"So how do you feel about yesterday?"
"We feel guilty, miss"
"Why do you feel guilty?"
"Because we were playing when you were teaching" "we don't listen to you" blah,blah,blah
I stopped in the middle of the lesson yesterday because some of the boys were busy chatting rather than focusing on checking the answers for their recent exam paper. Yet they were busy asking me to give them more marks for their English paper.
Some of them even did other stuff. other subjects. they don't even seemed to bother me at the front.
I switched to BM and began 'berleter-ing' them. What's more upsetting was only 3 out of 34 sent their homework I gave them last week! Then I left the class without saying anything (anyway it's only 2 minutes just before the class ends).
This afternoon, a girl from that class came to me (my class with them was about to start in 5 minutes time) and asked me.
"miss are you still sulking with us? Will you come to class today?"
"..." "how was the class after I left?"
"everybody was shocked when you left. There was silence after that. Miss please teach us today, we're very sorry"
Teachers, all your words and acts will influence the students. We no longer live in a society where everything needs to be the military-way: all the shouting and punishing. Students can understand if we put it in a way that they would ponder themselves. We make them feel and think, rather than simply punish them without reasoning.
What I did the other day was involuntary, but somehow the effect was positive. But that doesn't mean harsh actions should not be used at all. All needs to be used in the most appropriate time and place.
p/s: this was copied from my facebook status few days ago.
