Hoping that it does not come full circle....

Today's geog class was highly 'interesting' and the most fun yet since the courses at NIE started. But before I elaborate on that aspect and explaining the title to my post, I shall put my concluding thoughts on the entire act of podcasting.

My previous post commented on the difficulties I expect to encounter when I use podcasting as a teaching tool, especially since I consider Geography as a visual subject and that hands-on experience will be hard to beat. True enough, I was hampered by my lack of creativity and failed to see the whole idea of podcasting from an entirely different perspective. Thank you Jenny for showing me the other perspective of using podcasts as a complementary tool rather than a direct teaching tool itself. Additionally, I do like the entire idea of sowing the seed of interest in students who are not really keen on Geography in the first place. While listening to your explanation and how you came to that idea (Thanks to Superlambanana), I was wondering whether I myself can listen to Geography podcasts while on the road! Oddly, this idea does excite me in some kind of weird way. Heh.

On to another issue, I am glad that I got such a sucky timetable at NIE. Initially, I was really quite pissed (pissed here meaning angry, and not another meaning which I found out in class today). This was because I thought that having Geography class on a Friday from 1630 hrs to 1930 hrs was really rather ridiculous considering the fact that it took up a chunk of my weekend (yeah my weekend starts from Friday 1700 hrs). Additionally, most of my fellow English CS2 classmates were allocated to Geog Gp 1. But on hindsight, this has really been a blessing in disguise as I got a quirky and caring tutor. His advice, especially on career matters, is something that I truly appreciate. I don't think we are able to get such advice during any of the other classes at NIE. Moreover, Geog class rocks (pardon the pun) since things are done differently! Time does fly when one is having fun!

An interesting thought that our tutor placed in our head today was the quote "They (students) don't care how much you (teacher) know. But they want to know how much you care." I can't agree more. I believe that students can discern for themselves the teachers who really care for their well-being and those who do not. This reminded me of my school attachment. When the students knew that I was genuinely interested in their well-being and speaking to them as an adult rather than talking down to them, I found that they were ready to open up and in that sense, it helped me as well as now, they do respect whatever I say in class and did not give any problems while I was teaching them. Moreover, I found that our discussions in and outside of class were more fulfilling and colourful as they did not see me as one of those 'old-fashioned' teachers. It was truly amazing how things changed for the better once the students felt that they can relate to you.

Before the micro-simulated teaching commenced, our tutor played an audio clip of Steve Jobs' Commencement address to graduates of Stanford University. A copy of the text can be found here.

While listening to the clip, I realised that I was not an auditory person (podcast?) as I was constantly looking around the class and trying to focus my vision at a certain object just so that I can concentrate on the audio but I digress.

His Commencement speech was really outstanding and motivating (unlike the Commencement speech given by a secondary school Principal at my Commencement in July 2005). The gist of his speech was the fact that it is important to do something that interests you. Passion sustains what you do. Additionally, it is important that one has faith. He used the analogy of how one can connect the dots looking backwards but cannot do it looking forward. Just believe that somewhere down the road, the dots will connect eventually.

"Live each day as if it is the last day of your life as someday, you might be right." This is so true. "Remembering that you'll be dead soon will allow you to make the right decision in life." Hmm.... "Don't think that there's something to lose. Your time is limited, so don't live other people's life. Don't let others drown you out." All words of wisdom that I will definitely pass on to my students next time. I probably did not do justice to Mr Jobs' address so please take a look at the original text.

"Don't settle." "Stay hungry. Stay foolish." Great words to live by.

(I dunno why but after listening to him speak, I really wanted to get a Mac.)

Ok now we shall get to the fun part, that is the micro-simulated teaching that was conducted today by one of my fellow classmates whom I shall name CY. As the title of this post suggests, I worry that things will go full circle and hit me in the posterior ala first post of my Blog. BananaSaviour and myself did some wacky things today. We were all supposed to act as students of a Secondary Three Express class and boy did we stir up some sh*t in class! BananaSaviour and myself really did have loads of fun playing as dysfunctional students who argued in class and tore up the project work which we did on the paper provided by CY (but of course we were egged on by our tutor to do so although the initial suggestion was by yours truly). I really wondered as to how the heck does a teacher handle such a situation! After all the fun and all, I realised something, that it will be my turn to role-play as a teacher and boy boy boy, let's just hope RETRIBUTION does not kick me in the arse! Urm, it was all BananaSaviour's idea! Hiak hiak hiak.

Kudos to CY though. I thought she handled the class rather well. However, I felt that CY can improve further on two main aspects (which I can think of for now):

1. Setting instructions. I felt that the instructions were rather unclear and in some cases, thoroughly vague when she wanted the class to do a group discussion. However, her writing down of the instructions on the white-board was indeed helpful, although that should have played a complementary role. Telling us the instructions in a clear, direct and concise voice might have been more useful.

2. Classroom management, more specifically on the fight which broke out between BananaSaviour and myself. I feel that CY could have managed this better by pulling us aside and reprimanding us separately from the rest of the class. Granted that doing so might cause the other students to be distracted and thus make more noise, but I thought that it would be more effective when dealing with such a situation. Additionally, reprimanding must be done in a fair manner and not targetted at one party just because he is a guy, or he is big-sized (heh) etc. I wondered why I was made to leave the class and "go to the toilet to wash face" while BananaSaviour was allowed to remain in class. Again I felt unduly reprimanded and made to bear the greater proportion of fault. Reprimanding must be fair to both parties.

CY could also have worked on our conscience by asking us how it will feel to disrupt our other group-mates and that destroying a group-project will hurt their feelings too. I applaud her insistence that the group was not to split up just because two members could not work with each other.

I shall work on the other aspects I learned in the exciting class today once I get enough sleep, it is now 0207 hrs.

Just praying that CY remembers that all that was done was part of role-play and puhleeze guys and gals, let's try not to let things come full circle....

Where's my Mac?