It's a great day!

Finally back to school, or rather seeing the children again, today after the 1 week break and the 3 days of training.1st period of the day met my new full class of P3 EL children. Have heard stories about some children who were involved in different 'adventures' and had to be sent to the vice-principal and the principal in Term1. Have been warned by the form-teacher about some children who are prone to misbehaving and those I need to 'keep an eye on'. But amazingly, everyone's really well-behaved. Maybe it's the first day and they're trying to make a good impression and putting up their best behaviours.

I read "Miss Nelson Is Missing" to the children. It's a story that I love to share on the first day of school before we set class rules, etc. The story is about a kind teacher who had the worst-behaved class in the whole school. So the teacher decided to go missing one day and a substitute teacher, Miss Viola Swamp, came. Yap, with a name like that, the teacher was a indeed a 'witch' and the children were terrified of her. They missed nice Miss Nelson. Eventually Miss Nelson returned to class and all the children learned their lesson and behaved well. Well, of course, Miss Viola Swamp was actually Miss Nelson in disguise.

During the story, everyone was fully attentive. Well, guess everyone loves a story :) Of course, the message learned from the story is simple- If you want your teacher to be nice and loving like Miss Nelson, then you need to be well-behaved, pay atttention in class, respect the teacher, etc. If you want your teacher to become Miss Viola Swamp, you just have to make her angry...

It's also great that the children are doing the story "The Mystery of Missing Big Wig" this week so I could also draw some parallels between the 2 stories. The children were excited and the discussions were lively.
I've enjoyed teaching the class. It's a great difference from the previous P3 classes and the P5 class that I'm teaching, still struggling to read. It's a refreshing change.

After school & remedial for the P5s, I stayed back in school preparing some resources. I was so engrossed in whatever I was doing that when Jerome called me at 6pm, I was still in school! I have lost track of time. Just before I left school, I've checked my pigeon hole and found a book "Teaching is Heartwork", left by the P, meant to be put in the school library for teachers. It was a compilation of reflections and personal experiences from some beginning teachers. I took the book and read some of the stories during my bus-ride home. Some of the stories struck a cord in me. I can relate to the teachers and their experiences.

By the time I've reached home, it's close to 8p.m. Hmm... when I left home in the morning, it was dark. When I'm home again, it's still dark. When will I see daylight? I'm tired but I still feel great! Maybe the only thing that was not so great was when I spent a minute digging in my big bag for my keys and was almost in a panic when I realised I have beening holding them in my hand all the time.

Told Jerome that this new P3 class had 3 different teachers in Term 1 and I'm the 4th! If I'm leaving after this term, there'll be a 5th! I'm having 2nd thoughts about resigning in June already. Jerome said don't think about it and reminded me that noone was irreplaceable in any organisation.

He told me that he called his mum today and among other things they've talked about, he had thought it was time to make an 'announcement' to his mum that we're now trying for a baby. Err... yap, true I've announced to the world that we're trying for a baby. But telling his mum is really putting the pressure... to produce results... soon... Not too good at all...