The second my
cousin’s alarm blared through her phone, I instantaneously opened my eyes and I
was wide awake as if I had one of the best sleep, but I barely had like four
hours of rest.
And for at least
half an hour, I was lying on bed, staring at the ceiling – nervous and excited.
It almost felt like I was going back for class and feeling anxious for school
reopen day!
My friend who is
an intern in Teach for Malaysia (TFM) invited me two weeks back for ProjekLAH
(Lend-A-Hand). It was something so simple and quick, with a few buttons of
clicking, and I got involved! I have had multiple of interactions with TFM
across my university years and had also been interested to participate in a
while. So bam, lucky me.
ProjekLAH was a
one-day event, where we tutor F5 students in either English or Maths following
by an INSIPRE session where we share experiences of our university life, in
hope to shed light on life after high school. Which is definitely taunting,
because having SPM as that ultimate goal throughout your entire five years of
high school and then to have to think about what’s next and what’s this strange
world out of school. It is no doubt a decision that often scares students,
especially for many who do not know which pathway to step on and where it leads
to.
I had only one
experience of teaching students and they were Myammar refugee kindergarteners,
so they were fairly easy to entertain I’d say. And, I also had another teaching
partner at that time. But this time around, having to sit face-to-face with
either two or three students for 1 hour 30 minutes, I was scratching my head on
how I should go about my lesson.
I know, phiiish
– it’s like 1 hour 30 minutes, come on girl. But, I wanted to make the best out
of it, for the kids, thinking how they might look up to all these abangs and kakaks. I really wanted them to get something out of the day spent
with us.
I sat in front
of my laptop for an entire day, figuring out my lesson plan. I even dug out my
old form two journals and my form five writing books. I laughed while flipping
through them, how badly my sentences were – with the mix of BM and Mandarin within
the already-broken English grammars. I brought those along and I wanted to show
them that everybody starts from the bottom and that you gotta make mistakes to
learn, to be better.
So, we woke up
at dawn, or even earlier than that – 5.05am, dressed in colourful, silky baju kurung. We car pooled with another
two friends that lived nearby and headed off to SMK Bandar Baru Ampang.
I envisioned it
to be noisy. With loads of traffic. Buses. Kids running around. But, when we
got down of our cars, I found that it was unusually quiet. The kids gave us the
curious, funny looks, seeing all these large group of abangs and kakaks. The
school has only one main 4-floors classroom building which surrounds the
assembly area (man, tapak perhimpunan
– haven’t used that word in god knows how long, I’m old), a field at the back
and a separate canteen. Students were sitting in their clicks, scattered around
the hall and assembly area. My eyes wouldn’t stop flicking around, just taking
in the whole picture of the school, and the students with all sorts of coloured
uniforms.
Close to 7.30am,
the bell rang and the teacher asked all the classes to sit in line at the
assembly area. Just like any other school day. We walked past the area into the
designated room, obviously the students’ eyes followed us along and I heard the
teacher speaking through the mic said, “eh
okay, tengok sini dulu okay, sini sini” and we laughed.
The room we
entered resembled a large meeting room. We registered, got our names labelled
with alphabets and numbers, and we were also told the names of our student. I
picked to teach English and I was assigned to Johan. I was slightly shocked, when I knew that I was assigned to a
single student. Thinking that, what happens if he finds that I’m boring? What
if he does not know how to answer and does not have a buddy to speak to?
Then, all the
volunteers gathered at the hall for ice breaking session! We played “Who’s The
Leader” and got them to have a little fun and warm up to the volunteers. After
a few rounds, we were asked to look for our students based on our given
stickers. And, I found my student easily as we were in the same team for ice
breaking. But, he wasn’t Johan, he
was Ahmad.
I thought there
were mistakes in the pairing list, but I just went along with it and we went
back to the room. TIME FOR CLASS AY.
I was pretty conscious
on the things that I said, hoping that I won’t bore him and basically wanting
to be liked by my students (hehe) Plus, another volunteer Peter who sat beside
me wouldn’t stop making his students laugh – so I was slightly bummed (he’s a
nice guy though, really).
But I tried
bring my focus back on Ahmad. He is in the Accounting class, 6th
child out of his 7 siblings. And loves Mathematics. I got him to read through
my English journals and he laughed at my random BM words. Then, someone brought
Johan to me! So, there was a Johan after all ha.
And the real
lesson began.
I started
conversing with them in BM at the beginning, and then shifted to almost 90%
English and they could understand perfectly well. I was really surprised and of
course, happy at the same time! I taught them how to come up with a narrative/descriptive
story to write. Gave them drawings to pick which topic they wanted to write
about, and Johan picked family celebrations; Ahmad picked a fisherman’s story.
We drew mind
maps, and I got them to figure out points using 5W1H. And we also drew the
mountain story progress from introduction-build up-climax-conclusion. They did
relatively well and even finished ¾ of the essay when we were near the end of
the session. I kept asking questions so that they were able to prompt
themselves into thinking more points, and at the end I gave them each a
hand-written quote as a gift.
Ahmad picked, “turn pain into power.” Johan picked, “stop wishing, start doing.”
About another 5
minutes to end of the session, I asked them if they had anything to ask me.
They whispered quietly to each other and then blurted out, “Are you single?”
Cheeky boys, really!
After recess, we
were sorted into groups of around 6 volunteers and we all had 3 to 4 students
with us – and it was time for some serious talk. Adult talk. Pep talk. Pretty
much yep. It was done in a speed dating style, where each group of students had
around 10-15 minutes with each volunteers and then we switch to another group. This
allows everyone to meet everyone!
I made some
simple power point slides for the students as I told them about my university
life, in both academics and extracurricular activities. Some asked, “kak, macam mana you buat presentation, tak
rasa malu, ke takut ke” or things like, “kak, macam mana nak improve English?”
I was glad that
the session actually exposed them to a lot of new ideas and thoughts. Some of
them thought that university is just another place to study, but was surprised
that there are so many clubs and societies that they could participate in. Some
never went to an education fair before. Some who are lost and clueless about
their future felt a lot calmer to face SPM as well as the unknown after.
Hearing from people who had been through all these crossroads and complexity of
choices, I hope that it made them much more confident. At the end, they
were asked to write a letter to their future self, on their promises, their
ambitions which they would open it up on SPM results day. And that was the end
of the day.
Participating in
ProjekLAH, it wasn’t just the students learning from us, abangs and kakaks. I
learnt once again on how terrifying having to step into the world out of your
white and blue uniforms and how much support these kids need from their
families, friends and teachers. And I reminded them that it is okay to be
afraid. We are always afraid of the unknown, but at least it lets you know that
this is for real. This is something that you care about.
I am also
thankful that there are so many organizations like TFM growing and taking
serious concerns and actions towards Malaysia’s education system. It amazes me
meeting people who are passionate about giving all kids in Malaysia an
education they deserve, no matter their backgrounds, their gender, their race.
I took about
three days to finally reaching the end of this blog post. I just wanted to put
in this motto I have always had stick close to my heart – There aren’t smart
people and stupid people in this world, it’s either you’re hardworking or you’re
not.
I wasn’t smart.
I nearly failed Add Maths back in F4, and then I got an A+ in SPM. (silent
cheers)
