I don’t know why there were tears in my eyes when I was watching this short videoclip. It was shared by one of my friends, Soon Seng in an online group discussion.

This somehow remains me of that particular class where students are so bothered by their classmates’ skin color and ended up into fights – almost everyday.

I was being scheduled to make replacement (relief class) to the class today and I found myself repeating the same yelling, “Stop fighting! STOP!”

They were fights between the Indian and Chinese students. A Chinese student who were trying to make fun of me questioned in Mandarin, “Teacher, why are there so many Indian students in our class?”

It just struck me. I don’t know what to answer and I only managed to reply, “All of you are special and you guys can learn a lot from each other”. Well, my words were falls on deaf ears. He just laughed and ran away with his buddies.

Probably the idea was too abstract for a 13 year old kids to understand. I don’t blame them. I don’t blame the parents nor teacher neither. I understood the history of our country, as well as the diversity and political issues. There are unique, complex and tricky.

I don’t know how much I can do for these children especially in term of cognitive and moral developments before I leave the school in 2 years. At the moment, I can only plant as much seeds as possible to these vast ground and water them as often as I can with a big hope that one day, they will understand and grow as a wise, humane person.

I want to see more of this in our younger generation.

All of us are like a big family despite of colors. Wait, what color do I mean? Rainbow?

Would that be possible?

I was a student for roughly 21 years, studying Maths for many many years and now, teaching Maths. I never know that.. that.. the multiplication table for 9 can be done like this.

Wahhhhhh….~~

Genius! I shall teach my students and my kids too!

“It is good to see them again with cheerful faces”, I secretly thought to myself.

“Selamat petang semua. Bagus, saya dapat mendengar semangat baru yang anda tunjukkan sebentar tadi. Sila duduk”.

Some of the boys were spotted smiling cheekily.

“Bagaimana cuti satu minggu anda. Ada pergi melancong bersama keluarga ke?”, I asked the class curiously while doing ice-breaking with them.

Some replied,

“Tak baik cikgu..”
”Gembira cikgu….”
”Ok-ok je la…..”

When I asked, “Kenapa tak baik dan ok-ok je?”…
and they answered…

”Kerana cuti pendek sangat”.
”Ya la cikgu… tak best ahhh..”
“Cikgu.. gong xi gong xi fatt chai ya...”
”Cikgu! Ang pau.. mana ang pau?”

Lol.. these kids… XD

Photo was taken after school assembly.

Frankly, I feel the same too because I barely have a good Chinese New Year break with family members. Those 4 full days of traveling coming back and forth minus my 8 days total of holiday which then left me 4 days of break. I was even exhausted than before as there are still preparation which need to be done during CNY.

Anyway, I am happy to see my students again. They are still lovely though some of them didn’t finish my homework *puff*. One of classes ended up had to bear with my 5 minute lecture where I reminded them about our class’s big goal, the culture of the class, their dreams and their progress. I didn’t mean to lecture my students, but… well… I couldn’t take in when their reason is… “Saya terlupa cikgu. Saya tak check.. Saya tak tahu”. I find it important to make them understand why I am concerned about their work.

P/s: Probably I didn’t give make myself clear in class and I took half of the blame to myself.

Lot of stuff need to be done. I gotta sleep by now as there will be sport practice and co-curriculum activity in the morning (at 8am!) and then, continue with my afternoon session till 7pm.. @_@

All iz well~
All izz weell~~
All izzz weeell~~

Recently, I am pretty disturbed with my own mind.
The same list of self-talks conversed among my neuron cells happened ever since the second week of school.

Questions like:

“How could I make my lesson interesting?”
“How to make my students listen, participate and engage in my class?”
“How would I be able to push them in reaching the class goal?”
”How could I teach my students to practice good moral values in class?”
“What kind of long-term, monthly, weekly and daily plan that can help my students to succeed and achieve good result?”
“Would I be able to finish all the syllabus before each formative and final test at school when there are so many activities and school holiday take place?"
“Could I be able to walk the talk?”

Each time when I think of these, I found myself having headache, difficulty in breathing and heavy heart (just like a large stone pressing my heart). When I come to analyze such symptoms, I know instantly the name of this situation. It is called S.T.R.E.S.S.

Well, it is pretty much a personal stress which I am creating to myself and it is bad, real bad. It disturbs my daily functionality and emotion which causes physical and mental exhaustion. I tried as hard as possible not to affect my relationship with my closed ones. It is worse when seeing myself treating people around me badly when there is nothing wrong with them.

This Chinese New Year 1 week break should be a relaxing break for my body, mind and soul. However, it turned out to be the opposite. Ironically, my stress level rose up even higher now when I realized I have not done anything yet for my school tomorrow and the week. The journey spent on traveling and running family errands and attending family occasion took up most of my time.

A photo taken last year during sunset near my house. The effect is pretty good, don’t you think so?

I didn’t know what to do now and I have already shut down myself to not do anything. I need something therapeutic and relaxing at least for this moment. I realize I can’t work and inspire others when I am tired and exhausted. This is what has been emphasized in Teaching As Leadership Comprehensive Rubric – to work relentlessly. It is important to know how to take care of the self (as a teacher) to maximize teaching results in classes. I will put W-1, W-2 and W-3 closely in mind.

As for now, I will just shut down myself and sleep. Cheers for a better tomorrow. Good night.

P/s: Someone please tell me that feeling stress in the teaching profession is normal.

| Nothing could be worse than the fear that one had given up too soon, and left one unexpended effort that might have saved the world.

Jane Addams

P/s: In a nutshell, don’t give up until you have achieved your dreams!