Not. One. Blank.

Dear reader,

Personally, I was quite irritated by the attitude of some of my students. Many a time, they would leave questions blank, instead of attempting the question. In order for me to give relevant feedback to my students, it was vitally important for me

As such, I have introduced a new routine to my Secondary 3 class-- "Not. One. Blank." In other words, I would reject any submitted scripts that had unanswered questions. This forced my students to think about their questions and at minimum, express their educated guess. In this way, I will be able to fuss over their thinking progress.

After all, we are in school to learn, aren't we?

New Ways to Win

Dear reader,

I have been trying out praise as a motivational tool. To my surprise, it is working. With a simple "thanks" and "I really appreciate your effort", attendance at my CCA is at an all-time high. Even with the omission of games, I actually see the Secondary 1s enjoying their usually mundane footdrill training.

Even on the academic side, I have been encouraging students to look for me on their own to clarify their doubts. So far my Secondary 2 and 3 classes have been actively finding me for remedial. Even a bit of affirmation is highly sought-after by the students.

So far, my attempts to change my cynical language is in progress, highly encouraged by the recpetion of my students.

To avoid a succession crisis

Dear reader,

This week I decided to spend more time in my CCA, the St John Ambulance Brigade. As the Secondary Four members prepare to hand over their committee positions, I have decided to play a more active role in the group.

After all, I know that the leadership lies on a thread. I only have three Secondary 3 cadets, the CCA has to rely on the Secondary 2 cadets to fill up the vacant committee positions.

Furthermore, I need to ensure that the current committee choose their words wisely during the handover. Being relatively frank people, what they say sometimes might hurt feelings regardless of their content or intent. The art of speaking tactfully is something that I feel should have been taught to students, but often is not. This is particularly true when our students fail to recognise and appreciate verbal cues like personification, sarcasm and metaphor.

That is all I want to write for now.