ThE rOaD nOt TaKeN.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Hey, it's my third day at LPS and finally saw the P just after school.
The past few days have been pretty quiet. Spent observing the CTs in action. It never ceases to amaze me how well the teachers can keep their classes under control. I think I have 2 good role models. Just hope that I will be able to build up the same kind of rapport with the children!
I am a bit concerned about the literacy levels of the P5 class, other than a few of the students who are wide readers, the rest are not that interested. I have something lined up for them but I will keep it a secret as some of them do visit the blog. Anticipation can be fun!
Managed to have a short chat with some of the students today. Let me see how many faces I can recall:
- Jerry
- Wei Keong
- Faiz
- Radin
- Tarmizi
- Wei Hao
- Tiong Han
- Sujata
- Lareal
- Yun Sheng
- Alicia
- Stella
Sorry if I missed anyone out, I didn't even include some others who are in my class. Some of them asked me why I am not teaching them. Well, unfortunately, I don't really get to choose who to teach, the original P4 class has been split up to so many different classes that I would probably have to split into 3 to teach everyone. Not to worry, if any of you are facing any problems in school and want to talk, you can always look for me and let's work together to solve it. Even if we can't solve it straight away, it never hurts to hear someone else's opinion.
Spent about one and a half hours in the school library searching. For what? For some stuff that I needed for a lesson. It's not easy. Sometimes, I take for granted the facilities at the National Library. When you compare the NLB to the school library, you start to understand how important it is to have enough funds to keep your library user friendly. I think it would be great if the students learnt to make use of the library as a place to study and learn. I still feel that it is really under-utilised. At NIE, I must confess that the NIE library was like my second home. My friends at NIE will know what I'm talking about.
Speaking of my NIE friends, we attended a poetry event last night which was held at Velvet Underground at Jiak Kim Street(near the River Valley area). It was called Poetry Slam and organised by the Word Forward group. Basically, it's a competition where budding poets read out their poems and are judged by the audience. Sort of like American Idol but instead of songs, they recite poetry. Although there were only a few participants in the Slam, I think it was still an unforgettable experience. We had a lot of fun! Right from the start, we helped to dramatise a short snippet from Lewis Caroll's Jaberwocky. Yes, I was playing the part of the Jaberwocky... and had to be 'slain' by my friend Mine(pronounced as 'Me -Nay'). Everyone was really sporting and although we had to sit through many different presentations(there were a couple of short films, poems and stuff), everyone kept an open mind. Now the question is whether they will attend another one?
I find that I am still trying to get used to the hours in school. I have to reset my internal class by an hour earlier as I usually have to be awake by 5.45am in order to be on time. By 3pm in the afternoon, I am starting to feel sleepy. Hopefully, I will adjust soon and then my engine can kick into overdrive during my lessons. I really need to find a way to boost my energy levels. *Sigh* I should probably get in some exercise. I will try to wake up at 5am tomorrow to do a quick jog to get the body awake and we will take it from there. Wish me luck!
Labels: day 3, poetry slam
