I've been volunteering to teach English and Math tuition to a group of underprivileged Standard 3 kids who live at a low-cost housing area in Subang as part of my church's community outreach efforts since January. For the last three months, progress has been slow and frustrating, with many of them unable to confidently grasp the topics that they should have mastered at their level.
I found myself wondering if I was really making a difference, if there was something wrong with the approach we were using of trying to drill the concepts into their head - surely, if they were not grasping the concepts in school, how could I, with no background in their teaching, help them do any better? And two hours once a week is so little time, and they have so far to go - how could it make a difference?
Nonetheless, inspired by the recent TEDxKLChange during which a video talk by Sugatha Mitra was screened, I decided to take a cue from his hole-in-the-wall experiment.
Because of what he had experienced first-hand with hardcore poor children in the slums all over India, he came to the conclusion that every single kid, no matter what their background, has the innate ability to learn and discover, and it simply needs to be encouraged and drawn out.
He says, "If you allow the educational process to self-organize, then learning emerges. It's not about making learning happen. It's about letting it happen. The teacher sets the process in motion and then she stands back in awe and watches as learning happens."
"There was a time when Stone Age men and women used to sit and look up at the sky and say, "What are those twinkling lights?" They built the first curriculum, but we've lost sight of those wondrous questions. We've brought it down to the tangent of an angle. But that's not sexy enough. The way you would put it to a nine-year-old is to say, "If a meteorite was coming to hit the Earth, how would you figure out if it was going to or not?" And if he says, "Well, what? How?" you say, "There's a magic word. It's called the tangent of an angle," and leave him alone. He'll figure it out."
Inspired, I decided to put some time aside to plan and prepare for several new approaches to the session with the kids today that focused on giving them ownership of their learning, and motivating them by encouraging and rewarding personal progress. The session went better than I expected, and I experienced many small wins in the two hours I spend with them.
Here's a summary of the new initiatives I tried out and how they went:
Class Dojo
Class Dojo was a behavior management app I stumbled across while doing some research for my company. As the kids walked into the community center, I got them to ‘register’ by typing their names in and to pick a colourful avatar to represent themselves as soon as they came into class. I explained to them that this was a system to reward good behaviour and progress in their work, for example if they helped a friend with their work, or if they did really well or finished their work quickly. I told them that at the end of the class, the two kids with the highest marks would be able to pick a mystery prize from a box of goodies I brought.
Even though I only had a small laptop screen, the kids’ eyes lit up to see their names and their chosen avatar on the screen - it gave them a sense of ownership and community. The kids were very enthusiastic about keeping track of the points, pointing out who was helping who, and who had finished their work. This really helped keep the class of six in order without very much effort.
Previously, they used to be very shy and hesitant to interact with each other as they were still not familiar with each other, and tended to do their own work in isolation, only interacting with the rest when they got bored and started bickering or being cheeky or kicking each other under the tables.
He says, "If you allow the educational process to self-organize, then learning emerges. It's not about making learning happen. It's about letting it happen. The teacher sets the process in motion and then she stands back in awe and watches as learning happens."
"There was a time when Stone Age men and women used to sit and look up at the sky and say, "What are those twinkling lights?" They built the first curriculum, but we've lost sight of those wondrous questions. We've brought it down to the tangent of an angle. But that's not sexy enough. The way you would put it to a nine-year-old is to say, "If a meteorite was coming to hit the Earth, how would you figure out if it was going to or not?" And if he says, "Well, what? How?" you say, "There's a magic word. It's called the tangent of an angle," and leave him alone. He'll figure it out."
Inspired, I decided to put some time aside to plan and prepare for several new approaches to the session with the kids today that focused on giving them ownership of their learning, and motivating them by encouraging and rewarding personal progress. The session went better than I expected, and I experienced many small wins in the two hours I spend with them.
Here's a summary of the new initiatives I tried out and how they went:
Class Dojo
Class Dojo was a behavior management app I stumbled across while doing some research for my company. As the kids walked into the community center, I got them to ‘register’ by typing their names in and to pick a colourful avatar to represent themselves as soon as they came into class. I explained to them that this was a system to reward good behaviour and progress in their work, for example if they helped a friend with their work, or if they did really well or finished their work quickly. I told them that at the end of the class, the two kids with the highest marks would be able to pick a mystery prize from a box of goodies I brought.
Even though I only had a small laptop screen, the kids’ eyes lit up to see their names and their chosen avatar on the screen - it gave them a sense of ownership and community. The kids were very enthusiastic about keeping track of the points, pointing out who was helping who, and who had finished their work. This really helped keep the class of six in order without very much effort.
Previously, they used to be very shy and hesitant to interact with each other as they were still not familiar with each other, and tended to do their own work in isolation, only interacting with the rest when they got bored and started bickering or being cheeky or kicking each other under the tables.
Having a mini PowerPoint lesson
Normally, because of a lack of preparation, I used to dive right into the workbooks and use verbal explanations along the way when they didn't understand something, which was really frustrating as their command of English is terrible and my command of BM is equally terrible, so often, verbal explanations get lost in translation.
Today, I started off with a PowerPoint presentation that I took some time during the week to prepare. The kids were very excited the moment I told them we were going to learn something from the computer. Normally, it's hard keeping their attention for even 15 consecutive minutes without one or another starting to misbehave. Throughout my short lesson, their attention was fixed on the screen and they started getting excited when I showed them pictures and examples of the different types of nouns that there were. I realised that having that short presentation (even though they had to crowd around the computer to see it) helped the kids warm-up and get into the topic of focus for the day.
Showing them a lot of visuals and to explain the different types of nouns really captured their attention and got them thinking about and picturing in their heads more types of nouns in the exercises that they did later. The session was wrapped up with another recap of the lesson to reinforce what they had learned, and all the kids read out loud from the screen very enthusiastically.
Worksheets
Today I decided not to use the normal fill-in-the-blank workbooks (which often come with a standard bank of jumbled up answers to pick from, which I've noticed makes the kids 'tembak' or try to guess by way of eliminating the right answers, without being really fully confident that their answers are correct). I printed out visually-attractive worksheets off the Internet instead. The kids got really excited about the new worksheets but were stumped as to what to do at first. I purposely chose worksheets with open-ended instructions such as write down as many nouns that you can see around you as possible. As first they were like, "Teacher, susah la ini" (Teacher, this is so difficult!), but I took my laptop and went back to what was presented in the slides. I reminded the kids of the different types of nouns and gave them a few suggestions to get started, and then left them to it.
They started asking questions (“Teacher, is this a noun? Is that a noun?”) and even discussing their answers among each other, which was a huge step from previous classes where the kids just expected to be spoon-fed the answers.
Nurul
Today, after I had dismissed the class, I was going through a Peter & Jane book with one of the other girls who stayed back to read. Nurul came alongside me, at first just out of curiosity. She started reading out loud with the other girl. The other girl then walked away about halfway through the book, so I asked Nurul to continue reading on, not expecting much. Not only did she continue reading, but she kept reading even when the sentences started getting harder. And she was actually pronouncing many of the words correctly!
She did come to a point where she used her favourite phrase, "Cikgu, penat lah" (Teacher, I'm dead tired of this), and because she had made it so surprisingly far, I said, "Okay, you can go because you've done so well. You're such a good reader!" But despite her complaining, something made her stay on for the next few pages, and before I knew it, we were at the last page of the book!
I was blown away by what just happened - it hit me that so many of these kids that are labelled 'difficult' or 'slow' actually have just as much potential within them as much as the next kid. Sometimes it just takes a bit of time to see it, the right environment to coax it out of them, a bit less pressure, a bit more motivation, and that potential reveals itself suddenly and unexpectedly. Not because you 'taught' it to them or forced it out of them - but because you actually realised it was already there and all that was needed was just some encouragement.
I want every kid to have his very own 'Aha!' moment
But today it hit me - I love watching kids experience that ‘aha!’ moment as they learn and discover things for themselves. I saw it today with Nurul. I saw it today as the class threw questions at me and as I explained why something was or was not a noun, they started going, “Ohhhhh...”
I love seeing kids eyes light up when something finally 'clicks' in their head, and they finally compute why something is supposed to be a certain way. I love watching that look on their faces because it reminds me of how much I loved learning new things as I grew up.
As a homeschooler, I was not forced to learn - my curiosity to learn was cultivated and encouraged by my parents. I learned how to make potato print patterns as a toddler, how to make papier-mâché bowls at six, taught myself to bake brownies at 11, set up an online baking business from home at 17. My parents gave us the liberty of using the computer for learning at a time when that idea was still very futuristic and scary to many parents. I fell in love with Geography as I watched videos of the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls. My education, rather than making me feel bored and stifled, ignited my imagination and made me feel like the world was the most amazing place to explore and discover. It dawned on me today that I want that same experience for every kid. I want every kid to have his very own 'Aha!' moment - in fact, lots of those moments. I want them to not be afraid to ask questions and to know there's no such thing as a stupid question. I want them to discover what they're good at, and to realise that they can use what they're good at to help others.
I realised that in whatever capacity, whether it be behind-the-scenes in an office designing material for a edutech company, or by hands-on volunteering at a community center, or through organising the XtraMile Run to raise funds for a school that gives underprivileged children a chance at a good education, I want to use what I have to work towards that.
