So it's official now: I'll be posted to SMK Gemas for the next 2 years
(located about 45 min - 1 hour from Bukit Beruang), and I'll be teaching
History. Come November, we will be sent to 'teachers' bootcamp' at the Institute, and in Jan, we will begin teaching in schools.
Predicting that my subject was either going to be History, English or
Geography (or a combination of these), I insisted on only teaching these 3
subjects to my 2 test subjects students at a tuition centre here, as a
way to familiarize myself with the syllabus and prepare for the Fellowship - and it's been fun, but
challenging at the same time. I'm amused when I think of my students sometimes.
Both are Form 1 students, a boy and a girl, who hate each other's guts. Yet
when one of them forgets to bring something, they make up with each other just
for the moment, to borrow whatever it is from the other - after which they then
resume their squabbling. Like most students who have the opportunity to be tutored, they complain about their school teachers a lot.
It's funny, because my mind raced back to my days as a Form 1
student, upon being told that I am going to be teaching History. Cik
Cheong had been my History teacher then, and who could forget her? A
tiny-framed, shrill-voiced, bespectacled Chinese lady whose eyes bulged beneath
her glasses everytime she emphasized a point or lesson to us. Cik Cheong had a
way of making Sejarah an art, literally, for she made us colour our notes with
colour pencils and decorate our notebooks with portraits of historical figures
and pictures of artefacts - which I hated, because I was never good at art and
drawing.
Cik Cheong was the most likeable teacher we knew, and she had this gift of
relating with us as a friend without losing her place as our teacher, and we
always looked forward to her lessons! She knew how to make a dry syllabus interesting,
and in many ways, she made the dead historical figures come alive during our
lessons. What a great example to aspire to...
Next History class, I'm going to get my students to draw this :P
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