Back to my previous TA school... The familiar faces and routine...
A little apprehensive when I found out that I will be teaching the lower primary (P2 and P3). Gosh!!! They so cute, in fact too cute and I am afraid that I will become too softhearted. Guess I am too used to my upper primary style – I mean business.
At the morning assembly, I saw him… He is the one who often appear in my dreams, who I often think about, wondering how is he doing? A boy whose parents have abandoned him at a tender young age. A boy who has grown so bitter towards life and adults. I called out to him.
“Who are you?” snapped the usual disrespectful and arrogant voice.
I told him that I used to teach him English for 2 weeks when he was in P5 last year.
“Who are you?” again that I-don’t-give-a-damm-about-adults voice and he walked again.
I was not angered by his attitude as I would have when I first got to know him. Behind all that defiant and stone-hard surface, I know he is just another child gone bitter because of the selfishness of some adults. I am certain that he knows how to reciprocate when kindness is shown.
This is the only boy who came to me on my last day and asked me to stay. He is the one who asked when I will be coming back to teach him. He is the one who asked me to go and teach him in his secondary school when he has graduated. Perhaps, he is not some high-ability child. Perhaps, I look different to him. Perhaps, he has forgotten…
Nevertheless, I will never forget that my heart goes out to him. Never forget that I had shed tears for him because I saw the pain living in his eyes. Never forget the intense frustration of being unwanted I felt from him. I do hope that some divine intervention will guide him back to the right path.
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After school, I was engrossed in something, I don't remember who said that to me.
“Hey, you’ve got a visitor. No, you’ve got a fan.”
I was pleasantly surprised when my bubbly girl whom I had previously taught pop by to welcome me back. Soon after, my I-thought-she-was-demure girl came by. I took the girls out of the teachers' office to avoid having too much commotion on day 1 of my practicum and GOSH... A bunch of them were already swarming outside and waiting.
Haha… Isn’t it a amusing sight to see petite little cubby boys and towering-tall and half-full-grown girls crowding before you. Puberty stage for my girls. Boys, guess you just have to be patient for your turns.
They were all asking me to teach their class. For that moment, I felt so loved and appreciated by these pupils from the tail-end class. Definitely not all of them write fantastic composition. A few handfuls can shock me with their one out of 10 MCQ comprehension score. Also they wonderfully surprised me that they felt my heart for them.
The joy of teaching, the passion that ignite another soul… It is indeed a calling beyond the description of words.
Cheers to all my friends who are called to teach…
