Naughty Steve

Over the course of the first twenty days of the new school year, I realized that my teach ing had been spiraling out of control.  Although the amount of assignments had increased, it failed to keep pace with the slow learning students as evident by pages of unanswered questions in their exercise books, especially those in Dua Niah, a class of fourteen-year-olds who seemed slow in learning and, at times, rather naughty.  

To remedy the situation, a thought struck me:  teach the students how to write through drilling.  Give them a foundation.  For several days, after some trial and error, I came up with a worksheet that I thought would motivate the students.  With the eagerness of a child, I took the worksheets to Dua Niah.  As I was about to introduce the activity, the sight of some dazed-looking students and others caught up in their busy chatter, dampened my spirits.  Taking a deep breath, I raised my voice and said, “Class, today I’ve something special for you.  I’m going to make writing more learner-friendly.”

As soon as I had made that declaration, regret got the better of me.  To make learning fun, according to some experienced teachers, you are not supposed to sing praises of your teaching.  The success of a lesson depends on how well the students grasp your teaching.  Action speaks louder than words.

“Are you sure it’s interesting, Cikgu?” asked a boy named Steve, the naughtiest boy in the class, hopeless beyond cure, as he spoke to me in Malay.  “Don’t tell me that we have to get into groups again and try to figure out the mess you’re giving us.”

“I-I’ve never given you anything messy,” I said, exasperated, offended even, and un nerved by his impertinence.  “This time I will guide all of you thoroughly with a few ex amples and you’ll know exactly what you’re doing.”

“No need-lah, Cikgu,” a chorus of groans immediately rang out in every direction.

Refusing to appear defeated, I smiled and distributed the worksheets from one row to another.  

Steve rolled the paper into a cone and spoke through it, “I’m not in the mood to do it!”

“Too bad,” I barked.  “You have to follow my instruction!”

A piece of chalk was thrown from somewhere in the vicinity of Steve’s seat and it ricocheted off the chalkboard and struck me solidly in the ear.

The arteries throbbing in my temples, I felt overly compelled to punish Steve, but then thought better of it.  By openly showing that I was intimidated by a student would tarnish my image.

Instead I blurted out, “Don’t be so negative!  Give yourself a chance to pick up something useful today.”  

 “Pick up what, teacher,” asked Steve, defiantly.  “Rubbish?”

“How to write well!” I said through clenched teeth.  To emphasize my point, I slapped the unoccupied desk in front of me with the palm of my hand.  I must’ve hit it so hard that it suddenly tipped over with a loud thud.

Everyone was stunned, especially me.

With a gleeful, sarcastic look in his eye, Steve rose from his seat and up righted the desk.

I pretended as if nothing had happened and began the lesson by reading out a paragraph.

“Teacher, your voice is shaking,” said Steve.

I ignored him and continued on, only to find myself choking on one of the words and then launching into a fit of coughing.

The students exchanged looks and whispers with one another.

Wiping the tears in my eyes, I said, “Class, p-pay special attention to the underlined words and see how they join different ideas together.  If you apply the same technique in paragraph-writing, rest-assured you can score decently.”

A girl timidly raised up her hand.  “Teacher, what should we do with the two sets of notes below?”

“You’re to expand each of them into a paragraph based on the words and format used in the previous paragraph,” I explained.  

With that, the students quickly fell into their respective groups to work on the para graphs, even the naughty ones, perhaps stunned into action by my show of anger.  Or so I thought.  Meanwhile I walked around from one corner of the room to another, making sure the students focused on the task.  Steve’s group, however, was still playing around.  Annoy ingly, they would ask me to come over to their place, only to tell me that they wanted to go to the toilet or to eat their take-outs.  Steve even had the cheek to tell me that he wanted to sleep!  

I told myself that it was the last straw and decided to ignore them.

“Teacher, we need your help!” Steve shouted.

Feigning deafness, I helped a group of girls to write the two paragraphs.  They listened eagerly and easily understood my explanations.

“Cikgu, come here!” called Steve, his voice booming.

Still ignoring the irritating bunch, I hunched over a desk and spelt out a word for an other group.

“Teacher!”

At last, I could not bear it anymore and strode over to Steve’s group.

The four boys proudly held up their paper.  My eyes widened at what they had written.  Although their para graphs were peppered with errors, they had more or less grasped the basic requirement of the writing assignment.

Perhaps, I had been wrong about them, especially Steve.  

Face flushing, I heard myself say, “Good job, but your paragraphs still need some polish ing.”

I told the boys what they should do to make their paragraphs better.  Surprisingly, they listened attentively.  When the time for discussion was almost up, I walked around the class again, making sure that every group had finished.  Then, I asked them to put up their para graphs around the classroom, allowing room for peer editing.

The students walked around excitedly, busy commenting on each other’s writing.  Steve and his friends read everything with a grin on their faces, occasionally scribbling something. Curious, I read what they had written and saw some apt corrections, something beyond my expectations.  Perhaps it’s true what they say, that every learner is teachable.  When all the students had returned to their seats, I edited everything and gave back the papers to each group.

“Teacher, see!” shouted Steve.  “You gave us a “well done!”  Most of what we wrote was correct.”

“That’s from your own efforts,” I said, smiling.  “So what did you learn from the group work?”

“Nothing, teacher,” Steve said.

My heart sank, but Steve quickly added, “Just kidding.  I’ve picked up something today. When you kept ignoring us, we became bored and eventually got around to doing the work, which turned out to be quite easy after we followed your instructions.”

Smiling sheepishly, I gave the boy an acknowledging nod.  Deep down, I knew what I had done was very little.  The boy and his friends had actually figured out everything by themselves.  

Who said naughty students were hopeless?  Challenging yes, but not hopeless!  

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