NIE life on campus
NIE experience have been good thus far, even though I have a few free days, I know that I have been packing my days with meaningful activities and doing the things that I valued and deemed as important to me
Meet up with Yenleng last Thursday for lunch. I finally understand how she feels and what she meant by a packed timetable. Indeed, her days are packed from Monday till Friday with many many lessons in between. I told her that, after looking at her timetable I feel like a slacker! =>
MPC
Went for Marriage Preparation Course (MPC) with Ms Teo Yat. This is our second lesson for MPC. There would be three more to go.
I believe MPC sets the tone of a marriage and allow us to picture vividly what a marriage entails. It opens up my eyes on things that I have not tot about and sets me thinking. For e.g on the unexpected expectations of your partner. Sometimes, when you are with a person for a few years, there is a tendency to expect a certain things from your partner and u think that she knows but in fact she doesn’t.
For e.g. Miss teo’s expectation is that I will come back home for dinner a few times during weekdays. If she didn’t tell me this is her expectation, and she thinks I know, then there would be a communication breakdown.
I am indeed thankful for the Marriage Preparation Course. I think it is excellent way to build a strong marriage.
Further examples of Unexpected communication
Just want to share my second week of NIE experience.
I helped my school teachers to mark the economics common test script on Sat, Sun and Mon. As I was rushing the scripts on Sunday night and Monday morning @ 6 am, I finally manage to finish marking. But as a consequence I was late for my first tutorial which happens to start at 8.30am
I looked at my watch, it is already 8.30 and I have just reach NTU bus stop. Doubling my steps, and taking a deep long breath, I overtake almost all the people who was initially ahead of me. Finally I, manage to reach the classroom at 8.35.
Yeah yeah!!
As I turn the knob of the door to the classroom, I realized that it was locked!!!
Internal tots: *Is this for real*??
Definitely I couldn’t believe myself and the current situation and I tried one more time.
Using a bit more strength, I try turning the door knob one more time. It was really locked!!
I can’t believe my eyes! For the past 25 years, I have been faithfully attending lessons, and I have never been locked out of the classroom before!
As I looked helplessly into the small window of the door, I could see most of my classmates were seated down in their own seats. Clearly, the teacher have indicated to the student to lock the room.
After some appealing for help to open the door via the emotions that I project from my 2 eyes, John, who was seated nearest to the door open the door and finally let me in.
As I move towards the left front row and sat down. I was feeling indeed very frustrated and upset that I was actually locked out of class. I feel that I have a valid reason for being late as i was late for 5 mins due to the fact that I was marking some common test scripts for a school.
Secondly, it was not even communicated before that the door of the classroom will be locked if we are late. So I feel that the punishment was a bit unfair to me.
As my feelings and emotions overwhelmed me, I suddenly have the desire to leave the classroom. For I feel that, if the teacher did not respect me as a student-teacher, I cant have any respect for her as well. This is because, I feel that respect should be earned.
I visualize myself standing up, turning 180 degrees, walking straight to the door of the classroom and walking off. Such was the extent of my unhappiness. However, with due respect, as MOE is paying for my school fees, and I am accountable to MOE and taxpayer money, and accountable to my future, I didn’t do so.
Therefore, I just sat at the front row of the classroom, and the next 15 mins, I know that I wasn’t even paying attention to it. Though the classroom were lively and active, which would make it a safe environment, in which I would usually participate and respond, I couldn’t. I was not even interested in any of the materials taught.
But the breakpoint came when the teacher finally look at me and ask, how do I feel when I was locked out of the door.
Wow… it was a relief to share!! I told her and the whole class exactly how I feel. Positive and negative feeling. Positive because I know that I was late and it was wrong for me to be late. Negative because, this was an unexpected communication and she didn’t communicate to us before hand that we would be locked out of the classroom if we are late.
Until here, the teacher responded that this was a structured experience to indicate that we should always set clear guidelines and rules to make sure that our tots are clearly communicated to the students. If it was not communicated, the students will be confused and upset. (exactly how I feel)
Well… I learnt the importance of communication and the role of a teacher, the hard way.
