Chinese Medium Primary Schools
I should probably be sleeping now but certain things that happened today actually prompted me to think about a few things... Hahaha.
One of kids told me today. "Aunty Kathleen you're so cute." Hahahah. 5 years old, boy. Why couldn't he be a guy who's 5 years older than me? Hahaha just kidding. I took over a class today which I was teaching in last year. It is now taken over by another colleague. One of the girls from this class said, "I miss you Aunty Kathleen." Awww.... don't do that to me. Please.
You know, I always wondered how I survived my days in primary school. In a Chinese medium primary school at that. I will always remember this one incident which happened in Standard 4. I think we were doing multiplications with 2 digit numbers and above. There was one exercise which I did badly and where I got punished by my maths teacher. She pulled my ears...-.-' The problem with that was, I had no idea what I did wrong in my sum. She didn't go through with us. I went through it on my own to find out what I did wrong. The truth was, I did my multiplication correctly but my addition was wrong....Eesh. I carried forward the wrong tens... which led to wrong answers and the ear-pulling. Hell....
I see kids from Chinese medium primary schools crying when they come, saying they have not done their homework. My kids don't do their homework at times, which frustrates me. But I had rarely gone down hard on them, only once in a while so that they buck up and do not slide too far away. There is enough pressure coming from the primary schools. Enough of tuition classes, extra curricular activities. My kids come in sleepy after a whole day at school. Can I blame them? I go after the usual culprits but the ones who do it once or twice are forgiven. I don't want them to hate school or classes. Learning should be a conscious effort, something that they want to do. They're young. Sure, some discipline is needed as well. But it should be delivered in the right way and not blindly. I always tell them, "There's a time to play and a time to learn." Am trying to merge it together... hahaha. Just that I become too serious when it's learning.... Hmm...
Sigh, or maybe I'm too soft?? Eesh.
Anyway, happy birthday to everyone! On the seventh day of CNY!
One of kids told me today. "Aunty Kathleen you're so cute." Hahahah. 5 years old, boy. Why couldn't he be a guy who's 5 years older than me? Hahaha just kidding. I took over a class today which I was teaching in last year. It is now taken over by another colleague. One of the girls from this class said, "I miss you Aunty Kathleen." Awww.... don't do that to me. Please.
You know, I always wondered how I survived my days in primary school. In a Chinese medium primary school at that. I will always remember this one incident which happened in Standard 4. I think we were doing multiplications with 2 digit numbers and above. There was one exercise which I did badly and where I got punished by my maths teacher. She pulled my ears...-.-' The problem with that was, I had no idea what I did wrong in my sum. She didn't go through with us. I went through it on my own to find out what I did wrong. The truth was, I did my multiplication correctly but my addition was wrong....Eesh. I carried forward the wrong tens... which led to wrong answers and the ear-pulling. Hell....
I see kids from Chinese medium primary schools crying when they come, saying they have not done their homework. My kids don't do their homework at times, which frustrates me. But I had rarely gone down hard on them, only once in a while so that they buck up and do not slide too far away. There is enough pressure coming from the primary schools. Enough of tuition classes, extra curricular activities. My kids come in sleepy after a whole day at school. Can I blame them? I go after the usual culprits but the ones who do it once or twice are forgiven. I don't want them to hate school or classes. Learning should be a conscious effort, something that they want to do. They're young. Sure, some discipline is needed as well. But it should be delivered in the right way and not blindly. I always tell them, "There's a time to play and a time to learn." Am trying to merge it together... hahaha. Just that I become too serious when it's learning.... Hmm...
Sigh, or maybe I'm too soft?? Eesh.
Anyway, happy birthday to everyone! On the seventh day of CNY!
Comments