It was mainly dedicated to our TFM trainers from the states and the UK because they have to spend Xmas away from home this year. I super love my TFM family

Institute is coming to an end in 3 days, and everyone has been feeling extra melancholic these days because we’ve really bonded and have treated each other like family after 2 whole months of seeing and being with each other 24/7. We’ve seen each other’s smiles, tears, blood (yes) and sweat, we’ve held each other’s hands in challenging times, we’ve pushed each other and supported one another emotionally, and we’ve learned about everyone’s quirks and interests.

We came alone to change the world, and we’re leaving with an incredible network of 49 other similarly idealistic teachers.

I didn’t blog about this cause I was emotionally drained, but I broke down the day before the last day of Kem Skorlah. I didn’t think that I’ve been doing a great job, I thought I didn’t prepare my kids well enough, I thought I had completely wasted their time blabla but I had amazing people to support me and to hold my hand when I cried. I couldn’t have done this without them so thinking about being separated after this really saddens me

But I know I can do it because I really want all my kids next year to experience the same joy Fadzlan and my kids at Kem Skorlah experienced.

Gotta run now, thanks for reading!

So I’ve been doing the same thing for the past three weeks, I’ve been teaching at Kem Skorlah (refer to post below). Next week is our last week there, and then we’ll have two more weeks of training before we get catapulted to our respective schools next year.

We had a meeting with our respective schools next year and I’ll be staying at the teacher’s quarters with my other fellow TFM fellow for the next two years. While it’s good to be a stone throw away from school and only paying next to nothing for housing, it’s scary to live on the school ground as well. It’s like I’ll have to be a teacher 24/7 and can only escape when I go back home once in a few months or something. Also, I know I really wanted something really different that’s why I asked for a rural school, but as it gets closer, it’s scary to know that I’ll REALLY be in a rural area.

The quarters that I’ll be living in is completely unfurnished and the electricity has been cut, and to get the electricity, we’ll have to go to Kuala Pilah which is 1.5 hours away. There’s only one bank and it’s Agro bank. There’s no KFC/McD obviously, no supermarkets (only small kedai runcits), one furniture shop to get our furnitures…and that’s it.

Ok don’t want to think about it. For the kids, for the kids!

That’s my personal mantra for the next two years. When the going gets tough, I’ll just tell myself that I’m doing this for the kids. I’ve already decided that I’m going to invest 90% of my time, energy, and emotions into doing this, and only 10% for everything else in my life. I’ve been finding it terribly hard to balance things outside teaching (personal relationships, friends, family, other interests/hobbies etc), but it’s okay because I have my 90%. I know this thinking is warped, but if I want to do a good job then this is what it takes.

Speaking of doing a good job, we’ve been getting a lot of visitors lately in our classes. From our board of trustees, to the staff members, to our corporate partners, to the media. There’s so much pressure to perform it’s crazy! Good thing is I think all of us are trying really hard and it’s definitely translating to students’ achievements. Bad news is, we’re told that while we’re on the pathway to be an effective teacher, we’re nowhere close to becoming a transformational teacher.

Transformational. Even hearing that word sends shivers down my spine. If it already takes so much to be an effective teacher, how much more does it take to be a transformational teacher? A WHOLE lot more, that’s what.

An effective teacher makes sure her students are on track to finish that academic year, that they’re not left behind academically. A transformational teacher goes beyond that and makes sure her students have completely different life trajectories after being taught by her. She instills in them that they, without her, would be able to believe that they can succeed and will work to succeed even without her help. A transformational teacher expects her students to achieve as much as what she would expect her own children to achieve, she would not accept failures and will have high expectations for her students.

Bear in mind that our students are on average 4-5 years BEHIND their academic year, so we have to catch up with being an effective teacher first before we could go anywhere close to being transformational.

So I’ve been teaching for 3 weeks now and already I’m swamped with so many challenges. I think talking about the challenges itself will take a few posts and I’ll get more into it later. All I can say is, academically, the disparity between our students at Kem Skorlah (and they’re not even in the worst schools, which we’ll be going to next year) and with the urban middle-income students in Klang Valley is HUGE. I saw the detrimental effects of PPMSI on the ground and it’s not pretty at all. It did so much damage to these kids whose basic English literacy skill is almost nonexistent. They fall further and further behind, and from not knowing how to do Math and Science already as it is, now they can’t even understand the questions!

Don’t get me wrong, I agree with having Math and Science in English, but definitely not when around 60-70% of the nation’s population is not even well-versed in English yet. Improve their English first then think about such a huge policy change! It’s not what benefits the Klang Valley middle-income people. I learned Math and Science in Malay and yet I could do well in college after that, and yet I’m positive I can compete with anyone else globally. Why? Because of my level of English. So how do you expect people who don’t know basic English to keep up? I can talk about PPMSI for eternity and don’t get me started on MBMMBI (do we really need such a long acronym?).

Anyway it’s been a long rambly post and I have to get back to my lesson plans. I’m compiling my own “kids say the darnest things” logbook so I can remember all the funny things they say, hopefully I’ll post that soon!

Have a great weekend ahead, and thanks for reading despite me not blogging that often anymore!

Things are very hectic here. We spend about 13 hours each day with each other for our formal training, and only about 1-2 hours before we sleep every night to complete work for the next day. I have completely no time to do anything else, which is good because it keeps me focused for these 2 months. I brought my kindle and my super thick Murakami book, but I’ve only read 1/2 page so far before I had to complete my work for the next day T__T

It might be too early to tell, but I don’t think I’d ever go through anything this strenuous and intense again. Our trainers (all of them from either Teach For America or Teach First UK) are all extremely committed and energetic, and despite the sessions being that incredibly long, they made them seem so fun and engaging. The people here are all beyond amazing, and each and everyone of them constantly inspires me further everyday. Everyone is so invested in the same vision and goals, it’s just nice to feel all that energy and motivation. Definitely makes me forget that I’m extremely sleep-deprived everyday.

The closer I get to starting my teaching journey, the more convinced I am that the goals Teach For Malaysia is trying to achieve will become a reality. Actually, I can’t even begin to describe how I feel at this point. I really need sleep.

A video that inspired me today:

“There is no movement without the first follower. We’re told we all need to be leaders, but that would be really ineffective.

The best way to make a movement, if you really care, is to courageously follow and show others how to follow.

When you find a lone nut doing something great, have the guts to be the first person to stand up and join in.”

By the way, Teach For Malaysia‘s 2013 cohort’s application is now open! There are 50 of us this year and 75 of you next year. Apply if you want to make a difference too!

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Ten days….this is crazy. It’s really beginning to dawn upon me that I’m REALLY going to be a teacher in a rural school, that I’m REALLY doing this permanently for the next two years, that I must be REALLY out of my mind. I know I talk about this too much these days but bear with me, I just can’t stop thinking about it!

I mean..I’ve been talking about this for months on end now and everyone around me is quite sick of it too, but it feels so different now that it’s getting so much closer and I’m beginning to slowly start packing my life up for it. I love talking about the fact that I’m doing this, but on days like this when I sit and think about it more, I sometimes feel like my knees start wavering and that I might pee in my pants that all the talk has to translate into action now.

IT’S SO SCARY!!!!!!!!!! BUT I’M SO EXCITED!!!!! BUT SO SCARED!!!!!

Sorry just had to get it out of my system. I’ll probably say the same thing every few days from now on, so pretend you’ve not heard of it before and just layan me ok! It’s just me starting this very foreign journey so out of my comfort zone. It’s like..tasting durian for the first time, so scary but exciting! Or like getting married and having children, or like deciding one day to completely move somewhere far away forever, or like falling in love for the first time, or like getting drunk for the first time, you get the gist.

Most people I talk to don’t understand my fears, cause they think we’re just going to be teachers and how hard can it be right? My mom met a friend during dinner the other day, and she told her that I’m going to be a teacher because “it’s too hard to find another job”. They then proceeded to talk about why it’s a good job not because I’ll be changing lives or making an important impact on the future of tomorrow, but because it’s an “easy job ma! so many days off and get good pension also.”

Why I know this is going to be much harder than just doing what a conventional teacher does (not that that’s not hard already): We are expected to finish our pre-reading of a 300-page book, another 200+ pages of articles on transformational leadership and teaching, and we have to run a community project and write an essay on it, all due BEFORE the training.

After going through 3/4 of the pre-reading, I realized that this is going to be way harder than I’d thought. We’re going to be expected to bring the students in our classrooms (whom I assume will be at least 3 years behind their grade level) up to their respective grade levels. This means we have to make sure that at the end of the year, they would have progressed THREE years from the level they were at in the beginning. This is if they’re only 3 years behind, which I would be very lucky if that’s the case. (context of being 3 years behind: if 13 year olds in my rural school can speak english as well as what’s expected of 10 year olds (can converse in simple English, can write short paragraphs))

It’s intimidating and extremely daunting, but I’ve learned that we have to set very high expectations and goals, and merely going through the syllabus with them is no longer sufficient.

Actually I’m getting a bit rambly, and the content of this post is getting so specific that many people may not be able to relate. But be prepared to read a whole lot of this when I start cause I don’t think I’ll be capable of talking about anything else wtf. Sorry if I’m boring you T__T

On a more personal but very related note, I’ve been an emotional wreck the past month or so. It has started a big grotesque circle of destruction, where I get upset at anything and everything, and I get upset that I’m upset at anything and everything, and THEN I get upset at the fact that I got upset but not do anything about it because I simply can’t control my emotions, repeat cycle of destruction everyday and you get a very drained me.

It’s like I’m PMS-ing every single day of the month of the year.

Why this is related is because if I’m all over the place, if I can’t even keep my emotions in check, how am I going to be able to stand in front of these kids and be a role model?

Umm, maybe I shouldn’t talk about this in public…what if the team reads this and think I’m too unstable for this job wtf

But I’m documenting this, and documenting all my rambly thoughts because I think they’re important. They reflect my exact state of mind prior to my journey, and I want to remember where I started.

I start here, completely scared and nervous, completely uncertain and uncollected, but I know I can do this and I’m determined to progress as much as my students. That’s the spirit….right? *gives self pep talk