Monalisa Smiles

Katherine Watson who is an art professor begins her teaching career at the all-female Wellesley College. The students are very advance in studies and In 1953, a time when women's roles were rigidly defined, free-spirited, novice art history professor Katherine Watson begins teaching at the... prepared to be a full time housewife. As a well educated person, Katherine has different perception towards woman’s role in society. In this movie, she takes up the role of a motivator to encourage students to be in the field as what they want. I find this movie interesting because as an educator, I realized that how important it is for a teacher to know the level of students and be prepared for lesson before enter a classroom. Professor Katherine, who is the main character is a strong woman where she believes in everything that she does and knows what to do, ignoring others view or opinion. She tried her best to make her students think creatively and critically by teaching them something beyond the curriculum syllabus because her students know anything about the syllabus. Therefore, she had to teach something new and interesting. She, in my opinion who is a motivator encouraged her student to be what they want to be, follow their dreams and not just to be prepared to be a housewife.

I personally feel that this movie is a good masterpiece for a teacher because many teaching techniques can be derived from it for our use in classroom. A teacher’s task is not only to educate students but also to prepare them mentally and physically for the future to face the outer world. Motivation is an important element of teaching that should not be neglected because teachers are seen as role models and respect us. By being nice and giving good feedback for every achievements will be able to boost the students’ self-confidence. This movie reminded me of one of my role model who is my teacher, Miss Chan. She is really good in English and has never skipped her classes. Most of the students in my class don’t like her because she always teach and teach and teach but some really inspired her enthusiasm and passion for teaching us. It made many students to get good result in English exam and one of them is me. When she knows that I have gotten into Teaching Institute for my tertiary education, she even spends her time and money to give me a treat and some piece of advice preparing me for future. This kind of teacher I wanna be in future. Her idea is always one, ‘you are studying for life and not for examination.” As a teacher’s duty is very important and needed, I am glad to be in this line.

Animal in every Human!!!

            George O Well is one of the great writers on planet and among his best works, there is one that I can’t stop reading it again and again. It is ANIMAL FARM. It is a story of animals tries to stand on their own leg which is good but end up in failure in the long run. The story begins with animals in Manor’s farm having meeting among them discussing on rebellion. As they wanted, they chased human out from the farm and they took full control of the farm. They then started to work happily as they got more food and had freedom. Napoleon and Snowball are among the educated ones who took over the crown for betterment of other animals in the farm. As everything was fine, one day, Napoleon chased Snowball away and took over the leadership. He started to develop human characteristics in him and started to behave badly than human does. All the seven amendments set initially was changed and social class was developed. Pigs work at the administration whiles other animals in the field. The rest of the story is about how humans can be animals.

            What captured my mind is that if we take a close look at this story, it is merely what human does. So, the educated animals are the one who rule out the farm. At first, everyone was equal but when pigs claim that they are educated, they do easy work that favour them while others had to work hard under the hot sun. Besides that, Napoleon had become a dictator and a tyrant in the sense that when he felt he had threat, he killed all the animals who had contacted Snowball. At the end, he sold Boxer as he was old to work in the farm.

            Secondly, when people are ready to follow commands, there will be thousands of dictators ready to dictate. In this story, no matter what happens, whatever Snowball and Napoleon say is right and that is what they follow. That is the scenario in our community nowadays. People can be easily deceived. It is not because they are innocent but because of their blind trust like what happens in this story. In conclusion, I personally think that this story is suitable to be taught in school especially when we are teaching about moral values.

Give a Hand... Please...

            Teaching Language is not easy as grammar alone would not gain students’ interest. Comprehension texts and literary text all the time also might be boring as again it involves reading. Teaching and learning through the use of good selection of songs would definitely grasp students’ attention. There are many songs with good messages and values that can be used in classroom. The song that we have chosen is ‘Pray’ by Justin Beiber.

            The reason for chosing this song is that this song highlights the difficulties and sufferings of people around us. There are issues of poverty, how innocent lives are being affected, sacrifices made by soldiers fighting for their country, living behind their loved ones. There is a way for us to change all these, we have to pray. We must believe in the power of believing and have faith in GOD. The purpose of Bieber singing this song is to instill hope on those who are giving up in life. We can see this from his visit to the hospitals, homes and soldier camps. We can also evidence it through the lines from the song; “Cause I know there's sunshine behind that rain, I know there's good times behind that pain”, “I close my eyes and pray”.

We can use this song in the classroom to create awareness among the students of how lucky they are. Most of us are not appreciating what we have. We often waste food, water and other necessities. We do not appreciate the love of our parents and we do not appreciate the beauty of nature around us. On the other hand, less fortunate people are craving for everything that we have been wasting. So, through this song, we can show the students how people are suffering, how happy they are when they get something that they really wish for. The students are also given a chance to use their critical thinking skills. They are given a chance to imagine something that they have never experienced before. This will make them realize how lucky they are to live a happy life.

            In conclusion, this song can be used not only for teaching moral values but also to for brainstorming sessions in teaching literature especially when discuss about nature.

Leadership is Made!

Churchill and Hitler were once great leaders. They have their own way in leading their respective territories. Yet, there are some similarities that any leader would possesses that these two leaders have possessed. First is the strong use of ‘I’ and later ‘we’. Both the leaders used ‘I’ at very first place to gain attention of the crowd. From the loud pitch and strong stress on the word ‘I’ catches their public’s attention and it shows superiority. People were not speaking a word when their leaders were giving speech. Later, the use of ‘we’ shows that the leaders were gaining the support from the public by uniting them. The second similarity is being persuasive. Both Hitler and Churchill has the skill to keep their people with them. For example, I have, myself, full of confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home… from We Shall Fight on the Beaches and in Hitler’s speech, We go into the new year with a fighting force armed as never before in German history. The number of our divisions on land has been enormously increased. Pay has been increased…

Another similarity that is clearly seen in them is the confidence they had while delivering speeches. In both speeches, there were no fillers or pauses and it shows that the speakers are well prepared. Besides, they stick with the topic being presented with facts as evidence. What made me admire them is that the way they delivered speech made no room for questions. It was well planned and delivered.

However, as every other leader, these leaders also condemned other country’s strength and ability in order to show how strong they were. This is something not to be followed but if I were in his shoes, I would have done the same things as his because of the needed support and for the support; we need to show how good we are by condemning others.

In conclusion, I learned how to apply these persuading skills in teaching students and also realize that condemning others will not help teachers in teaching lessons.

LEAN ON ME (tutorial)

A good teacher is a student’s good friend wherein they share all good and bad among themselves. But are there teachers like that? Barely seen. This is because most teachers believe that students can only be controlled through strict discipline rules. One of them is Joe Clark in one of the biographical movie I watched recently, ‘Lean On Me’.

Honestly, I don’t find it entertaining as the language seemed hard for me to understand as they are pronounced very fast. Eventhough there were some room for laughter, still it is not so entertaining. On the other hand, as a B. Ed TESL student, this movie affected me directly especially Joe Clark’s character. He plays a strict character that does not give face to anyone and does not appreciate anybody’s work; instead, finds wrong in it. What impressed me is that he agreed to the new school song just because the students find the old version is boring. From this, I realized that interest is the most important thing in the process of learning something.

After watching this movie, a few discipline teachers of mine came to my mind. It reminds me back to my old days in school where I have witnessed teacher punches student and students rebel against the school and etc. May be the discipline teachers should have taken the step that Joe Clark took, that is expelling all those problematic students. Then, there wouldn’t be so much trouble between students and teachers.

In conclusion, I learnt that as a future teacher, I must be mentally and physically prepared to face all kind of students and have to be strict so that I will not be fooled as how the students in the movie did before the presence of Joe Clark. Also, I should make students become interested in studies in order to score well in the subjects that I am going to teach rather than forcing them to study and punish if they fail. Being brave in facing consequences of your own act is a good value I have learnt through Joe Clark’s character which is proven right at the end of the movie. Lean “On Me is a MUST watch”

If one door closes, the other will open...

The number of babies being dumped is massively increasing after the authority puts a full stop to abortion. It doesn’t mean that there is no abortion taking place, it has still. Why is this so? When we look at the reason behind it, those babies are aborted or dumped because they are born out of wedlock.

            In ‘A Great Injustice’, Ah Nya had relationship with her boyfriend, Steven and had a baby inside her womb before they got married. Later, Steven jilted her and Ah Nya cannot give birth to the baby as it is born out of wedlock. When she first confessed that she is pregnant, her father Ah Seng shouted of disappointment at Ah Nya. The news that Ah Nya is pregnant spread as fast as lightning around the village and everyone looks narrow at her. People started to talk bad exactly infront of Ah Nya and she couldn’t take it when her bulging stomach was noticeable. She thought how would these people (society) accept her baby if now itself they started to talk bad about it. This drives her to abort the baby mercilessly. Now, my question is “Is abortion the only solution for babies born out of wedlock?”

            One who has read The Merry Maid by Dr. Jayakaran Mukundan will definitely answer no. In this story, Lakshmi’s relationship with Shanmugam led to a baby made her run away from home to conceal the pregnancy. Before they got married, Shanmugam was arrested for theft and Lakshmi left unprotected. Lakshmi did not do anything crazy like what Ah Nya did in A Great Injustice. Lakshmi observes Mr. Johan in several occasions and came to a notion that he would be the best care taker for her baby. So, she left her baby in front of Johan’s house. After some years, Lakshmi comes back as a maid to look and get close to her daughter who was Sakinah now. If she had aborted her baby like what Ah Nya had done, Sakinah wouldn’t have been there as a grown up girl. From here, it is proven that abortion is not the only solution for babies born out of wedlock.

            In conclusion, there are thousands of people who are yearning for baby and there are also many who want to adopt baby directly from the parents and also from the ‘Baby Bank’. So, why should we kill an innocent life cruelly? Let it grow in somewhere along with someone else’s family with a bright future.

Money, Marriage OR Maiden...

Coming from an Indian family, I never see anything wrong in the dowry system practiced in Indian weddings. It has become a tradition among us. However, it is being said that dowry system is not practiced as how it was initially. In other words, dowry system is not fairly treated in these recent days. I came to this opinion after reading two short stories; A Question of Dowry and Everything’s Arranged.

Looking at the first story (A Question of Dowry), it is clear that dowry system is not something new in the society. “My father gave us four for my dowry, and our second son received three as his wife’s dowry.” It is not left there; in fact, they train the next generation to be prepared with dowry for their daughters in future. “…he’s got to realize that his sons must have a good education, and that his daughters must have enough dowry.”  This statement shows that dowry system has become a must as it is well planned at early stages. The reason I say dowry system is not fairly treated is because the dowry which is supposed to be a gift has now become a certain fixed amount or material from the bridegroom’s in-laws. If the groom’s expectations are not fulfilled, either the marriage will be stopped or the bride will be ill-treated as they look down at her. “…that’s more than I can say for what Thangathurai gave his daughter when our son married her-and she had only passed her form IV too!” From here, I claim that it is no more a question of expectation but a question of status. “Do you want people to think that we have no money for our daughter?”  From this story, not is clear that dowry system is not fairly treated because Thiruchelvam and Sivasothi never got married because Mr. Ramachandran did not afford to pay for the high dowry set for a doctor bridegroom. “Well, a man had to have a wife, so why not have one with a reasonable dowry?

Everything’s Arranged is another story that made some tuning in my mind as the first one. As I mentioned earlier, the purpose of dowry is to ease newly married couple and it is a gift but in this story, the parents set amount of dowry by looking at education level and profession. At the beginning, Devanayagam’s family set $80,000 cash, a house with a plot land. ..his mother managed to let him know that he was getting $80,000 as well as a house and a plot of land, in spite of the fact that his bride would be a BA by the time they got married.” But later, after some problem, Rukumani failed to continue her studies and that made Devanayagam’s family increase the dowry amount. “There would be no final term for Rukumani. It was decided that the increase of $20,000 in dowry as worth the risk of family disgrace.”  So, here, the dowry is set by the parents based on education level and profession as Devanayagam is to be a ‘At least Civil Service Super-scale.’

In conclusion, dowry has created a barrier among the rich and poor and the educated and uneducated. Therefore, it is crystal clear that dowry system is not fairly treated.