Children Don’t Listen

I find myself saying this over and over in class.  “You students don’t listen!!“

Sometimes, it comes to a breaking point where I’ll end up spending over 10 minutes nagging and giving lectures on how “If I am God, and I am giving you exam answers, you’d still fail your exam” to my students.  My reason to that particular lecture is simply because they students/children nowadays don’t listen!

Imaging this situation:

Me: This is matter, anything which has mass is matter.  Example would be your pen, ice, coca cola, a computer and wood. (Repeat this very sentence 3 times) Okay, now X, give one examples of matter (point to student X)
Student X: (silence from the student as he stands up)
Me: Owh come on… I just mentioned it. One example of matter please.
Student X: I don’t know teacher.
Me : What the… okay, how about you (points to student Y), Give an example of matter.
Student Y: (Stands up, and flips the text book)
Me: What are you flipping the text book for? OMG! (And I seriously thought these two students were listening because they were so quiet and was looking at me when I explained).

So, I start asking around, same question, different student, and it’s very disappointing to get the”I don’t know“.  At that moment, I felt like I wanted to slap the answers out of them because I’ve wasted my voice to explain, and they simply say “I don’t know” without even trying. It shows lack of eagerness to try, and for those flipping the text book, it shows that they just don’t listen to what was said.

Even more annoying, would be some who talk while you explain a particular lesson.  To this, I ask them to stand, ans give them a good scolding by saying “My mum taught me that when someone talks to you, you listen and give a response if you have one.  But only when the person has finished talking.  It shows respect.“, and then comes the words “So, if I talk, and you talk while I am talking… itu menunjukkan kamu kurang ajar (It simply shows that you’re being disrespectful).  Did your parents teach you to be kurang ajar?”  That phrase normally keeps the students quiet for a week in class before I have to repeat the same words in class the next week on another student.

Honestly, educating students age 13 is not easy. Be to soft, and they end up climbing over your head.  Be too hard, and they end up crying to their mama’s, and you get sued.

Maybe that’s why the big bosses in the Malaysian education decided that asking teachers to key in valuable data in various different computer programme/system is very much needed. This way, teachers can go in to class and say “Okay, I have a lot of work to do, you read page 10, and after that do your own work“. (I’m just saying, I don’t do that 😛 )  It takes the teachers off the yelling and stress which students tend to provide, and indirectly decreasing the number of teachers in mental institutions within the country (I was told that teachers are the 2nd highest occupants in these type of hospitals).

But hey, I’ve got to thank the Education Ministry for their effort 🙂  Now, no teacher needs to yell and scream at students as much as before because we have data to key in, and statistics to show off our talent in teaching. 🙂 Nope, I’m not complaining.