Miss Tortoise

October, 2011
       I was surprised when my student named Ella (unreal name)came to see me. She cried while sharing her problem. She said, "Mom, I hate my friends. Why they always call me "Miss Tortoise"?. Am I like that , mom?" They sometimes call me “Miss Donkey”. Am I as silly as donkey, mom? Mom, I want to be like you. You are a great teacher. My friends really appreciate and respect you. I want to be treated like that. “

       Hearing her words, I just smiled. Then I tried to make her calm. "You are not tortoise or donkey, dear. You are human. You are a sweet girl. I believe that you are not as silly as they think. 

Then I asked her, “Do you wanna be appreciated and respected by your friends?”

"Yes, I really want it, mom",  said the shy girl.

       I was silent for a while to find the solution of the problem. Then, I told her to do some steps below:

1. Be calm down when your friends insult you. Consider that your friends’ bad words become a spirit for your better life. Don’t show a little bit of anger. Face them by “smile” and say “thanks”. 

In this case, I also taught her how to reply their insult by using soft words meaning deep there that will make them speechless.

2. Prove that you are not silly in their eyes. Deepen and master something incredible that you believe your friends can’t do it.

In my mind at the time, most of my students got problem in mastering English. So, I asked her to make effort in mastering the subject.

       She felt that the steps were good ideas and she believed that she could do them all well. 

From her face, I could see her strong willingness to change herself.

       The following day, I asked her to do the first step . I observed what she did at school. At first, she felt doubtful to do it. She was only silent. No action was found  at all there. As the result of this, their friends kept insulting her that finally made her cry. I could see that they felt very satisfied with what they did to her. How naughty they were.

       Seeing this, I called her to see me in my room. I reminded her to do the first step I had offered her. I reminded her about her previous willingness. 

The following day, She did the step. How happy I was, seeing this. She finally could do it very well.

A week later, she told me with cheerful face that her friends did not insult her anymore. That was the good first step.

       To make the second step come true, l had her come to my house once a week for a private course. To my surprise, handling this girl was not as easy as ABC. She was forgetful. What I taught just came in and went out in a short time.  For a second grade of Senior High school, she should have had a lot of vocabularies so she could understand a reading text and finally could do the questions after the text. The fact I got, She was blind in vocabularies. I was so frustrated that forced me to think harder how to find the best method of teaching for her. 

  

Then  I made a schedule as follows:

No	Meeting	Target	Material	Teaching Activities	Further Actions
1	1 st – 4th Week	Analyzing her problems she had Mastering vocabulary Understanding short text	-Private approaching -New or difficult vocabularies with their meaning (English Indonesian) available on texts -Short narrative text -Short report text -short analytical exposition text	Sharing all the problems she had at the time	Offering a solution for the problems she had   Giving motivation by reminding her previous willingness
				Matching English words and their meaning in Indonesian	Recording the English words and their meaning in Indonesian gotten in a mobile phone
				Translating the English text into Indonesian with the vocabularies memorized	Listening to the recording result in spare time
				Doing questions based on the text	Asking her family to give her questions about the words
				Memorizing vocabularies gotten	Making wall notes stuck on the wall of her bedroom
				Asking questions about the words	Observing her progress by giving more attention via phone, message
2.	5th – 6th	Reviewing the previous meeting	Previous Vocabularies	Memorizing English words and their meaning in Indonesia	Doing the same to previous actions
				Making sentences by using the words
3.		Refreshing mind	New vocabularies	Taking her at the supermarket and talked everything coming out from her mind	Rewrite her experience on her diary
4.	............	.....................................	..........................	.......................	.....................
5.	etc	....................................	..........................	.......................	.....................

        I made the schedule and did all of plans slowly but steadily. It, of course, took a lot of time to make her master all of the materials. Finally, I could see a progress of hers. She could get 7, then increased to be 7,5 then 8 in her repetition / quiz at her school. As I knew, she always got 5 before. It was a great thing for me though she hadn’t had a perfect mark. I said to her,”I’m proud of you, Ella. You are great”. She was so happy to hear my words.

        In an occasion, she told me that her teacher asked her and her friends to retell a narrative story in front of class. I thought it was a great time to show her quality to her friends.

        For a week, I trained her to speak. She never gave up though she often made mistakes in pronunciation or forgot what she should say. I asked her to repeat...repeat..and repeat again to make the perfect one. I still remembered, I   spent 2 hours at home and it was continued at a restaurant for 2 hours too while having dinner. 

       Thanks God, the day of the moment came. Two students did it well. Then, the teacher asked the others in the class to do so. Nobody stood up. A few minutes later, The students were surprised by  “Miss Tortoise” coming forward and retold a narrative story perfectly. Since then, nobody underestimated her capability. 

“Yes, I could do it. Thanks mom.” She telephoned me after doing the second step I asked her, proving that she was not as silly as donkey.

Naughty Boy

July, 2009

21st July was my first day for teaching and learning activity in the year 2009/2010.

Arriving at the teacher’s room, I hurried to see my schedule.

No	Time	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
1	07.00 -07.45		XI. S-2		XI.S-3
2	07.45 – 08.30		XI.S-2		XI.S-3
3	08.30 – 09.00		XI.S-2		XI.S-3
BREAK
4	09.30-10.15		XI.S-3
5	10.15-11.00		XI.S-3		XI.S-1
6	11.00-11.45		XI.S-1		XI.S-1
BREAK
7	12.00-12.45		XI.S-1		XI.S-2
8	12.45-13.30		XI.S-1		XI.S-2

 NB : S = Social department

          XI = eleventh grade of Senior High School

At 7.00 a.m, I entered class XI.S-2. Before I started teaching, I saw the circumstance of the class, like students’ seat position, the class size, pictures stuck on the wall, and the other things available in the classroom . I managed my mind’s way figuring the title given to social class. Most of teachers said that the class was usually fulfilled by stupid, lazy and naughty students because they were the rest of the selected ones. I could conclude their opinion that the dilligent, smart and obedient ones usually took the Science department class.

I took a deep breath for a minute to chase away such bad thoughts about them. Then, I smiled to them and started teaching.  In the course of teaching a boy named Adi (unreal name) knocked the door, and said in Indonesian “Maaf saya terlambat”(Sorry, I’m late).

As an English teacher I asked him to say in English. To my surprise, he answered in Indonesian again, “Aku tidak bisa” (I can’t). I took a deep breath to control my emotion. Then, I wrote how to  ask permission in English on a piece of paper. I asked him to memorize it and left him for a minute to focus on teaching the class. A few minutes passed, I didn’t see his action at all. When I approached him, he said in Indonesian, “Saya lebih suka lari mengelilingi lapangan sekolah 10 kali daripada menghafalkan kata-kata yang sulit dalam Bahasa Inggris” (I like running around the school court 10 times better than memorizing the difficult words in English)

I couldn’t bear anymore to see his attitude. Then I said angrily, “If you like running, just go!”

He went out classroom and ran 10 times around the court. My deepest heart said, “Why do you choose the wrong way?”

That day was the most terrific thing I had had in my life.

On Thursday,23rd July , I entered the class XI.S-2 again but in the afternooon. As we know, such hours, the willingness of sleeping could happen to students. To avoid such a situation, I tried to be enjoyable teacher. I combined serious and relax way in teaching. Entering the class, I didn’t see Ari, the naughty boy. I checked the class journal, he was present at the previous hours. “Oh, dear. What happened to him?” I had a negative thinking of him.

On Tuesday, 28th July, as usual I entered the first and second hour to class XI.S-2. I saw him in my class and he was not late that day. I approached him and asked why he din’t join my class the day before, and he aswered that he went home to sleep because he was tired at the time. I advised him not to do it again. He just answered, “yes, mom!” I felt so relieved hearing this.

On Thursday, 30th July, I didn’t see him. He played a truant again. The days after, I called him to see for councelling and he promised me not to repeat it again. The fact, he did this again and again until three times especially on Thursday,at afternoon hours. I could not bear anymore with his bad attitude. It seemed that school was only a place for playing for a while. I felt that he didn’t respect me as his teacher. To eliminate my stress, I shared this problem to my friends. I didn’t get the solution at all, they just said “that’s him. We really dislike him. He may be dropped from this school next semester.”

Hearing my friends’ answer, I felt dissatified. Then I thought over what to do to make him change.

The result, I got the idea. When he was absent, I always sent him a message via mobile phone, like the following message:

“Ari, Mengapa kamu selalu bolos disetiap pelajaran bahasa inggris, khususnya Kamis? Kamu tahu nggak kalo aku  kecewa sama kamu”

(Ari. Why are you always absent for English class especially on Thursday? You know that I’m dissapointed with you)

Here, I acted as a nice girl paying attention to him by saying hello, asking his activity, advised him what to do though only via sms.

Thanks God, this message changed him. He always came to my class. Seeing this, I was very happy but I didn’t quit my acting at the time. When I was teaching his class, I never paid attention to him at all. I could see at a glance that he tried to pay attention to me but I never cared of him.

On the other day, he finally knew that the message was from me. He couln’t bear anymore with what I did to him. He, then, sent message like this, “Mengapa ibu tidak pernah memperhatikan saya pada saat ibu mengajar kelas saya. Rasanya sakit bu. Saya murid ibu juga kan?” (Why did you never pay any attention to me when you are teaching my class? It hurts me so much, mom. I’m your student too, right?”)

Reading his message I just smiled and I didn’t give any response at all. The following day, he often sent me me message, “Please, forgive me, mom. I promise I won’t repeat my mistakes again”.

Since there was no response from me, he kept sending me such a message. I could say 20 times a day.  The following days, he sent the same message again...and again. Eventually, I gave response by sending him message, “I don’t need your promise, Just prove it”

Thanks God, he really changed his attitude. He never played truant until the end of semester. Seeing the change, I changed my way to treat him. One day I approached him and said,”You are great. You’ve proven it. I’m very proud of you”

He smiled and thanked me. He said that what I did really made him impressed.