We often heard this saying, especially in the 94th surah in the Quran, where a verse goes 'for indeed, with hardship [will be] ease', with the next verse saying, 'indeed, with hardship [will be] ease'.
I think throughout my formative practicum phase so far, there was one incident that lead to this tiny part of improvement in me.
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It was a relief class with 1 INI (shortform for the class name, Inisiatif). I never been to the class before, but quite often I heard teachers keep on mentioning them. Since the relief class was during the last two periods on a Friday late afternoon, so I guess you can imagine how it was.
In general, the class was loud. Boys and girls seemed to be competing for the loudest voice award. Many times I had to shush and remind them to keep their voices low. I did not plan to do anything with them since some of the boys requested to do their Maths homework. But..... the rest were much more on chitchatting and goofing around.
I stood in the middle of the class with a stern face, arms folded. I looked at every face in the classroom, but they seemed not to bother analysing my body language and happily making the class even more uncontrollable. I shouted at the top of my lungs. Some of them stopped talking but some others were still ignoring me. I yelled once again, this time I could feel a sensation in my throat and I could I hear my voice turned quite coarse. That was the first time I think I shouted that loud. Once everybody had their attention on me, I scolded them and asked them to get back to their seat and sit silently. Only lasted two minutes, literally.
On the other hand, I managed to catch a few boys who went wandering around the class corridor during my relief period. They sneaked out without my permission (in which obviously I will disapprove even if they asked to get permission to wander). I gathered all of them at the back of the class. This time, I did not shout or scold them, but I asked them why they did it and let them ponder what kind of consequences they might get if anything happened to them while they were strolling. This kept them in till the end of the period.
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Sometimes, you cannot beat a shout with a shout, because you will lose. Although they will obey you, deep down students will lose respect to teachers who always shout as it shows poor classroom management; the inability of teachers to take control of the class.
Oh yes, regarding to the second part of the saying, I have just had my second observation with my Cooperating Teacher recently. She commented that I have improved slightly on my voice projection, in which I think may be the result of the incident happened with 1 INI.
Although this may seem just a small matter for some, it is a big step for me. Now I truly believe that in whatever difficulties we face in life, there will be some sort of rainbows or lights at the end of the tunnel. He will never place us in a situation we cannot handle.
