My 1st week

sOn August 11, 2008 I came to see the principal of Sekolah Rendah Kiarong, Brunei III to report myself as a Teacher’s Assistant. It was a beautiful day as the traffic is on the low tide. After I parked my car around 7:15 am, I asked a nice and friendly lady, school cleaner where the principal office was. Later, I found myself in the office explaining myself to the new and only school’s clerk named Dyg Suhaila the purpose of my attendance.

It was already 7:50 am and yet the principal was not around. I must say that their school’s principal was giving a very long day speech. As I was shuffling my file unintentionally, a man named Ckg Kassim, the vice principal came into the office. I was called into his office and explained to him where I need to be posted for my TP period. After few minutes of discussion, he decided to give me four periods of Mathematics and English subject for Primary 2 which they indicate with color purple. In that school they divided their pupils into few classes/categories. For example in Primary 2, they put purple class as the most brilliant and outstanding pupils, green as the normal pupils and pink as the slow learner pupils.

My first mentor was Ckg Dalela, the English teacher. That day, she’s having a reading class where she had read two big books, “Houses” and “Ginger Bread man”. It was around 8.45am I was amazed by how the pupils can read after their teacher with a good pronunciation. The pupils were able to count all the houses, windows and even differentiate colors. I found it very interesting to know how well these children can understand the meaning of the words in Malay. Below are the pictures which were taken during the big book reading class.

The pupils were having a pleasant and happy time in this class especially where the teacher needed to do different intonation for the fox and the ginger bread man speeches. The teacher corrected their wrong pronunciation by repeating the words. At the end of the session, the teacher closed the book and began to ask pupils on the spelling. And once again, I was amazed by them. They can spell a long word like “ginger bread man” correctly.

During their exercise’s time slot, Ckg Dalela asked the pupils to open up their exercise book. They had been tested on spelling of 15 English words referring to the earlier class activity. I walked around to see how far they can spell words. I was feeling a little bit relieved as I found few wrong answers on their books. Soon I realized the girls were much more intelligent and quick on writing down answers correctly. They competed with each other on how fast they could spell out answers. On the boys’ side, I found out they were less battle with each other. But they much more careful to secure their answers from being flick through by their friends. It did explained how much boy’s behavior on how protective they are started on their growing up periods.

After the exercise, I build up my gut to approach the boys’ crowd. They were having discussion on the stickers they bought from the library. When I was interrupt their discussion, a boy was being friendly to me and showed me his stuff. It was some “DOA”. I read the contents one by one both the Arabic words and the Malay explanation. I explained to them the purposes of the DOA and why they need to practice them in everyday routines. The group was getting more crowded from time to time as they were interested on my explanation and began to ask question. Therefore, I was successfully becoming visible to them as they were starting to communicate with me. I was making friends with them. I felt a little satisfaction in me.

My next period would be around 11.30am. So, Ckg Dalela brought me around the school so that I will be familiar with some of the teachers, staffs and pupils. Later, we went to the school’s hall to have a break. We were having cold Milo and “mangga muda” with “kicap pedas”. I sit with some teachers and school’s kitchen staff. I felt like I was being a part of their family now.

Around 10.00 am, I went back to the office and got myself ready for the next class. I was having a fun on that day but not for Dyg Suhaila, the clerk. She was having difficulties on Office Words where she did not know how to insert lines for the urgent “minute paper” that was asked by the principal. She felt really hopeless and at the peak of panic time. Kindly, I assisted her through the trouble she had. By the way, I had a plenty of time to kill. It was a perfect time for me.

At 11.35 am, I went for the Mathematics period. They were having an activities using ICT. (As the school’s computer labs are both under renovation, the teachers need to take turn on borrowing the laptop and projector for the classroom activities). On the classroom’s whiteboard was projecting the multiplication of 5. Every pupil was standing and reading multiplication of five (5). They looked very much happy and enjoying the activity using the ICT tools. Later, the teacher asked them why they need to know multiplication of 5? What does it use for in real life situation? Frankly, I asked myself, why do we need to learn & memorize it? What is the importance of it? I could find the real answer for it. Then, a student raised her hands and answered “We need to know it in order to read time (clock). I was half laughing with myself for not realising it.