{"id":5001,"date":"2012-06-18T07:35:14","date_gmt":"2012-06-18T07:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/the-class-that-could-not-be-saved\/"},"modified":"2012-06-18T07:35:14","modified_gmt":"2012-06-18T07:35:14","slug":"the-class-that-could-not-be-saved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/the-class-that-could-not-be-saved\/","title":{"rendered":"The Class That \u201cCould Not Be Saved\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For those of you who don\u2019t already know, I am teaching Geography, \u00a0to just one class. The most challenging class out of 9 Form 1 classes. Why challenging? Because on an average they scored 5Ds for their UPSR. Because they fist fight and kick each other in class while I am teaching.<\/p>\n<p>To be honest, I was scared to teach this class. I am not familiar with the syllabus, and so many had said that this was a class who could not be saved.<\/p>\n<p>Classroom management was a horror, getting them to come to school with their books was a nightmare and just having a little silence in class was unheard of. But somewhere in late January, I decided that this had to change. That they have to prove to the rest of the school that they are worth it. That they deserve a good education and the respect of their community. Or else, what\u2019s the point of being in Teach For Malaysia?<\/p>\n<p>I redid everything. I gave a very emotional but truthful speech. I told them that I was probably the last person who will ever believe in them and care enough to spend hours teaching them. Things started to change after that, but I had to keep reminding them of many things. I am most drained before this class (preparing materials and lesson plans) and after this class (managing and making sure everyone gets it). Today:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>only two students don\u2019t have their notebook<\/li>\n<li>everyone stands up and are ready to greet me when they see me walking towards their class<\/li>\n<li>they smile every time they see me<\/li>\n<li>they apologise when they do something that goes against the classroom policy even before I point it out<\/li>\n<li>by the time I count down from 10 to 1, they are ready to learn<\/li>\n<li>the noise in class comes from their eagerness to answer questions and ask questions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For this first school test that they sat for, they were tested on five chapters, and that\u2019s a lot for those who are not used to studying. I am happy to announce that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The highest and only A was Shawika with 88 marks<\/li>\n<li>5 received scores between 70- 80<\/li>\n<li>9 were between 60-70<\/li>\n<li>12 were between 50-60<\/li>\n<li>8 were between 40-50<\/li>\n<li>and ONLY 3 failed the paper with the lowest being 32<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>They were exceptional!!!!!!!! They did so much better than the so-called better classes.<\/p>\n<p>We had a grand result announcement! I made everyone feel good because this was a class who no one thought could go beyond a few marks. Those who failed were made to vow to the class that it will never ever happen again.<\/p>\n<p>This has given me a renewed sense of possibility. We will have so many downs, we couldn\u2019t possible keep track of them. But we live for the small achievements. Once you get a taste, you will be addicted for more.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For those of you who don\u2019t already know, I am teaching Geography, \u00a0to just one class. The most challenging class out of 9 Form 1 classes. Why challenging? Because on&#8230;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128,113],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5001","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-fellow","7":"category-movement"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5001\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}