I had a tuition class last Friday (28 October 2022).\u00a0 We had a revision of two essays since the students would start their trial on Sunday (30 October 2022).\u00a0 \u00a0Some of them requested that I explained more about the written comments that I wrote in their exercise books.\u00a0 The last essay that they wrote was about bullying.\u00a0 Some wrote about the effects of bullying yada yada yada but out of the blue, one student asked me about self-esteem and bullying.\u00a0 I shared with them about research findings about bullying, self-esteem etc.<\/p>\n
I explained to them that while it was always believed that bullies have low self-esteem, recent research by a large number of researchers revealed that this was not always the case.\u00a0 Some of them have high self-esteem.\u00a0 In this case, we should look at bullies as cases in which not all of them necessarily have similar level of self-esteem.\u00a0 We cannot generalize and regard bullies as one category.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Going back to our discussion about the essay, I used Socratic questions to prompt them to think more about themselves.\u00a0 The questions were: “What do you think about your own self-esteem?”, “How do you perceive or define your self?”, “Why do you define your self as smart or stupid (I just gave few examples)?”.\u00a0 The students just looked at me when I asked them those questions.\u00a0 One of them asked me “Kenapa Teacher tanya soalan macam ni kat kita?<\/em>” (Translation: Why do you ask us these questions?”)<\/p>\n I informed them that I wanted them to ponder the questions and their answers. They do not need to give me the answers but I want them to think those questions.\u00a0 Those questions have never or very rarely been asked to them by others. One student, a male, made some notes in his notebook.\u00a0 After writing the questions in his notebook, he just remained silent, staring at the page.\u00a0 I asked him “What are you thinking?” He replied “Susah juga nak jawab soalan ni, Teacher<\/em>” [Translation:\u00a0 It is difficult to answer these questions”]\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n One of the girls whispered to her friend who was sitting besides her while giggling “Teacher ni psycho<\/em>“.\u00a0 I caught her red handed and I gave her the stare.\u00a0 She quickly apologized.\u00a0 It is inappropriate to refer to someone as a psycho, I informed her.\u00a0 The word psycho might be perceived as derogatory.\u00a0 When someone is referred to be a psycho with malice, it signifies that we believe they have a psychological disorder.<\/p>\n Another student inquired as to whether cutting one’s arms indicates the presence of a psychological condition. Why did she ask that, I questioned. She informed me that some students engage in such behaviour. When she questioned them about it, they said that they were stressed out.\u00a0 Cutting one’s arms is no longer suicide ideation. It is already an act.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n I was speechless.\u00a0 It is alarming.\u00a0 There is a red flag that I could not ignore.\u00a0 I told the teachers who were there.\u00a0 We had a quick meeting after that.\u00a0 I realise that I am just an outsider.\u00a0 My hands are tight.\u00a0 But we can work things out, In sha Allah.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":851,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/hadijahjaffri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/hadijahjaffri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/hadijahjaffri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/hadijahjaffri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/851"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/hadijahjaffri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7810"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/hadijahjaffri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8124,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/hadijahjaffri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7810\/revisions\/8124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/hadijahjaffri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/hadijahjaffri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/hadijahjaffri\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}