Teacher Man..

Just completed Frank McCourt's Teacher Man. An interesting insight to what I may be experiencing in the years ahead though I doubt I will be encountering flying sandwiches across classrooms. Perhaps flying paper aeroplanes or rubberbands may be good substitutes.

One of my favourites from the book:
Professors of education at NYU never lectured on how to handle flying-sandwich-situations. They talked about theories and philosophies of education, about moral and ethical imperatives, about the necessity of dealing with the whole child, the gestalt, if you don't mind, the child's felt needs, but never about critical moments in the classroom.

Well, looks like this issue is not only happening in Singapore. Most of the tutors, lecturers and professors here only harp on theories from eminent psychologists such as Piaget and Vygotsky. And frankly, majority of the tutors here have only taught in JCs, autonomous and independent schools. Many of them have no idea what it takes to teach in neighbourhood schools. Their closest experiences of stepping into neighbourhood schools are supervising practicum trainees who are being posted there. Therefore, they fail to share with us any experiences on dealing with difficult students. Flying-aeroplane situations are not a norm in their teaching experiences. Students who challenge them intellectually and listen to them almost obediently are what they are familiar with. It's a major pity that they only got experienced teachers to come share with us the realities of teaching right at the very last week of our whole course. I fail to understand the rationale of it. The rest of the 8 months or so were wasted on doing projects and writing assignments based on theories, theories and more theories. To be fair to them, it is indeed difficult to teach us how to manage a class and how to react in critical moments. After all, there's no fixed formula to it. It all depends on the type of students, the teacher's character and style and the situation. Perhaps it's a good idea to scrap off certain time-wasting modules and instead put us into schools to learn first-hand from experienced teachers.

Another thought-provoker:
Serious students are not satisfied. They argue that in other classes, the teacher tells you what you are supposed to know. The teacher teaches it and you are supposed to learn it. Then the teacher gives you an examination and you get the grade you deserve.

which brings to..

What is education, anyway? What are we doing in this school? You can say you are trying to graduate so that you can go to college and prepare for a career. But fellow students, it's more than that. I've to ask myself what the hell I'm doing in the classroom.

One of the best ways to capture exam-oriented students' attention is to forewarn them that the next section that the teacher is going to teach will be coming up in the next test/exam. This works well for the more motivated students who are not quite at the elite level but certainly do not fall under the below-average category. I applaud them for their effort in at least knowing the importance of doing well for examinations. But as an educator, I constantly tell this group of students that getting good grades is not everything. No point getting straight As if your character sucks. This reminded me of a particular instance when a student shot back at me that character does not matter if your grades can't make it. Although it would be unfair to label him as a representative of the next generation, it saddened me a lot that a 14 year-old would be thinking this way. It is moments like this that I question myself as a role of an educator and what the hell I'm doing in the classroom. Teaching the subject is pertinent, but certainly there are more important skills in life than getting an A for that particular subject.

The ability for me to relate to the novel was what kept me captivated to the book. A message that I brought back after completing this book: story-telling is one of the best ways to engage unmotivated students.