{"id":5018,"date":"2012-01-11T09:22:33","date_gmt":"2012-01-11T09:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/first-day-stories-i-dont-feel-transformational\/"},"modified":"2012-01-11T09:22:33","modified_gmt":"2012-01-11T09:22:33","slug":"first-day-stories-i-dont-feel-transformational","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/first-day-stories-i-dont-feel-transformational\/","title":{"rendered":"First Day Stories: \u201cI don\u2019t feel transformational.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI rehearsed my speech for a couple of hours right up to 1.30am yesterday, playing it in my mind: what I was going to say to my kids, how was I to introduce myself, what they need to do. Heck, I almost ran a red light trying to get it all right in my head for today. I just wanted everything to be PERFECT for them. However, by the end of my time with my class, I learned: that things don\u2019t always go the way you plan. What was supposed to be a two-period lesson quickly took a turn for the worse when I had to take over for an additional two periods, substituting for their absent teacher.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Things that went well:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Standing at the entrance of the class welcoming them and allocating them seats; having sweets on their tables waiting for them<\/li>\n<li>Reading out statistics to jolt them to reality (they were particularly angry at the stat that said: \u201cThe community and people around them think that they are failures\u201d)<\/li>\n<li>They wanted \u00a0to achieve the BIG GOAL (50% increase, 80% mastery) and understood my role as a teacher and how I will lead them to it<\/li>\n<li>Sharing ideas and thoughts on how to improve the class<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Things that did NOT:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Letting the \u201cstrict teacher\u201d persona down and giving them a little freedom (thinking that it wasn\u2019t my period anymore)<\/li>\n<li>Playing games that involved to many steps and too many groups<\/li>\n<li>Not employing proper class management techniques. As a result of this, students tried communicating with their friends outside of class, students were NOT at their seats when instructed, and students walked in and out of class towards the end of school, so I lost about I lost about 60% of my students at 12.55pm \u2013 school ends at 1.05pm<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>\n<p>At the end of the day, I felt like the crappiest teacher alive. I failed to provide my students with a\u00a0conducive\u00a0environment to study in and they weren\u2019t inspired enough to want to stay in class. After today, I dare not call myself a transformational teacher. I have failed to transform anything.<\/p>\n<p>I really, really want these kids to do well. Meeting the same class for the 1st period tomorrow, let\u2019s see how that goes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI rehearsed my speech for a couple of hours right up to 1.30am yesterday, playing it in my mind: what I was going to say to my kids, how was&#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-5018","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\/5018","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=5018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5018\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachformalaysia.org\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}