There was an old phrase saying that theory without practice is insufficient; practice unguided by the theory is aimless. Thus teaching practicum at school is indeed a once in a lifetime experience for trainee to blend both the theory and practice at the same time. It’s the place where we as a trainee teacher try to implement everything that we learned in university. So, when I reflected back my experience at school after almost four months, there are a lot of things can be reflect upon to especially in terms of philosophy/values/beliefs held by the school. If we want to simplify it, there was the education philosophy or the instructional strategies imposed by the government to the school then to the students, the teacher beliefs/values and condition of the pupils themselves.
Firstly the Malaysian education philosophy imposed by the government to the school and to the students. This mainly about the way the school implements and managed the instructional strategies outlined by the government. As we know one of the key points of our education system in Malaysia is the examination oriented curriculum. The just can be seen by mere mentioning of the word ‘school’ and images of grades and examinations come to our mind. Indeed students spend a lot of time and energy preparing and sitting for examinations. For example in my school, to prepare the students for the PMR and SPM examination, curriculum activities for them are very limited. Every week they are bombarded with test, quizzes and homework. The styles of teaching by the teachers also were more to drilling as to prepare the student for examination. There were very limited time and opportunities for them to just simply enjoy the lesson and learning for the sake of learning.
I agreed, along with preparation for examination, students gather a string of qualifications as well as knowledge and skills. These are crucial since they are the stepping stones and the foundation for the future. They can help students to secure a good job and successful career. These examination oriented strategies also affecting the other classes especially during the test and examination weeks. Thus put us trainee teacher in dilemma as whether we should just follow the school situation or implement new things that we learned in university. And as for me, I choose to combined both ways that is before the examination weeks I will tried to teach based on the students condition and interest at the same making sure to finish the syllabus given by my supervisor and during the examination week, give the students exercises and notes for examination.
The most interesting parts about my school were the principal himself and the teachers. The reason I said this because the principal held a very different views about education and school management compare to other teachers. We found out about this during the one hour meeting that we had with the principal on our first day at school. He told us that he beliefs in giving all his students equal chances, treating all the students equally without caring who their parents, he doesn’t beliefs in using cane to discipline the ‘bad students’ and teachers all should work together to achieve academic excellent at the same. He also believed in grouping student according to their performances in academic to achieve better result. For example because of the poor result of the PMR mock examination, he changed and organized back the students best on their results. If we look from the good students point of view, it a good action since they can be together with the other students who are interested in studying. However if we look from the other perspectives, the situation is not good for the ‘bad students’ as teacher will put all their attention only to the good students. This also will help materialize the teacher prophecy effects.
The teacher on the hands, give a really different points of view because many of them think teaching just as a work like any other works. Some of them did not even bother to enter the class especially the last ‘bad’ class. They are not treating the students equally like what the principle wants. During the first month, the situation was really uncomfortable because there were senior teacher who underestimated our hard work to prepare teaching materials. For them, it is just waste of time because they said when we went to teacher after graduation, all of that will not be used. I’m really afraid of becoming that kind of teacher. Thus, it’s really important for us trainee teacher to have I own principles and beliefs before we enter the world of teaching in reality.
Moreover, the ones who got affected by the instructional strategies and belief of the teachers are the students. As I said earlier ‘the teacher prophecy’, caused the students act based on the teacher attitude and expectations of them. Because some of the teacher attitude and values towards the ‘last’ class were very negative, thus the students behavior negatively and did not cooperate with the teacher. Teacher not entering class because they think there was no use in teaching those students, making the situation even worse. This kind of the situation really gave me a bad impression towards the teacher at the school. However, I can understand that different people have different ways of teaching. However, for me teacher had to trust their student’s ability may lies outside of academics field. We also cannot give up on our students because it’s a responsibility that we need to bear if we want to deal with human beings.
In conclusion, an underestimated truth about education is that knowledge can by no means be conveyed without students' good will. If you come to think about it, good teacher, like a good chef, should always prepare a variety of sauces for the dish he/she is serving to make it most appealing, while the task of tasting and judging the dish is always left to the guest. Effective teaching is just another way to help make the outcome enjoyable to both sides, and I hope my students will retain the taste for learning, questioning and discovering long after my classes.
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