Hate them, Understand them, Love them

I remembered when I was assigned to be the class teacher of form 3 Mutiara(2005). It was the most challenging class I have ever taught. Those who were expelled from other schools and those who were expelled from our school, came back in, expelled again and came back in again are all in the class. The boys are well known for their rude and obnoxious behaviour, and the girls, well… I guess they know about make-up and sex better than I do.

I was so worried because I really have no idea how to approach this group of 38 Malay teenagers. I’ve no experience mixing with this type of people my entire life. The first day I came to class the boys started showing their true colours. They made fun and mocked their friends and me. I wanted to explode, but this was only the first day and I didn’t want to start on the wrong foot. I was going to be their class teacher for the rest of the year!

Where teaching is concerned, all teachers in the school dreaded to enter the class. Some of them entered but never bothered to teach. Their reasons were, the students were not interested to learn, too stupid to be taught and teach them anything and they would still fail.

I started the lesson by asking them their ambition, hope and expectation in education and in life. I told them every teacher in the school wanted to help them and wanted to see that they actually become useful human being. I persuaded them that the only way to change their future was through education. They promised me that they would try to change their behaviour.

I admit that I took months to understand the needs of these students. Perhaps that was because I didn't learn ESP before. I didn't know the proper way to conduct needs analysis. Anyway, for this particular class, I was not worry if I finish or even follow the syllabus or not. I taught to prepare these kids for the future (So that they can at least get a job at Starbuck). So, in their case, I used primary 2 and 3 English books. Surprisingly, they liked the books because they knew that they could do and understand the exercises. Once in a while, I will use forms 1, 2 or 3 books with them just to give them some challenges.

I learned from my experience. As teachers, we MUST always understand our learners’ capability and their expectations of us. Often we, teachers expect the students to meet our expectations – Yes, you can do that IF you have analysed and understood you learners’ capability.

As for their social problem, well, I try not to judge them based on what they do with their life outside the school. I treated all of them equally. Even though I could not change them totally, I think my accomplishment was at least they listen to me in my class, do my work and respect me as their teacher. And by the way, I met a few of them working at Starbuck, Kenny Rogers and Pizza Hut - speaking to customers in English. Now I know exactly where to go for discounts ;)