what i learnt in school
I've been doing relief teaching (for History) for a bit more than a week now at East View Secondary School, a school 15 minutes away from my house, and one which has often been described as a 'neighbourhood school'. The term is of course reductive, and quite often one around which stereotypes agglutinate: the students are ill-disciplined, they are not interested in studying, there are gang members among the school population, etc.
My first week was a difficult period of adjustment. It takes a lot to enter a classroom and to establish a personality from zero. I was very aware that I was a new face and would thus be subjected to certain trials: the kids would test my threshold of patience, see what they can get away with. My position as an unknown quantity meant anxiety on my part, but for them not being recognised with a name meant liberation from surveillance. And thus when I handed out papers they giggled when I mispronounced names, multiple hands shot up when I called out somebody, I was vaguely aware that seating positions were shuffled under my ignorant watch: couples were reunited, cliques re-established, no more the strategic estrangements that kept mischievous combustions at bay.
I have to admit the frustration I felt when half the time spent in a classroom was spent at raising my voice, issuing stern warnings (a whole spectrum of threats was taught to me by the outgoing relief teacher: confiscating EZ-link cards, making them stay back after school, invoking the names of the Discipline Mistress and the Vice-Principal), pleading for the students to return to their seats. The din from the classroom was overwhelming; a tidal wave of restless yelps, red-faced bully laughter, the wailing of the freshly-smacked...a boy at the back gripped the sides of his table and screamed, 'I hate History!' A girl at the side of the class stared at me as if she was putting a hex on me; how in the world did she leave her house in the morning with eyeliner on? A boy ran out of one of the classroom doors and re-entered through the other, as if he was an actor rushing to make an entrance from the opposite wing. A girl was putting some green dye in her mouth, probably Art Class leftovers, and spitting foul green liquid at her classmates. A rosette of lurid green sputum bubbled on her desk. She was like Linda Blair in the Exorcist, but ten times worse, because I couldn't wave a crucifix at her and make her hair evaporate.
But: as I was novelty, the one they could gleefully blindfold and turn around like the guy in blind man's buff, there was something else, almost melancholic, in the background. Some of these classes have had up to four relief teachers in the space of half a year. Every new relief teacher was an opportunity to start again, to revise the rules; but it also meant abandonment. This was what was unspoken in class--why were they fostered out to so many of us, was it a) frustration b) hopelessness c) surrender or d) all of the above that ushered the hasty exits of all their former teachers?
Over the next few days, I realised how humbling teaching can be. For someone used to attention, indifference can be bewildering. I learnt to pace up and down the aisles, standing in the crossfire of rubber bands, eavesdropping on conspiracies of after-school plans, trespassing through barbed wire enmities, lingering over baroque mind-maps, scraps of notes, learning that a boy had cried because a classmate had written the words 'I LOVE' over the name of Mr Jeremy Wee, his English teacher on his journal cover. It is an illusion to think that the classroom is a homogenous neighbourhood. There are overlapping ghettoes.
This morning, a girl in one of the classes got sick and vomited on the floor. She went to the toilet, and I was frankly at a loss as to what to do with the mess under her table. If this was back in RI, I could imagine the class too being paralysed, by both helplessness and embarrassment. Someone might then suggest that we call the school janitor. But in that class, a boy walked up to me, a tall, gangly boy who I once scolded for not bringing his spectacles to school. He said, 'Cher, I go toilet ah.'
I asked him what for.
'I go and take the mop.'
'Do you know where it is?' I asked. He nodded. The boy promptly came back, with a mop and bucket, and cleaned up the mess while I resumed teaching. He did everything with stoic professionalism, although I caught him taking a deep breath, hands on his hips, surveying the mess as he brought himself up to the task. He was probably used to doing housework.
This all happened in a sec one class. And at that point I believed that the boy's initiative, that hands-on spontaneity, was a mark of intelligence. I wished I could have rewarded him in some way for that act. Actually I believe that all the students I teach are intelligent, although perhaps they respond better to visual than auditory input. I have to constantly strain my throat to get them to quieten down, but I realised that when I draw on the whiteboard they are rapt, respectful. And thus I would sketch the faces of Brahmins and Shudras, the four Ministers of the Melakan Sultanate, the Shang dynasty Emperor. I would draw four-clawed dragons, cavemen, even the faces of some of the students, who would blush at the attention. I have had so many requests for drawings: Stamford Raffles, a character called Lady Xin, exhumed from her tomb, from their textbook, and even a hamster. I have complied with all. After lessons, I allow the class to take pictures of the whiteboard, even though I know some teachers impose detention on anybody caught with a handphone in class.
While conducting a mock-election in class, to familiarise them with the meaning of democracy, I picked two students out and asked them to make a campaign promise to the class. In one class, one student offered to have a computer in class, another offered air-conditioning. It did strike me how these were freely available in other schools. In another class, one of the students offered the class money, the other offered 'food every day'. The majority of that class chose 'food every day'.
There's something to learn from that response. The students are hungry. In more ways than one.
My last day will be this coming Thursday. And then the school will start to have exams; they have more than enough teachers to invigilate. I might be called back after the exams, but everything's still up in the air. It's going to be less than two weeks that I would have spent at East View Secondary, but I have a strong feeling that I will miss the students, the cries of 'hello, cher!' when I walk past the canteen, the cheering when I give them toilet breaks, and that one time, when passing by a whole row of students, the voice that reached me: 'Mr Alfian, we kena detention, come and save us!'
(Post a new comment)
 | haha
 lankylee
2007-04-24 15:30
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your female students (and some shy boys) are sooooo going to stalk u lo! weeeee weeet! hehe. (Reply to this) (Thread) |
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(Anonymous)
2007-05-10 14:22
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I never quite know why I classify you as a hero. There are many other intelligent people too that I don't respect. I guess this entry tells me why... You appreciate. Appreciation inspires. (Reply to this) (Thread) |
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(Anonymous)
2007-05-11 14:50
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It brought back lots of memories when you described the scene in EV. I graduated years ago but all those bullying and ganging up, those little wars between classes are still fresh. I hated most of my time there but it thought me a valuable lesson. About being strong enough when you're under fire not only from the teachers but your damn schoolmates too.
I went to Homesick on its opening night and it was such a performance! Looking forward to attending more of your works when I return.(Reply to this) (Thread) |
| Well Done! 
(Anonymous)
2007-05-16 09:33
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its a little shocking that ure pretty capable of teaching. its a first for me to know abt this cos i didnt think u were such person haha... i'm also a teacher myself, but pre-school. thank god that the rebelling, the vomitting, the crying, the bullying standards are so much lower at my level compared to urs. lol
btw, evss is quite hardcore and has been hardcore since my elder brother's time way back in 1989. alot of 'neighbourhood schools' are like that. thats why alot of students frm the 'ghetto' schools look down at the tameness of 'wild child-wannabe' acts frm school students like in ACS esp. cheers!
PS: i hope to find time to catch Asian Boys V3.
iman(Reply to this) (Thread) |
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(Anonymous)
2007-05-18 13:17
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I'm glad that you had the chance to see the other side of neighbourhood schools. Though most tend to associate it with the stereotypical views you'd mentioned, but after studying there, it was a real eye-opener. Students there are really close-knit, helpful and cliques often overlapped, so basically the class stick together. Moreover, like the vomitting incident you mentioned, it's these little things that the students have the knack of doing that amazes me. Really memorable. (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| wow! you need the money?
(Anonymous)
2007-05-21 11:06
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Is this your first time teaching in a school? Didn't your sister prepare you for what to expect?
Anyway, they made you mark so many scripts because even though the students don't know who you are, the administration probably knows. And they always squeeze whatever they can get out of people. That's how they are.
angelsoul(Reply to this) (Thread) |
| Teaching
(Anonymous)
2007-06-12 07:21
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I'm a 19 year old who just graduated from Junior College who is currently residing in Finland. Your post brings back many memories of the time I was a relief teacher myself. Both schools were "neighbourhood" schools, Chai Chee Secondary and Greenview Secondary. I taught English and English Literature to both upper and lower secondary students and I found that what these students want isn't all that fancy. They just want to be understood.
Being from a neighbourhood school myself, I thought I knew what I was in for. In reality, I was in no way prepared. In Chai Chee the students ran away from detention, and we had to confiscate their shoes when we detained them so they wouldn't run off. There were 3 students from my form class, who were never in class. Like the previous teacher put it "Tak nampak batang hidung sekali pun". It was so depressing, because everytime I asked them to buy a book, I would have half the class raise their hands and tell me they were on financial assistance, and that they couldn't afford to study. Which was, of course, why there were countless drop outs every year. And teachers who left with them.
I stuck it out for as long as I could and then eventually I left because I was offered a job at Greenview Secondary School which was nearer to my home. It broke my heart when on the last day, they told me they had been through 6 different relief teachers, and when one student yelled "Ms Marlina, I love you". The same classes that angered me daily gave me their utmost cooperation because it was "my last day" with them and they didn't want me to leave with bad memories of them.
I cannot help but think that some of the standards in certain schools are just not good enough. Facilities are just not there, the syllabus encourages more memory work rather than analysis and the word examination should really just be synonymous with "knowledge regurgitation". There can be so much more done to enrich the lives of these students, but it isn't.
I don't know if this sounds overly idealistic, but I really can't help thinking that more should be done, to equalize the standards between schools. Don't we want ALL the students to be offered the same education and facilities?
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(Anonymous)
2007-07-26 04:40
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very moving post. appreciation counts at the very littlest things. thank you for the fine entry man~ (Reply to this) (Thread) |
| Sell Nike,Jordan,Air force 1 sneaker
(Anonymous)
2008-05-02 22:21
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