Heading into week four I was fully refreshed, rejuvenated
and re-inspired after my two-week vacation in Bali. The first three weeks were
filled with learning school procedures and protocols, learning an entirely new
curriculum and educational setting, and playing catch up from missing the whole
first week of school. Week four I finally felt in control, and I was able to
start enjoying teaching. With comfort in my overall situation came comfort in
the classroom and there wasn’t a lesson this week that went by with out many
laughs, many smiles and many insightful questions that really promote thinking.
The smiles and laughs did not all belong to my students though, many of them belonged
to me.
The reason I have been so delayed in posting anything related
to my students and teaching is largely because of the teaching assignment I’ve
been given with my JC2 (Junior college 2 aka grade 12) class. Essentially I am
given four weeks (22 hours in class plus any after school or Saturday classes
that I can arrange) to review a year long course (that I have never taught
before) to prepare them for three very challenging tests. The syllabus is
Indonesian, based off of a Singapore curriculum and the test is issued by
Cambridge, which is a British education system. The scores they get on these
three tests, as well as the three tests they will write in June essentially
determine their university acceptance. University is the future for 99% of Bina
Bangsa School students, and if student’s test scores are low the teacher is
always one of the first options that is considered to place the blame. So a lot of pressure
on me.
Normally I would be ready for any challenge, but in addition to this
task, I teach three other courses (the equivalent to a full teaching load in
Ontario). Initially I was spending as much time preparing for my JC2 course as
I was for my other three courses combined so I estimate that in the first
couple weeks I was roughly doing the work of two first year teachers. The second worst
part was the previous year's teacher had left me nothing in terms of resources
and my campus is so small that I am the only biology teacher at my campus, meaning there
was no one to help me learn how this teaching assignment is feasible. However, the worst
part was that if I failed and couldn’t be successful in this task, then my
students would be the ones to suffer for my failure. All of that to say, when
choosing topics for my blog I felt it best to avoid talking about my teaching
until things stabilized.
Ready to meet my students?
The typical BBS student works incredibly hard, is very motivated, extremely well disciplined, and is very well rounded as demonstrated by being trilingual (Chinese, Bahasa Indonesian and English) and having mastery of at least one musical instrument. What stands out the most about the students at my school is the level of respect that they have towards each other, their environment and most of all, their teachers. There are many routines required of students to demonstrate their respect for authority including standing to welcome the teachers at the beginning of each class, standing to thank the teachers at the end of every class and referring to all teachers as "sir" or "miss". I thoroughly enjoy being called sir because I like to believe that all of the students think I am a knight. To be honest the first few weeks all of these gestures of respect for authority felt a little ridiculous. After really getting to know the kids, and actually earning their respect, all of these actions and more seem much more genuine and are always done out of excitement, with a smile, and with genuine gratitude. It is very difficult to have a bad day when the students are constantly reminding you that you are someone they respect and care for.
I teach four different biology classes, as well as one period a week of a "life skills" course to Secondary 1 (grade 7) students. This life skills course is great and is not for credit so I have really taken it on as an opportunity to teach some important values and cover important topics with the kids. Not to mention to let the students have half an hour a week to just have fun, because the academics can get very heavy.
My Sec 1 class having fun and learning valuable skills about life:
I was required to teach the topic of "perspective" in two periods to my life skillz class. I gave them an activity called "living a day in someone else's shoes". For the first period I showed them 5 images of different types of shoes. They were required to choose one out of dress shoes, high heels, cowboy boots, sandals or clown shoes and create a fictional character and write a short narrative describing a day in the life of the owner of those shoes. For the second part of the activity they would receive another students narrative, before reading it would make 3 predictions about that individual based only on the shoes that they wear, and then read the story to either confirm or refute their original assumptions about the fictional character. In my mind, all of the assumptions the students made based only on shoes would be wrong, and we would talk about stereotypes and judging others based on appearance before we get to know them, and how we can only really get to know someone by walking a day in their shoes, and considering things from their perspective. I had already begun preparing my acceptance speech for the lesson of the year award.
Unfortunately I assumed wrong. Turns out every single student thinks that everyone who wears dress shoes is a businessman, everyone who wears sandals must be a lifeguard, and everyone who wears cowboy boots owns a horse named El Darado. I had set out to teach a valuable lesson on perspective, but instead I had demonstrated to the students that in fact you can determine everything there is to know about a person just by looking at the shoes they wear.
But I quickly thought of a way to recover. I made two charts on the board. One was "Mr. Trevor's impressions about the Sec 1 class", the other was "impressions about Mr. Trevor". Each chart had a "first impressions" and a "now column". Here is the final product:
I had mixed feelings of flattery, being highly offended, and highly concerned that I look like I've aged 15 years in 4 weeks. But when I asked the students "Were you able to tell everything there is to know about who I am just by looking at me once?" and they yelled "Noooooo" and then I asked "Do you think now you know everything there is to know about me?" and they replied "Not yet!", I knew that I had salvaged my lesson and that I had effectively taught my first life skill.
I teach Secondary 3, Sec 4, Junior college 1, and JC 2 biology and each individual helps to contribute to the unique dynamic that I have with each class. Teaching is a lot of work but every time I leave a class I feel motivated to work harder so that I can be as positive an influence as possible on these kids.
This is my desk in the teacher's room that I do all my hard work at
If you are wondering, "organization" is not part of the life skillz curriculum
This is a picture of my 6 JC2 students during "lab camp" practicing for their practical exam
I might be able to use this photo when I teach science labs in Ontario for the "circle ten safety hazards in this lab room" activity
This is the view looking outside of my JC1 class
This is the view looking inside my JC1 class. Junior College students have a fancier uniform
This is a picture taken 3 seconds after saying "pretend you're having fun and learning lots"
The student on the right's nickname is giggles. . . well deserved nickname
As well as my teaching duties, I coach basketball, have a few other duties that I have been neglecting, and am part of the discipline committee, which means I supervise lunch and after school detentions every Wednesday. Students at BBS receive detention a lot! This is not because they are misbehaving students, this is because they automatically get detention if they are late for school, if they forget a textbook, if they have not completed their homework, as well as all the usually stuff like talking too much in class. Although I think talking in class is the closest thing that these students do to acting out.
It is because almost none of these actions are done with any sort of malice, and many of the late students are the result of traffic or something else outside the student's control, I try to make detention a little lighter and seem like less of a scorning, as well as being a little more flexible with the students when it comes to administering detention. However, I do recognize that the only way a school policy will work, is if all of the teachers are consistent and follow it so the students always know their expectations.
When a student has lunch detention, they must sit at the back of the cafeteria, they may eat their lunch but they may not talk. When I supervise lunch detention I have to sit at the back of the cafeteria, I may eat my lunch, but since no students are allowed to talk, I also cannot talk. Sounds to me like I am also serving detention. Here is what's worse though, the image below is my view during "supervising" lunch detention:
When I say this is a picture of my view, I literally mean that student is part of the scenery. He is always on lunch detention. He is always on time so he never gets after school detention but he forgets his textbooks and binders all the time and therefore keeps me company every Wednesday at lunch. We've gotten pretty good at conversing in silence.
But back to my complaint. I already feel like I am serving detention, but I have it worse than the students. You've seen my view, but this is what the students look at during detention:
I think there is an unofficial rule in teaching (actually it is probably official) that you're not suppose to choose a favourite class. Not saying I have a favourite class, I am saying that if I did it would be my Sec 4 class. I am also their form (homeroom) teacher so I spend a little extra time each week with them just having fun. Today being the funnest day yet. . .
During my first class today with Sec 4 (on Fridays I have them for half an hour in the morning, half an hour after lunch for form teacher time, and again for a half hour class at the end of the day) I had told two students who had yet to buy a binder for biology (come on, its week 4) that there would be punishment for them if they hadn't bought one by our form teacher time. One student bought one at break but the other student did not. Knowing that a) I couldn't just let her off the hook in front of the whole class because the kids would forever know I am a pushover and b) that its Friday and I don't want to stay after school for an hour to supervise one student for not having a binder, I settled on a different punishment. Another student was lightly strumming a guitar (form teacher time is very casual in my classroom) which gave me the idea to have the "disobedient" student sing the Barney song in front of the class. Little did I know the trap I had just set for myself. . .
When the student finished singing, and the class had applauded and cheered for her performance, one of the students said "sir you sing!". I replied "haha, no". The next thing I knew 15 students were chanting "Sing! Sing! Sing!". I caved almost immediately.
They suggested a few songs for me to sing and we actually had a bit of trouble finding one we would all know. "Sir, what music do you listen to?". "I listen to country music". "Sing Taylor Swift sir!". Too many nights at Tumbleweed Tuesdays in Kingston had taught me how much fun it is to sing country music. We decided I would sing "Trouble" and laid out the ground rules. One of my students would play guitar, I would sing the verses solo but the whole class would sing the chorus. Even in Indonesia they have heard the "I knew you were a goat when you walked in" remix to the song so there was obviously going to be a lot of goat noises. And lastly, anyone who knows me saw this one coming, we would sing the chorus as "I knew you were Trevor when you walked in".
And so the symphony began. I wish I had recorded it because it will never happen again but I have never in my life seen 15 students laughing so hard all at the same time. Many of the students were in tears and were complaining that they were laughing so hard it was hard to breathe. By the second chorus when I really showed them how to make a goat noise the laughter got so hard that the guitar player lost rhythm, and none of us could suppress the laughter enough to keep the song going. I couldn't help but smile and think about all the times back home when friends would sing "Trevor when you walked in" for me and it felt great to form a connection, however small, between my two different worlds. Although the blunt of the joke was my terrible singing, it felt great to have the class feel like such an inclusive community and its moments like that one that will really help to build that important rapport with students that will not only help me to be an effective teacher, but also to be a positive role model the students will remember for the rest of their lives. I guarantee you five years from now if one of my students was asked if they remember what Mr. Trevor taught them about plant hormones they likely wouldn't, but if they were asked if they remember the time when Mr. Trevor sang Taylor Swift in front of the class it would be a happy memory they will have with them for a long time.
Of course after the stellar performance they were more than willing to take a class photo
And a group photo shoot wouldn't be complete without a goofy one
So now you have met my students. You can be sure that they would have stood to welcome you, always respectfully referred to you as sir or miss, and before you would leave they would stand and thank you for your time. (sometimes I forget and go to leave the class and they stand up and do it before I can escape).
During my vacation last week was the first time I started to love this country. That was a huge step in my acceptance of the position I am in. It unlocked a level of positivity that I didn't even know I had. Week four of my teaching was the first time that I started to love my students. This is huge and whenever I am having a bad day I will turn on Taylor Swift and think back to my students and all of the great moments we've shared together.
To demonstrate how great these kids are, I was all packed and ready to leave at 4pm to go home for the weekend. But instead of going home I stayed at school two hours longer to hang out with the kids. I played a little bit of doubles badminton with some of the students, shot a few baskets with some others, and had a jam session/guitar lesson with two of my Sec 4 students. I am brutal at guitar and these students have played 3-4 instruments since they were old enough to hold a guitar. I was holding back smiles and laughter thinking about how patient they were being with me, always adjusting their playing of drums or piano to my tempo that was all over the place. They would hesitantly offer me tips because they didn't want to offend me, and they were so positive and encouraging at the slightest sign of improvement. I must have sounded really terrible strumming with my fingers, while hooked up to the amp because one of the students playing basketball came over and gave me a guitar pick from his wallet, but no one complained or gave any indication that they considered me to be any worse of a musician than they are. I realized that these students would have stayed after school with me on a Friday, helping me hopelessly try to learn guitar, as late as I had asked them too. Not just that but they would have been happy to. The combination of how much respect these students have, how much help they are ready to offer, and how willing they are to please is something that became really clear to me this week and I feel incredibly fortunate to not just be able to teach such amazing students, but also to be able to spend so much time with such amazing kids and to learn so much from them.
Our Friday afternoon Jam Session
And one for Rolling Stone Magazine for when our band makes it big
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