The
results were out and the principal was not happy. The matter was brought up in
the following meeting. I was all ready for it and as expected, she pointed the
finger at me. Imagine the humiliation
she put me through when she ordered me to seek help from other teachers. I must admit that she had succeeded in making me appear foolish in front of all my colleagues.
Throughout the meeting that seemed like
forever, I saw myself as nothing more than a loser. A Colossal
Failure.
Even
though she put me to shame that day, I was not at all defeated. Instead, I was determined to gain back my dignity. “ It is not the end of the world,” I told
myself, “This is just the beginning.”
What did I do next ? Well, I did not
consult nor seek advice from anyone but came up with my very own strategy. It
was called the “ Mind Module ”.
“ Mind Module ”
was a learning module prepared by the students themselves. Materials for the
module were obtained from “ Minda Pelajar
”, a weekly pull out in the New
Straits Times issued every Tuesday
for lower secondary students that year . The English section covered every language
aspects as well as the literature components for Form 1, 2 and 3. What the students
did was just to cut and paste every single
item in one special book which had been divided into 5 parts; grammar, reading comprehension, writing, literature components
and model answers. All notes and exercises were pasted accordingly in the
book or the self- made module.
The
students did the exercises at home and how they made use of the module was left
for them to decide; either individually or in a group discussion. I was
actually providing them with an independent practice by adopting this strategy. The answers given a week after every topic was introduced also helped
these students to self-monitor their performance in learning the target
language. The students worked on this for weeks and stopped only a week before
their examination.
The
results were out two months later. When I walked into the office that morning,
I was greeted loudly by one of the senior teachers, “ Congratulations Cikgu!! Your subject is among the best!” With
hands shaking, I went through the long
list. Check it out! That year nearly 70 students scored A
for my paper! It was far better than the year before. Not bad for a rural school ! Not bad at all ! To add to my joy, most of them were my Mind Module students!!
So,
it was a happy, sweet and bitter ending for me. Bitter ? Yea, bitter because the principal was
not at all stirred by the results ; what
more to apologise. Bitter as it was, I
forgave her anyway. It did not matter to me anymore as I had gained back what I
had lost before. My Dignity.
( p.s. Thank you NST 2006
)
