butterflyy...

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Woah. Time flies. I've been a DHS for 4 days already.. It has been busy busy busy, but very fulfilling and enjoyable.. I'm doing things that i like and i really feel the satisfaction!

My mentor Mrs Tan is really a nice person.. She has been teaching at DHS for 26 years already.. So she is a very experienced and dedicated teacher.. can see that all her students adore her and respect her.. She taught me a lot of things and gave me a lot of insights about the teaching profession.. She makes me feel even more inspired than before to become a good teacher.. Even my colleagues envy me for having such a nice mentor lor.. hehe.. cos she treats me very well.. She will try to engage me in many activities and let me try out different things.. thats why i always seem to be the busiest among the 5 scholars.. haha.. At first they pity me for being so busy, but really.. being busy is good.. thats when you learn more.. So now they envy me.. Hahaha.. And Mrs Tan is a very kind person.. She treated me to lunch and very nice ju2 gue4 which her colleague specially bought for her.. Basically she will share with me whatever nice food she bought from home or elsewhere.. she will come to my office there to look for me, bring me down to canteen and have a nice meal and a nice chat.. She is really the motherly kind.. im very very glad to have her as my mentor..Yeah.

So what have i been doing?

I taught a Sec4 class yesterday. The subject is called UN Mock Conference under the Dunman High School Programme - Knowledge Skills Programme. Don't ask me why got such a weird subject.. i dunno either. Anyway i marked the class's essays on Globalization mah... so i gave them back the essays and gave my feedback on their performance.. I realised i was quite critical.. Hehe.. Perhaps too much experience of writing super cheem essays in NUS has made me very particular with how an essay should be written.. But i brought out my views in a cheerful manner la.. I picked out some funny mistakes the students made and pointed them out in class.. and i got them laughing.. Heheh.. I tried to make the lesson enjoyable la.. I also pointed out some good points that they wrote and praised them a bit.. And at the end i commended the students who got 19/20 for their essays.. Yah so by the end of the lesson they seem to like me already.. Haha.. Compliments work wonders. Thats the trick man. Haha..

This week is DHS's IDMI Week. IDMI means Inter-Disciplinary Multiple Intelligences. The students (sec1 to 3) have to do research projects in groups and present them. Both yesterday and today the 5 of us spent much time watching project presentations.. There are various topics.. all sounds like geography projects in NUS Arts.. Projects about Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve and how to improve it to attract more people, about conservation of Little India and its attractiveness as tourist attraction, about HDB estates and how to make them more elderly friendly.. etc.. Basically im utterly IMPRESSED by their standard.. Mind you.. sec1s.. SEC ONEs okie.. They can conduct a very meticulous research that includes many surveys and interviews, and come up with a very detailed analysis plus recommendations as well.. And they are all so IT-savvy lor.. they have very beautiful powerpoint slides, very interesting videos, pictures, photos, animations etc.. some even more creative, can make models, perform skit, and draw very nice maps, charts or diagrams.. AMAZING isn't it? We were all so impressed, almost jaw-dropped. And thats sec1 hor.. Today we went to see sec3 projects.. WAH the standard is almost like my University projects la.. They have everything except for the concepts and special terms lor. I was thinking what i was doing when i was in sec1 last time.. I didnt even know what is a research project and what are powerpoint slides.. Haha.. Times change.. I feel old.

Im really enjoying my time here at DHS.
Dunman students are a nice bunch.. so smart, so obedient, so polite, but not nerdy nor boring.. In class, they interact well with teachers and among classmates.. and they are responsive and attentive... And they always look prim and proper, they are never rowdy and most will greet teachers when they see us.. We all know DHS is a school with such good reputation.. so we actually tried to spot exceptions.. Haha.. But it took us 2 whole days before we spotted a student with shirt tucked out!..and it was only half tucked out..Hahaha.. SO im really lucky to be posted to this school la... Nice students, nice teachers.. And nice colleagues too! I couldn't have been more fortunate. =)

___* flyy aaaaaawayz *___ 3:59 PM

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