my students : Dec08/09

I have been assigned 8 mentees in our Mentor - Mentee Program. I told MSO that I'm gonna be like Dr.Cox in Scrubs being all cold and sarcastic and giving them nicknames like newbie, Gizmo etc. Blowing whistles and asking them to follow me around. Unfortunately, I do not work in a hospital and I don't get to do rounds (oh, darn it). And fortunate for them, I just cannot be like that.

The first meeting with 3 out of 8 of them was okay. We got to know each other and chatted for about 20 minutes since I didn't have much time. This semester I decided to take it down a notch and not put on that garang face. Turned out, students start to reach out to me or some sort. And I managed to gather some information about what sort of problems that face in their studies. I just hope that they don't take advantage of the situation. Previous semester, a colleague of mine heard this at the corridor;


"Siapa ajar ko Stat?"
"Ms. D---"
"Uish.. wei, aku dengar dia garang wei"

Am I garang? Perhaps at times I can be very serious la kot (I know it must be hard imagining me like that kan ShazZain.. cikyah.. Sheri.. Atika.. and others who know me from schooldays onwards.. hehe ).

I am right now facing with several challenges that perhaps academicians (mainly Mathematicians and Statisticians) can relate to. I am teaching a group of students who have very weak basic in Mathematics. And patience is an essential ingredient in teaching. The thing is, I am more than happy to guide them from zero if they are willing to learn but what makes me upset is the attitude that they have towards learning. Cutting class and making immature jokes during lectures is very frustrating (kecik hati cikgu).

Another challenge is that I have a class of almost 60 students and it gets really cramped inside the classroom. So there is a high chance of cheating during quizes and tests. I might have to resolve this quickly so that I can give more attention if they are in smaller groups.

The utmost challenge would be teaching the international students together with the local students. Yesterday, a new international student came in saying that he just flew in from S-----a. I have no problems in terms of language and communicating with them. They can speak English well and I too sometimes try to speak very basic Arabic with them. According to one of them, they can understand my lectures. Only that I must have empathy towards them. I must always remind myself that they have learned everything in Arabic and writing in Jawi for at least 17 years and for them to comprehend all this new knowledge in English must take quite some time. I wonder how it is like studying in a foreign land with a foreign language. But it's good that I had a good talk with one of them and he told me how different it was studying in his country and how he and the rest of them is adapting to the environment here.

I hope to learn more about my students. And I hope that I can at least try not to put on that garang face. I know I can be very garang when I mean serious business.

It's an interesting journey I guess. Being a lecturer is not just teaching but learning too.