Troop of monsters? So?! (Part 1)

Woke up @ 9.30am. Helping out in a Malay enrichment programme. The co-ordinator had told us to be there an hour earlier before class. Mum & I arrived in the primary school @ 12.30pm on the dot. We entered the canteen and had our lunch of Fried Rice. Reminded me of my primary schooldays when all food and drinks are ssoo cheap! A packet of papaya + a packet of guava + 1 mineral water + 1 packet drink = $1.90! Where can you find that in kopitiams?!

We tucked in happily. Then waited, waited and waited for the lady to arrive. She finally arrived at the start of class itself - 1.30pm. Mum & I shook our heads. Sigh... So much for our preparations.

I followed one group of students to the class, distributed their folder of worksheets and started introducing myself. Hmm, so far so good.

Midway while teaching, my Mum came over. She had trouble logging into the PC. Worse still, no teacher was around! Left my class to write their drafts and tried to help. Attempt was futile as I didn't know the password too. In the end, my mum sent one of the students to look for the teacher-in-charge.

20 minutes flew by and I collected their drafts. Selected a few and read it out to the class.

Next thing I knew, there were 2 teachers observing my class. Mum's class was being observed too. My class intake have blown up to 23 students and one boy in particular, was testing my patience. He referred to every picture shown as 'Osama' and every action as someone farting. Lots of construction work going on too and the din made wasn't making things better. Then came groupwork.

The class settled down quickly to 5 groups. Brainstorming on a group name alone got everyone excited. The last thing I needed was for that joker boy to pass stupid remarks. He was distracting the others. In the midst of discussion, I kept hearing him saying nonsensical rubbish. I walked around the class to check their work... silently walked behind the joker.

As if on cue, he uttered another stupid remark. SLAM! I smacked his table as hard as I could. He got a rude shock and whole class went dead silent. Glared at him and the naughty ones. Surprisingly construction work stopped too. Wow! Hahaha =)

I managed to cover the coursework. Exceeded lesson time a bit but hey, I did it! As the students trickled out of class, some of the girls came to salam me.

On our way home, Mum & I were sharing our 'teaching' episodes. I was luckier. Apparently one teacher stayed throughout in her class to observe. When those 2 teachers left my class, they went over to her class and stayed too.

Whatever it is, we have decided not to come so early next Thursday! =P