I had a blast when I went for my Latihan Ikhtisas last year, even though at first I was thinking about doing a post doc instead. Why a blast?
After so many years of teaching at university i.e. more than 10 years, I can compare the challenges being a teacher and a lecturer. Well, I find that teaching at school is not that “challenging” as compared to teaching at university. I might be bias in this case given a fact that since I am not a real teacher, so I was exempted from doing many of the other things that teachers have to do on daily basis. For example, I didn’t have to fill in any information at SSDM (Sistem Sahsiah Disiplin Murid). SSDM is a system to record students good behaviour and misbehaviour. Yup, it is expected that teachers have to do it on daily basis. But of course, it is very rarely for them to do it unless they are the discipline teacher or school counselor.
I was also exempted from managing the “elearning” kind of thing known as Frog VLE. Why? ONLY Malaysian teachers, students and parents can use it. They can register and thus they will have username and password. I am not a teacher, student nor parent so I can’t create an account. On top of that, I was also exempted from fill in any information about the students on different system such as PAJSK and such. So, what did I do at school then other than teaching?
Well, I created lots of exercise worksheets. You name it. I have it all. I looked at various sources such as Busyteachers and others. On top of that I also created some cute posters using Canva (Example: Dueling Proverbs). I shared with my English panel teachers so we could print it out and posted it on the notice board. But, cute things don’t last long. The moment a teacher posted it, it only lasted for few hours. Sigh
I also wrote some essays as examples of continuous writing compositions. Some of the essays from my own experience. So it does make it more real to the students because they can know a little bit about me through the essays. 2 in 1. Teaching and getting to know me better.
To be continued….