Muddling through NIE and rehashing contemporary, fashionable education ideas about teaching being a two-way process in my essays, I'm only beginning to understand what a professor of mine in Bristol once said to me.
I asked him how he got from studying engineering to teaching then to training teachers and finally to becoming an educational cognitive neuroscientist. As he related his story, he had this faraway thoughtful look of wistfulness, sadness, pride and amusement when he touched on his teaching career. Then he paused and said, "Yeah. Teaching. Knocked a few edges off me."
Then we went back to talking about my dissertation artificial agents.
In the last 6 months, I've certainly had some edges knocked off me.
Here's a lesson in pain and resilience:
There was a kid in my class who has an impressive track record of crime since he was 7. It ranges from housebreaking and theft to arson and violence. His family background isn't the most stellar, with both parents in jail. He had absolutely no interest in studying and in Term 3, he was in school only 18 days out of 40. Also, he's a brilliant kid and a fast learner, but because of his chronic absenteeism, he had fallen behind very badly and couldn't follow the pace of lessons whenever he returned to school.
So he gave me some problems in class, and for the first few months, I was always nervous of this kid, because I didn't know quite how to relate to him. For one, he didn't seem to care that much for rules or routines in class, and probably saw through my discipline attempts - that I was pretty hopeless at being tyrannical. Here are some reasons why I will always remember this kid.
1. One day after banishing him to the back of the class because he had lied about doing his homework, I called him to me after I gave the others seat work. I asked him why he thought I was angry and he muttered under his breath, not looking at me and being really pissed off, "Because I didn't do my homework." To which I told him it wasn't because he hadn't done his homework, I knew he couldn't do it, I was disappointed because he had lied. I told him simply that I knew he was a better person than that.
I didn't know what an effect my words could have on this kid. He lifted his eyes to stare at me, and in that moment, that hardened look I saw so often in his eyes gave way to tears.
2. I heard from the social worker that his mum had gone into jail. His dad had gone in about a year earlier. His aunt was now looking after him and his sister. A day after his mum had gone in, during snack time, I noticed he didn't have anything to eat and during recess again, he sat by himself on the bench, not talking to anyone. I asked him to show me his wallet, so I could check if he had any money on him. He took out a brand new wallet and opened it.
There was nothing inside - no money, no ez-link card - except for a tiny, carefully preserved picture of his father.
I felt a lump rise in my throat as I asked him what he had for breakfast, and what he was going to have for lunch and dinner. He said his aunt would cook for him if she was home.
"What if she isn't home?" I asked.
"I drink water," was the reply.
Now, after the social workers' visits to the house, the aunt ensures that his meals are well taken care of.
3. His mum was pregnant when she went into jail. This kid was really worried because the doctor had told them that his baby brother wasn't going to be able to function mentally as well as other children. I suppose he didn't really know how to express this to me, because he told me when we had built a better relationship that his baby brother was going to be 'handicapped'. He always furrowed his brow and tear up whenever he told me about this. One day, as I was marking, he sidled over and asked shyly, "Miss Tan, is 24 October last week?"
I confirmed this and he smiled happily, "Oh. My baby brother born already." Then he skipped away. I've never met a kid who remembers dates like that.
4. As far I knew, this kid was completely unsentimental on the outside to his friends. He was one of the biggest troublemakers in school, but as time went by, I saw a side of him that makes me want to cry. There was a day where I made him stay back with me to go through his Science homework because his exams were coming up soon.
The next day, I found a tiny, crumpled up note shoved into my class letter box. It read:
"Thank you, Miss Tan, you help me Sience homework."
5. During an FTGP lesson, we had the kids identify their love language, then write down one person in their lives that they wanted to show their love language to them.
This kid couldn't follow and probably didn't quite understand what was happening, but this was what he wrote.
Now that the year is up, I still think about this kid's notes to me. I think about how he carries his family's burdens, but still has innocent childish worries about others not playing with him. I think about how he wrote 'goli' in his exam paper, because he couldn't remember the English word for 'marble'.
Most of all, I think about how he thanked me and I really want to say to him,
Thank you for teaching me more about life.
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