First of all, I'm sorry there will be no pictures included in this post. If you want to see some pictures of my practicum, feel free to visit my instagram. And I am telling this to no one /sigh/ okat let's shoot.
It was terribly hectic.
I got in at SK Ampang Campuran, a school of my own choice since it was the closest one to my hostel. The practicum was only for 4 months so my rommates and I decided to stay at our beloved Institut Maxisegar Plaza Pandan (it was our hostel, if you didn't know). The school accepted 10 practicum teachers from KUPTM and I only friend with three of them, knew but never talked to two people and didn't even know the existence of the rest of the mates.
10 people; 1 boy with 9 girls.
3 for morning session, 7 for the evening session.
I was in the evening session together with Zakiah, Alya, Afham, Annisa, Husna and Fira. It was a good thing that I managed to stick with Zakiah. At first, I was given 3 Harapan with no mentor so I had to consult with Zakiah's mentor. Mentor is the original teacher of the class. She/He would be the one who guides you in everything during your practicum. Oh, did I mention that 3 Harapan was the sixth class out of six? Yep, I got the last class. It was fine. There weren't many of them and the students were nice. All of them were LINUS students. LINUS students are students who are slower than their peers. In my case, they couldn't even read English words. They didn't even know how to say days in English. Zero. They knew nothing. Some of them could barely write. I won't lie saying that I didn't freak out. Because I did. Of course I freaked out because how was I going to teach during observations if they were like this? I would be fine if it was not because of the observations. The students were really nice, it was just that they were slow.
Is that a noble thing for me to say?
Luckily, the school decided to change the classes. I got 3 Bestari but since Zakiah taught that class before, I changed with her because I didn't want to be compared with Zakiah later. I mean, Zakiah is good and pretty and all, listening to the kids comparing me with her would kill me lol. So, we changed. I got 3 Cemerlang. It was the third class but their behaviours were worse than the students in 3 Harapan. The first week I entered the class, they were fine because I was acting all strict. The next week I tried a softer method and they were still good. But later.... the end of the good days. For the first month of my practicum days, I had migraine and headache for the whole month. No kidding. I'm a hot-tempered person, remember? I tried everything to make them well-behaved again but failed. Half of the class couldn't be control anymore. They were nice kids but when it came to learning, they couldn't sit still. They didn't focus. They didn't even do their homeworks. Okaylah, not everyone but half of the class. The thing I hated the most was there were no guilty feelings shown on their faces when they did something wrong. They were smiling liked it was nothing.
The urge to slap their faces was so great......
The first observation by my supervisor was fine. Alhamdulillah, I reached my target. Out of 10, 8 of us had the same supervisor. He was nice but he was so quiet that we always wondered what was he thinking. He told me what did I do wrong, what did I need to improve. I was so glad once I knew the marks because I taught I did bad since the students didn't behave. I repeat, they didn't behave. Some of them didn't complete their tasks even when I already secretly gave them the answers. Some of them even walked around during the class and refused to go back to their places. I had to actually blackmail them for them to listen. I almost burst into tears once I was done but thank God it was fine. Our supervisor had been supervising practicum teachers at that school for years so he understood well how the students at the school were. He used the word 'weird' because there was a permanent teacher sitting together with us in the room.
Lol sir lol.
I thought I did worse for my second observation. I was sick that day. I had sorethroat so I was coughing since the beginning of the class to the end and my voice was barely heard. Thank God the students behaved themselves this time. Actually, I bribed them with foods so yeah that worked well. But they were so behaved, so quiet that I felt.... so awkward? It was awkward. So after 10 minutes, I was like "Fuck it. I don't care anymore." and I started teaching as usual, as I did on any other days. I even laid back against the whiteboard lol. Luckily I was wise enough not to sit on the table because I used to do that too. I had improvements, that was what my supervisor told me. So I was pleased. But still sick.
But I ruined my observation with my mentor. Not gonna tell about it because I'm too lazy to do so.
For other schools, they were busy at the beginning of the practicum. But for us, we started to get busy at the very last month of the practicum. Out of sudden, we got projects. Loads of them; 1) English boards in the Cyber room, 2) Mural with map, 3) Paint a room, 4) Processing books in the library, 5) Paint the flag pole, and 6) Mural on the library wall. All these in one month. Wow. I almost cried because we only had a month. But we did it! With some fights against two bastards, we managed to get everything done. Except for the last mural. We started 4 days before we ended our practicum so we didn't really have much time but it was 80% finished.
The teacher didn't blame us woohoooo!
Half of the teachers was kind, the other half was not. I don't want to talk about it. Okay, so the last day of my practicum, we had a farewell party. My students didn't know I would throw them one so they were shocked when I entered the class with food. It was spaghetti carbonara, Alya and Zakiah prepared them for me. Well, I can cook nothing so don't date me /roll eyes/. My boys sang two songs for me. I could do nothing but laugh. Suddenly, two of the boys started to cry and one girl cried too. Later when I realised, half of the class was already crying. And I was still laughing. I kept asking "Why are you guys crying? I'm not crying." and of course they cried harder. I didn't know what to do. I don't even like kids hahaha so I kept going to one by one and patted them on their backs and hugged them. That was the least I could do.
I received flowers and letters. It was nice.
To be honest, being a teacher is not all bad. It is good actually. But not when your students decide to go against you and talk back to you like you are nothing. Like they have no respects to you. Not when you are facing those kinds of shits. It was one hell of practicum but it was fun. It changed me.
Goodbye for now.
