thoughts on teaching

this year i started teaching at a church run non-profit school for dropouts preparing for O level exams. The first thing that struck me when I walked into class on the first day was the collective visual impact they made.

The fact that all of them came in their own crazy piercings, coloured hair, ripped outfits, tattoos and make-up was jarring. My first thought was "Wow. I better know what I am saying. These guys are in their full on tribal regalia." It was massively cool in a "Dangerous Minds" sort of way but also fairly intimidating in much the same fashion. The first row of kids that faced me were Neo-goth punk boys. Two wore mascara, one had tattoos all over - including his girlfriend's name across his fingers and one massive neck tattoo of a pair of praying hands. He also had two gloriously huge, 50 cent size holes in his ear lobes.

I never gave much thought to the whole "wear uniform or dont wear uniform" debate. After all, I was used to putting on my little boring pinafore all the way till JC. I do understand now why they say putting students in school uniforms really does have a disempowering effect - all the students are made to look like carbon copies while you, the teacher, are in the position of power by virtue of your difference in outfit. It's akin to how soldiers, servants and factory workers all dress one way and generals, bosses and masters dress another.

Its been four weeks so far and already I see they are truly a tribe of their own, quite separate from the pristine mainstream. I have a sweet, lovely young librarian-looking girl next door who is already married with a little kid. When she waits outside the school with her Far East kid of a husband, I have to remind myself they are parents, not kids. I have a Young and Dangerous lookalike who can tell me he had not been turning up for class because he was clearing up a case at the police station.

But beneath the bizarro external side lies fascinating little stories. My mascara boy who togs himself up in skinny Britband ties and big punk pants shared with me that he loves designing Perenakan jewellery. My bouncer-looking, stocky mat-rocker biker boy reveals quite happily to the rest of the class that he is proud to be virgin and says his ambition is to be a good husband and provider to his future wife and kids.

Just this year, a fellow teacher shared with me some wise advice - "We teach who we are."

A good teacher prepares his students for exams. A great teacher prepares his students for life.

And of course, life is that funny slippery thing that can never be taught via text book...it can only be demonstrated, modelled, lived and shared. It is passed on through the ether, between the lines.

It's something I have grown very conscious of with my new discerning, tough as nails audience. I obviously come from a culture vastly different from theirs. They know it, I know it. Thankfully, they are sweet enough at heart not to hold it against me as long as I do the same for them.

How should I speak and teach such that they do not feel the difference between us, but the commonality that we actually share? How do I translate principles into lingo and images they understand?

Blogging is a funny thing - In an odd way, it is easier for me to be vulnerable through the medium of written words. You have the armour of weighed out thought and you don't directly face your audience and witness the immediate twitches people make in reaction to your words. It really is quite another dimension to learn how to be vulnerable on the fly, on the spot, at the moment when someone asks a cutting question or makes a shrewd personal remark.

The most powerful thing we can share with another person is the Truth of who we were, who we are and what we will be.
Yet it is the most frightening thing in the world to be truly vulnerable. It requires inhuman humility that only God can teach.

I guess to be a truly great teacher, you got to start and always continue to be a truly great learner. I need God to show me I can never think of myself more highly or lowly than I should. That's so tricky!

Anyhoo.....that appears to be one of my lessons for the year. Let's see how many decades I will take to ingest that!