When I can't shut my eyes

Here I am 1.15 in the morning staring at the screen of my laptop. I should be asleep by now, somehow I am not sleepy. I cannot figure it, why aren't I sleepy. I am the type of person who will easily doze off when my head hit the pillow but not tonight. Actually I also have nothing to write here however the least I can do is to wish all Happy Labour Day. What so happy about labour day, it is only a day off but come to think of it, if it is a day off that I am still employed when many people are jobless. I should be thankful of that. So to all employees out there Happy Labour Day. I would like to ask you a question what did you do when you can't sleep?

He is not alone

Yesterday I helped out at my son's kindergarten , they are short of teacher because one teacher is sick. Well what to do I am a teacher so I just can help it. At first I was just helping them doing some wall decoration but when I saw a class without a teacher so I entered the class. There are 10 students in the class. The students was writing numbers, a task given by another teacher before I entered the class.

I introduced my self and ask them to continue with what they were doing. One boy came to me and show his writing I commented " very good you're a clever boy" the boy smiles, I asked him to sit at his place. After that everyone wanted to show me their work, I helped the them to write. I told the class I will give them smiley face is they finished their work.

Then I saw this boy, he is sitting in a small chair. He cannot write and he struggle to hold the pencil. His hand is short with fingers that cannot function well. He is physically challenge and sits quietly in front of the class. I go to him and ask, can you write, he nodded and tries to hold his pencil and scribble on the paper. I hold his fragile hand and guide him to write no 3. I asked him his name and I told him he is a clever boy and helped him finish his work and gave him a smiley face. His face lit up and he smiles.

He told me he wanted to be a doctor when he grow up, it breaks my heart. I told him to study hard. After that the boy can't stop talking, he told me where his mother is working, how many cars he have, he is cheerful,but I have to leave his table to look at his friends work. I saw him sit quietly at his table, he cannot walk his hand and feet are very small hardly functioning, but I also saw he have a big heart. I wish he will succeed in his live and be brave enough to face this cruel world. Not long after that his caregiver came and took him back and we all said good bye to him.

Little League

Last Sunday my youngest son represent his kindergarden, PASTI Darululum to a soccer match for Shah Alam level.  

We are in white and we manage to get to the semi finals,unfortunately we lost 2-0.

For the 3rd and 4th placing we lost 2-1 by penalty kick.

Addicted

Blogging is addictive. I guess those who is hooked to it can really understand what i meant. Today I went to buy my household stock for the week and I came across an arrangement of plants for sale at the hypermarket. Thinking that it might be a good material for my blog immediately I took out my hand phone and started to snap some pic. Just didn't care if anybody is staring.


This flower really caught my eyes. Unfortunately I didn't know what type of flower it is


The flowers are actually red in colour. I guess this is what you get when taking pictures using camera. what to do I am cheap.

I am not into flowers but this beautiful chrysanthemum make me wish I planted it home.

There are also some cactus , this one looks like a flower

World through my handphone

Handphones are now no longer use as a telephone, we use it for many different uses. May be in the future it can also be use as a remote key for our car. Here is what my hand phone was used, as a camera here are what my weekend was like.
On saturday we went to a health carnival in Shah Alam. Guess what was on displayed, cars, there was an autoshow . Eventhough we couldn't make any connection between health carnival and autoshow we sure enjoy ourselves.



my son's teak wan do grading on sunday.
This was actually not during the weekend. It's the journey I took to Tg Malim today


Reach home after maghrib.

Down the memory lane

I've invited my alumni group to visit my blog and the respond is overwhelming. I received many good comments. Thanks to all of you.Did anyone of you recognize this, Its the library of our alma mater USM Penang.

These are the pic I manage to grab from the net


Still remember this moment? Precious


Desa Harapan



Tasik USM, good times

WHAT TEACHERS MAKE

Some of you may have read this, it's from my alumni group and i really like it. So this is what i want to share with teachers out there.

The dinner guests were sitting around the table discussing life.

One man, a CEO, decided to explain the problem with education. He argued, "What's a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?"

He reminded the other dinner guests what they say about teachers: "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."

To stress his point he said to another guest;
"You're a teacher, Bonnie. Be honest. What do you make?"


Bonnie, who had a reputation for honesty and frankness replied, "You want to know what I make? (She paused for a second, then began...)

"Well, I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.

I make a C+ feel like the Congressional Medal of Honor.

I make kids sit through 40 minutes of class time when their parents can't make them sit for 5 without an I Pod, Game Cube or movie rental.

You want to know what I make?" (She paused again and looked at each and every person at the table.)

''I make kids wonder.

I make them question.

I make them apologize and mean it.

I make them have respect and take responsibility for their actions.

I teach them to write and then I make them write. Keyboarding isn't everything.

I make them read, read, read.

I make them show all their work in math. They use their God given brain, not the man-made calculator.

I make my students from other countries learn everything they need to know in English while preserving their unique cultural identity.

I make my classroom a place where all my students feel safe.

I make my students stand, placing their hand over their heart to say the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, One Nation Under God, because we live in the United States of America.

Finally, I make them understand that if they use the gifts they were given, work hard, and follow their hearts, they can succeed in life."

(Bonnie paused one last time and then continued.)

"Then, when people try to judge me by what I make, with me knowing money isn't everything, I can hold my head up high and pay no attention because they are ignorant... You want to know what I make?

I MAKE A DIFFERENCE . What do you make Mr. CEO?"

His jaw dropped, he went silent.

They call me cikgu

My students always ask me how to study physics, do they have to memorize all the formulas and I always told them " no you don't have to memorize all the formulas, what you need to do is to understand the concepts" The question next is how to understand the concepts. Physics concept are very abstract. you cannot see force, you can only feel and see the result of force. I try to make the concept as concrete as possible. I even open my car bonnet to show my students the radiator, sorry girls that all I can do, you cannot take it out because i still need to drive it to school. I encourage my girls to do experiments.

In my schooling years I loved doing experiments. When I was in standard 6, I nearly burn down my house because I was doing a so called experiment. When I looked at my mother's dried flower I make a hypothesis that the flower will catch fire if I put a lit up match near it. Trying to prove my hypothesis I took a match and lit it up, put it near my mother's dried flower and straight away the fire spread to the wall, panicked I go to the kitchen and get a jug of water and pour it to the fire. Lucky for me I was able to put off the fire, otherwise I won't be here to tell you the story. However I was unlucky because my mother reached home a few minutes later so I don't have time to hide the evidence . Come to think of it even if I can hid the flowers the wall is still black of soot.

Back to our topic, students need to experience the enjoyment of doing science especially physics. Encourage them to do experiments with stuff they can find at home, like ask them to bring their roller blade when you are teaching force and motion. let them feel the momentum when they move and the impulsive force when they hit the wall ( Please safety first). I tried this with my girls and some of them enjoy it but some prefer to stay in class and get as much knowledge as they can. I cannot blame them, because here in Malaysia it is not how the students enjoy the class but how many "A" they can get in their exams that matters. I understand the dilemma faced by teachers here, by august we must finished our syllabus and by September the students will be drilled with past years questions. Then when SPM result came out the students with good result are celebrated whereas students how fails are forgotten. Students are competing on who can get the most "A's" The record now is 21A's. My question to you is how can we help our students understand that getting so many "A's" will not means anything if they don't have good thinking skills, creativity and problem solving skills.

Earth Day

Early one morning a friend of mine sms me saying that he visited my blog before he started work just to check on anything he can share with his friend. It really struck me, someone really did read what I write. So thank you to all my friends for their support. One friend said I should put more information. Well one info I would like to share with all of you is tomorrow is earth day

We only have one home that is the earth, if anything happened to it where can we go? We should all play our role to protect our earth. One small step we can take is to recycle, everybody can do it just by separating your garbage and throw it into the designated bin. Some might ask is it enough, can we make a different. Like I wrote before we can,by changing a person at a time. As teachers our responsibility is bigger we have to teach our future generation . So that if our students become policy makers they can consider leaving some resources for the next generation and to not do the same mistake we did. But is it to late for them, we've used up almost all the resources and we've done quite a major damages to the earth. So we have to ask our self what type of future are we leaving our kids and grandchildren. What else can we do? I am asking you and my self.

I had a dream

I always wonder about dream, don't you ?. I know we dream in colours because once I dreamt a boy I really like gave me a red rose. Sometimes when I miss a TV show and it appears in my dream. I also dream about falling, once I dreamt I climbed a coconut tree and fall as reach the top of the tree and sometime falling from a balcony. Have you ever had those dream.

Have you ever had a dream , you are in a fight or an embarrassing situation and you try to defend your self but no word coming out of your mouth and you try to shout but your voice is stuck in your throat. I had those dream a few times. I read somewhere that dream is our subconscious mind trying to tell us something. May be it is true because being a Malay woman I was taught that I cannot talk back, I cannot freely voice out my dissatisfaction. But as I grew older I become more expressive, I am out of my cocoon. Even though sometimes I still keep things to my self but compared to went I was younger I was afraid to voice out my mind because I always think I might say the wrong thing or stupid things. Now I know we learn from our mistake, If we don't make mistake how can we improve ourself. You also must express your self than because if you don't you'll regret it. I had regrets before, I tried to voice out but I just cannot do it, and then the word keep playing in mind like a tape recorder being played over and over again. You should let people now what you think otherwise you will not make a difference.

But sometime in real life even if your voice out your thoughts it still does not make things happened like when your are not satisfied with what going on in the world with war, food crisis, inflation, child abuse and many other bad things . It will not stop even if you shout your heart out, but it doesn't matter if the politician cannot hear you, or the criminals will not listen to you, You must keep voicing out you mind because somewhere sometime people will listen and may be you can change the world one person at a time. What do you think? What dream you have at night ?

.

Back to the floor

My study leave is going to be over soon. I will be either going back to school or to teachers' college, either or I'll go back to teaching. I remember when I was doing my first degree I told a friend of mine that I will not become a teacher, but now look at me I've been teaching for 7 years now. Teaching was not my passion, however on 1999 when my first baby is born I have to find a job that did not take a lot of my time. Then I thought hey why not go into teaching more holidays, short working hour. After that I got my Diploma in education an become a teacher. I don't fall in love with it immediately I was posted to my school an all girl school. My first year was disastrous my student ask question that i cannot answer, some student cut out of my class, I don't know how to control my students. My degree is Biology but I have to teach Physics so it was not my area of expertise. I lost my temper in class, I shouted to a student very loud I noticed some teachers came out of their classroom to look.

But I stick to it, on my second year I was the advisory for my schools' handball team and the Police cadets. Frankly speaking I was never into sport, so my girls practise on their own and we lost at the first round. My police cadets team is also not doing so well. I improve on my content knowledge. I was more prepared to class. I even thought of outside class activities for my students. I don't want my students to think that physics is something they can only learn in the lab. Fast forward a few years I began to enjoy teaching. I noticed that when the girls enjoyed their class I feel a satisfaction beyond explanation. I want my girls not only learn physics but also enjoy my class doing physics. When their SPM results came out I cannot sleep thinking how is my students doing in their SPM. I was no longer the handball team advisory but still a police cadets teacher. I enjoy being the police cadets teacher, I even became a commander for the district level and state level events. I teaches my girls and they also teaches me. Now I've fallen in love with teaching and with my girls. Sometimes I miss going to school and I even went to school just to check on the teacher who is replacing me. Even though I improve my content knowledge, I still thought to my self, what if my student want to know more and what if I am lost of ideas in teaching. That is the main reason why I took my masters degree in Physics education. First when I apply for my masters I was rejected because my degree is not related to physics but with my determination I was accepted but with one condition I have to join undergrad student for physics classes and I accept.

something i learned

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many comments

Yesterday I've started telling my friends about my blog. I received many comments from them and I will try my best to improve this blog. One friend commented about me using english for my post, so I sms him back by saying that i wanted to improve my english. It's not that i don't like to use Bahasa Melayu but I really need to improve my english, since now I have to teach in english. As you can see my english is not excellent but as long as people can understand what I'm talking about that is fine with me. And also this friend of mine ask me to make a database of old friends. I hope that he can be very patient because i am very new to this blogging arena and still a lot to learn. However I will try to do it.

Another friend sms me asking when did my father died and then she inform me that her parent had died 2 years ago. We share our feelings about our parents. May Allah bless their soul Al Fatihah. I realise that blogging is not only about writing about things that is in your mind but it also can bring friends back together and at the same time you can get new friends. Before this I didn't have the courage to tell my friends about this blog and i hope people won't read my blog because I am afraid that people will find what i write as stupid. But now I really hope many people will stop by and read and give feed back on what i write.

attack!!!!!!!!

My beautiful home is under attack. What should I do, what should I do. Should I scream or should I hide under the table. No I Should face it , I cannot show my fear. Today I take my first step that I should have taken weeks ago. I buy poison, yes poison to kill ha ha ha ( laughing loudly with evil looks on my face) my mission today is to kill, so i put the poison in a water sprinkler spraying it all over the windows, doors and all wooden furniture and am very tired now. I need to exercise more. Yes my friends termites have conquered my house. I cannot afford to hire pest control so it control it my self. Hope it works.



The culprit

my love

i love teaching, i love looking at my students faces especially when their faces lit up when they understand my explanations, i love to see my students laugh when they enjoyed my class, i love my students as if they are my own children. I love the smell of grass when it's raining, I love looking at my children faces when they are sleeping. I love hearing my parent laughing, I love it when my husband smiling, I love my life I am blessed with so many wonderful things alhamdullilah.

It's over

Fhew, may exam is over. Now i must concentrate on my thesis.  On 28th May, I have to present my thesis proposal. I am going to do research on the effectiveness of problem based learning on the analysis, synthesise and evaluation skill ( higher order thinking skills according to bloom's taxanomy). I'll be focusing on the Archimedes principle from chapter 4 in form four physics.  I am stuck at the measuring instrument. I cannot find any instruments to evaluate the level of these thinking skills. So I have to build my own instrument but if I do that than my instrument will have a very low reliability level.  Hmm,What to, What to do. Well , I still have a month to figure the problem out.  But first  I have to do my take home exam, the due date is on 11 april. 

Exam day

Tomorrow is my exam day for quantum mechanics, keeping my fingers crossed. wish me luck i need the luck in the world to answer quantum mechanics questions. I've left my children since friday. I'm going to leave them for four days. my youngest was crying when i leave him. my other two kids still at school. well, in order for you to achieve something sometime you have to make sacrifices. hope my kids would understand. Insyaallah i'll finish my masters end of this year. After that i still don't have any idea whether to stay in school or try to work elsewhere. I am a goverment servant so my choice is actually limited. it is either school, teachers' college or to the education department. I love teaching so I won't be going to education department. So it leave my two choices school or teachers' college. at least i have till the end of the year to decide. hope i'll make the correct choice.

picture perfect

this is a picture I received from my alumni group. A very interesting picture, if only I am able to capture such picture. Well how can I, I don't even have a camera. Lol