Entrance

I recorded my last videos of friends and the campus. I laughed at our silly jokes. I drove down the city streets we frequent on weekends, I let the smell of the sea linger in my lungs for quite some melancholic while. I kissed the sight goodbye. I shut the door to my old life, and entered another to my new one.

There's truth in one saying, I can never do that, it's only for the patient. When I sat watching fireworks on midnight of 2014 as they illuminated the skies over Sydney Harbour Bridge, I talked about who I was becoming and what my then future job entails. That Malaysian post-grad student from Brissy told me he could never be a teacher, for he can never accommodate enough patience (or passion as I actually heard, and if that was what he actually meant anyway).

Now that it's a month past living life paying my own rent and soon, bills; I am fully aware of how his bare statement couldn't carry more truth. I didn't have the passion, I'd tell everyone I ever discuss teaching with. And now I admit to you, I went past the point where I learned of my actual degree of patience.

Kids nowadays don't remind me of my childhood at all. I couldn't recall my nervousness at scoring low marks in tests as I called out my pupils' names to return their Maths papers. I wasn't reminded of our being obedient at teachers' instructions and sets of classroom expectations as I instructed my pupils to stop wrestling so we could start the lesson.

You must remember all the talks I did here about my study and observation of classroom culture both in Sydney and back in loving home country. (Except if you have forgotten all because I haven't been writing much for months). And you too know, that the two situations are understandably different. Aussie kids are weetbix kids, one. They do as what their teachers tell, two. Malaysian kids aren't weetbix kids (doesn't have anything to do with it) and Malaysian kids react accordingly to the legitimate power their teachers exhibit.

Now Weetbix, my dear, was just my favourite brekkie when I was in Sydney. It has nothing to do with this post. I just embedded its slogan-as seen on the lid of its container-in this piece of writing, without receiving any form of commission; because I miss eating Weetbix (bathed in a bowl of luscious Oak chocolate milk). And in Cold Storage the price for a box of weetbix leaves a person of an average salary like me wailing. That fact tortures in addition to the absence of chocolate drink as sinful as Oak's in local stores. If there was any, I bet its price kills too.

Alright, where was I? Yes, kids. The difference between Malaysian and Australian classrooms, you have a general idea. The reality, I've experienced. I mainly assume responsibility over not exercising enough within my power to ensure acceptable behaviours are maintained in my classrooms. And allow me to justify myself; that was because, I didn't believe in the relation between quiet classrooms and effective lessons. I believe in constructive noise. And that was when the fire started.

Without even having to wait for long, the boys in my years 6 class semmed to have generated an idea that I wasn't serious about their learning and my teaching, so I feel. Reason I say so being, that they freakin' wrestle in my class. They use high-pitched voice to speak from their seats to me. They danced in front of my face. And I lost it all.

I treated them with kindness, spoke with soft, clear voice to instil an ambience of goodwill and sense of belonging in everyone's heart. I taught them to practice respect, that only one person speaks at a time and if someone must interrupt, that person must make the urgency known by raising a hand in acknowledgement of the person speaking. I urged that tolerance be upheld at all time and good manners in actions and words be kept in mind always. But what happened after two weeks astonished me and lit up the warning sign I kept on standby at the back of my mind. I knew it could happen, and it did.

I spent evenings after work reflecting on what's happening and if I was wrong in the first place to practice diplomacy. But autocratic classroom never had a place in my personal book of pedagogy. I made that choice when I was still a student teacher. If not that, then what? Why, I wonder, and what made the values known to be exclusive among Eastern families (that's us, fellow countrymen) waver over time? Back in my sociolinguistics class my teacher noted it time and over again, how it is known to all that easterners are obedient. It seem to me now she referred to a period of time that is gone.

My mind gets clouded fairly easily. Often, my emotions and professionalism stand on opposite grounds. I am now a teacher, my friend. And I will strive to deliver my best, I assure you always. In sha Allah.