Chalk...

Movie time? No. This time it was more of a documentary about few teachers in a school and how they manage their school, students and themselves. Even though it was not a movie and not very interesting but it gave me some idea of the real teacher teaching in a school. It is in American context and the students are average in their studies and behaviour. The camera focuses on all of the movement of the teachers. The first person we were introduced to was a History teacher who was struggling to get the students to participate. At one extend after one odd hour of teaching, a student asked him, how long he is in this field. It looks like he just came to this school to teach. The teacher never looked confident at the start of the documentary. So I need to prepare myself to expect all this kind of reactions from my students on my first day of class. Gone is the time where students will be afraid of teachers and respect them no matter how new they are in the field. I still remember when I was schooling ten years back, when we were told we will be getting a new teacher for a particular subject, all of us would be anxious wondering whether the teacher is strict, nice, stern or jovial. As time goes by, the first teacher learns about class management by reading up books in the library. He learns that students need humour in class so that the class doesn’t become boring. It is history class after all. In the end he manages to handle the class well.
The second teacher is a Physical Education (PE) teacher who is a lady who helps the students physically. She is a senior in the school, two years to be exact. She is committed to the school but I feel she is too into the school that she is mostly not satisfied with the happenings in the school. She only had one reason to come to school that is to be a dedicated PE teacher before she met the first teacher. Now she looks forward to come to school for another reason, to meet him in a day to day basis. At the end of the documentary, she says that everyone is different and sensitive. So she needs to be in their shoe to feel what they feel and be tolerant.
The third teacher whom I am not clear on what subject he teaches is portrayed as a teacher who is very dedicated but in real he is not. He wants to be famous and when he lost the election for teacher of the year he gets very angry. One of the students told him that coming in second is not being last. He gets very angry and kicks a table till it falls off. He was angry with that statement because there were only two people in the election. He fails to control his anger and became selfish. He later on realises and hopes to control.
Another person is a lady who is the assistant principal. She was a teacher before she was promoted. She is in a lot more pressure then the teachers. Everyone comes to her when there is a problem and even though it looks like she can’t handle it but she manages. Once she gets the promotion, she always gets back home late and by the time she reaches the husband is already asleep. At one point, she told the audience (us) that it has been three weeks since she had sex. It is an important part of life once you are married so she is trying to tell that the work is taking too much of her personal life. At the end of the documentary she tells that home should come first and then second is school but in less then fifteen seconds she says that home should be number one till fifty six and fifty seven should be school. I guess she was so exhausted about school that she had to say that.
This documentary showed a one year school life of three teachers and an assistant principal. It is interesting on how much things they have in mind in teaching students and also other things like election, family, love, anger, tolerance and commitment towards their job. It is wrong for one to think that being a teacher is an easy job. This profession must be one of the hardest but it will become a lot easier if teachers were dedicated.

An hour with Mr. Vahid and a treat...

The first class after two weeks of holiday was very useful. We had Mr. Vahid Nimehchisalem as our guest speaker. Mr. Vahid was our class tutor who helped Dr. Jaya to handle classes during tutorial in previous semesters. He gave a speech on how to write a persuasive paper. My class has an assignment to write a position paper and that is the main reason he was invited. He spoke about a lot of new words such as, claim, data, warrant, backing, rebuttal, and qualifier. By using all this elements in our paper, for sure our paper will be a good argumentative writing.
I haven’t start writing my position paper and I hope with this guide I can start writing an effective argumentative paper. We were also given an argumentative writing checklist so that we can evaluate our own work. It has four scale, they are, basic, average, good and competent. It is also divided into four sections, argumentation, organization, language and overall effectiveness. This scale is based on the analytic and holistic scales of argumentative writing (ASAW and HAWS) by Dr. Jayakaran and Mr. Vahid (2010). To make use of the scale, we were given exercises in the class to check the famous writers, J.B. Priestley and George Orwell’s work. We could see difference in both their writings. The only reason I could see the difference is because of the scale. Mr. Vahid took a full use of the one hour class to give us all the input he can.
At the end of the class, each student received a small box of KFC containing three nuggets and french fries which was sponsored by Dr. Jaya as a Hari Raya treat. There were also few bottles of gas drinks. It was nice of Dr. Jaya but he wasn’t there for us to thank him. Mr. Vahid joined us in the treat and Alicia our class tutor thanked Mr. Vahid for coming behalf of the whole class. At times I feel touched because of the initiative lectures and tutors take to make our life easier. Thank you to all of them!

Just a fine movie...

‘Finding Forrester’ was a long and boring movie. It was boring for me because of its slow moving pace. It has the famous actor, Sean Connery whose voice I love to hear. The movie shows a relationship between a black school boy who is intelligent for his age (16) and how a writer (Sean Connery) helps him to write better. This movie might not be so inspiring for a teacher because Sean Connery doesn’t come to the school and teach. So he is not involved with all the students but only one kid who is bright.
One fine day, Jamal's basketball friends dare him to walk into William Forrester’s (Sean Connery) house. William Forrester lives as a recluse; when Jamal walks into William's house, William scares Jamal with a knife and Jamal runs off, leaving his backpack behind. When Jamal returns to retrieve his backpack, he finds that all his pieces of writing were commented on. After Jamal's attempt to retrieve his backpack, Jamal goes and asks William if he could help improve his writing skills. William made a deal that if he helped Jamal with his writing, Jamal would keep William's identity a secret, never to take the writing that he does out of his house, and never ask anything about William's family. Jamal agreed and they both became friends.
Another reason why I am not into this movie is because I am not sure about what is happening. I lose track at times because their speech weren’t clear because the boy has the ‘black way’ of speaking. It is a good movie but not a movie that inspires me in any way. Rob Brown the sixteen year old boy gave a good performance for a first movie. When I researched about him I found out that he never studied acting and had no professional acting experience.
In my opinion, this movie would be enjoyed by writers who have stopped writing for sometime. It sure will inspire writers then teachers. Overall it’s a fine movie but the length and its slow pace makes it a boring movie to watch.

We need this kind of principal...

Movie time! The fourth movie was very touching indeed, ‘Lean On Me’. It’s about how a principal (Morgan Freeman) makes changes to his school because the school is at risk of being taken over by the New Jersey state government unless students improve their test scores. Morgan Freeman was a teacher in that particular school twenty years back and he left because of some issues and the school has become worse since.
The first change that the principal did was he kicked out all those ‘bad’ students who sells drugs and has gangs. Of all the movies I watched for now, this is the worst school scenario because the teachers have no control over the students. One teacher was beaten up when he wanted to break up a fight in the school canteen. The teachers are scared of the students. For sure I wouldn’t want to be those kinds of teachers but I ask myself, what happens if I get this kind of school. Would I quit or keep trying?
Morgan Freeman portrays himself as one strict man who takes no for an answer. Clark (Morgan Freeman) does not put up with teachers who disagree with him either, especially those who do so in front of the students. It can be seen in two or three accounts in the movie. I feel it’s alright to act in that manner so that the school knows who is in charge and they shouldn’t mess around with the school principal. Eventually Clark becomes close with everyone and the students become his children.
As a future teacher to be, what I want as the end result is for the students to respect me and look upon me as a figure that they can trust. All the movies shown to us, I realise that it’s not easy being a teacher and being a principal is a double responsibility and they need to do more work than just teach the students. Principals need to ‘move’ the school higher each year so that the parents will trust the school and send their children to gain education.
Towards the end of the movie, Clark gets arrested and the next day the entire student body converges on the Central Office of the Paterson Board of Education. The students claim that Clark cares for them and has done so much good that they will not accept anyone else as their principal. Clark is freed from custody, and to good news: enough students passed the basic skills exam which results in the current administration retaining control over the school. You go principal! If every school has one Clark, I am sure extraordinary results can be produced.