My life - Part 42

I was to teach Science (of all things!) to Form 2 students. However, I was lucky again. When I arrived in the school, there was another temporary teacher there (from my school, actually - I did recognise her!) and she was supposed to teach English and Malay - so we spoke to the school administration and they agreed to let us swap.

I loved teaching. Many people told me that with my temper, I would not make a good teacher. But on the contrary. I had immense patience with my students. And this is the thing about me. When someone shows a desire to learn, I can spend a lot of time teaching them, no matter how long it takes or no matter how many times I had to repeat myself.

Like most Malaysian schools, the classes were streamed from the best students all in one class, to the worst students all in one class, and the in betweens in various other in between classes. I had to teach a mixture of classes, from the best to the in betweens to the worst.

One of the things that I realised straight away was that in the worst classes, there were students who could not even read and write. And here again, is the problem with Malaysian education. There is a public exam in Standard 6, and regardless of whether a student passed or failed, they are automatically sent to Form 1. So in Form 2, I had illiterate students. And then I also had dyslexic students. These I had no idea how to teach because obviously I am not trained to understand how they look at things.

But the illiterate ones, I could see that some of them were really interested in learning but they just couldn't read or write. So, with the permission from the school administration, I told them to come to school on Saturday morning and I would teach them how to read and write. Word spread, and soon I was having students from the good classes coming on Saturdays too although I told them this was a reading and writing class. But they came anyway, and I used it to my advantage, I paired a good student with an illiterate one and had all sorts of games and competitions to see who could spell, read and write correctly the most, and I would give the winners small presents.

Of course, there were students who were not interested in learning at all. At first I tried to talk to them but there are some who just don't care. And I had to tell myself that I can't save them all. And I ended up telling them that it's their choice if they don't want to learn, but I expect them to be quiet in class and allow the rest to learn. For the most part it worked.

I liked teaching Form 2 because I think that is the age when it's not too late to be moulded, and they are open to new ideas, new inspirations, new dreams. And what better way to open their eyes to new possibilities than to have a teacher who is a dreamer herself, telling her students that nothing is impossible, everything is within their reach, they decide their future.

I have no idea whether they were inspired or not but I have nothing but best wishes for all of them. There was one illiterate Chinese boy who I remember in particular, because he was completely illiterate (the rest were more or less partially illiterate). With a lot of patience and encouragement, he could read simple English by the time I left. And I thought to myself, if I could help just one student, I have done my job. 

It's very fulfilling to be a teacher. Now that I am jobless, I sometimes think of teaching again. Not in university but in school. There is so much that you can do with young students, the most important of all is moulding them into useful human beings. The reward is seeing a once illiterate Chinese boy read in English in front of the class, to thunderous applause. It doesn't get any better than that.