I am definitely one who is willing to take chances but I need to be responsible and make sure that they are not reckless ones.
Why?
Because, my line of work involves education and in turn, the future of the young ones.
Here, I would like to sincerely apologise from the very bottom of my heart for turning down the requests of you concerned parents who would like me to tutor your children.
Yes, I am specialised in primary education.
However based on my past teaching experience, I am most confident and capable in teaching the upper primary children.
(But who knows, in the near future, I might be able to rope in my awesome teacher-kakis to teach the lower primary levels 1,2 and 3.)
For now, Bottoms Up! which was initially targeted atP5/P6 children taking English and Mathematics at Foundation level, it has 'spread its wings' after much persuasion from parents through the many email exchanges and phonecalls. There are now upper primary children who take Standard English and Mathematics joining my tuition classes. Welcome aboard the newly-modified ship, fellow Bottoms Uppers!
So, currently, I am tutoring P4, P5, P6 pupils and lo and behold, Sec 1 N(A) and Sec 1 N(T) students.
Biar Betik Nura?! Sec 1?
The bulk of my Sec 1 tutees were past year's batch. I have been lucky because I have a very positive parent-tutor relationship with the parents. To all you parent clients, thank you for the enjoyable interactions.
Anyway back to my Secondary One abang abangs and kakak kakaks....
It took me about a month to finally confirm to their parents that I will teach their teenagers this year.
In that one month, plenty of studying was done because I was not familiar with the Secondary 1 N(A) and N(T) syllabuses.
Even Nyla noticed and I remembered her asking, 'Mommy, are you doing homework? Who is your teacher?'
I personally feel that I should have strong content mastery so that I will be able to teach effectively. On top of that, I also had to create meaningful activities to teach 'free writing' and 'prime factorisation with index notation' since this batch was so used to fun and engaging lessons last year.
As an educator, I have to be that positive role model and commit myself to continual learning and improvement in everything I do. I always tell my tutees that we need to be 'lifelong learners'. Hence I need to practice what I preach. In this case, I have most certainly 'set the bar' higher when it comes to my own personal performance.To be a successful person, I must be willing to learn and apply new concepts and that was what I did the past month, burning midnight oil every night, after putting Nyla to bed. Thanks to this study schedule, Nyla's bedtime now is 830pm, which has given me not only the rest of the night to study but to do my lesson plans with no interruption and guilt.
I am still learning. I am very much aware that I will never be a Miss-know-it-all but I will make education and continuous learning as one of my primary goals.
