Teacher-Parent Communication

            I always remember when my parent needs to go to the school where I am studying because mostly they do not like it. They love of being busy with their duty. My mom is busy in the market and always asks my father to go to school. Though, my father is busy in the field too. The matters that make my father will go to school are always about taking an academic report, parents meeting and announcement of examination.

At the time it is not important for me. Sometimes I hate to inform my parent to take my academic report at the school because I am the one who studying. At the time I keep questioning about the reason why it should be my parent to take it because I am good with my academic report and I have no problem with anything. Luckily my parent has the same opinion with me. It wastes time to take it because it spends times on the way for something that need only less than five minutes to do.

Now I know the reason. May be the teacher will guide my parent how to support me to develop my ability or the teacher will be the one who persuades my parent to let me continue my study because my score is not too bad, not me and my brothers. It might be possible when the communication between my parent and teacher is good.

I think teacher-parent meeting is the best solution for villagers (just like in my hometown) to make them give the chance for their children to continue their school. For my friends and neighbors there, what make children and youth do not continue their study is their parent. The children have willingness but the parents do not. They are too hopeless if they are not able to pay the school and they think high education is only for the one who is rich financially.

Parents in my village will make an activity that can produce some money become more important than going to school and take the academic report. Then they will make their children go to work and produce some money after they do not give the permission for them to continue the school. Now most of the youth are graduated from junior high and elementary school there.

Full respects toward parents are there. No children will continue the school without parents’ agreement because agreement means the parent will be able to pay the school, except the children want to pay the school by themselves. In this case I do believe if the teacher has a good communication with parents, there will be a chance for the teacher to persuades and motivates them to let the children pursue their education. The teacher needs to give them hope if there are so many possibilities in the future and they will not lack of money to pay the school because God always with somebody who pursue the goodness.

Aggression and Violence

This topic was interesting. I already thought about aggression in the second semester for my research proposal of Research Method 1. I made it more specific with rational aggression. According to the book of educational psychology it is used to call a verbal abuse.

It was not merely make a student got suicide because of receiving aggression or violence from others but it would influence students’ performance during the class and I think it was difficult (although it is possible) for the teacher to control it. In my school observation, I saw an elementary student got silent along the class and refused to do the class assignment after she was ridiculed by her friends. She got zero for her previous assignment and her friends knew her score before herself because her assignment book passed her friends openly who sat before her. I still remember her face expression when I came to the class because she was one chair besides me in the back of the class. She was cheerful. She made children’s joke and laughed together with her friends.

The girl bowed her head little bit after being a joke of others and played her pencil on the table. The teacher came and asked her to do the assignment from the board but she ignored the teacher. She did not even saw the teacher and she kept bowing her head and looked at her pencil.

This matter is like a simple thing ever but it is truly give big impact toward the victim’s psychology. I do agree with Martan’s statement if aggression and violence will not leave a mark in the body of the victim. It is marked on the heart. No one will know it and no one can truly help them to recover it except themselves. It is important for parents to help the children develop the psychological need of their children. Then it is important for the teacher to do that in the school.

I think being in a big class can make this thing easily happen. Reflecting to what happen to the girl above. The setting was in a big class and all the students were noisy. It could be a reason that the teacher did not do anything when her student was ridiculed because the teacher did not know. Safety is very important for children. Therefore teacher’s attention toward everything that happen to the students is important and having a small class may help much toward that job.

The Most Succeeded Class Management during My SEP Program

My fourth semester SEP (School Experience Program) was in SMA Nurul Fikri. At the time I did micro-teaching with Siti Fitriah. The topic was about giving opinion and the duration was for 120 minutes. The class was XI Social for male students. Fitri and I decided to take a theme about football.

The students worked in group and we asked them to rename their group with the name of their favorite football club. Each group mentioned their name. Then we elicited them to give their comment about National Football team performance against Malaysia orally to guide them toward the group assignment. It was the newest championship which was phenomenal. Each group required to make an opinion text toward their own team performance recently in a championship and one of other groups’ performances. Then the students had peer assessment toward the opinion text.

After the class I was very happy because personally I thought all the students were happy during the class. They laughed a lot. They really expressed their opinion and we had no difficulties to refer the topic that we discussed in the class with what they were doing in the class. Moreover each group worked well toward the opinion text. Sometimes the class became very noisy because they mocked each other because each group thought their group name was the best football team ever. However the mocking time was easily to handle. Everything was fun even we had not been sure if each of the student was able to make an opinion text by themselves.      

They still mocked other group’ performance on the opinion text from other group but they gave good suggestion according our requirements to make their friends improve the writing. 

The Opening of My SEP (School Experience Program) Class

In my previous SEP I teach in an elementary school, SD Negeri Selong 01 Pagi. At the beginning of my class I usually inform my students about the objective of the lesson and hook them toward what we will learn during the session. Sometimes even I have tried to guide them slowly toward the lesson. However it is not succeed although I put the hook in children world based on my experience with children. Sometimes the class becomes krik-krik in the beginning but not in activity. I give them group movement activity and 27 students in a class will be very noisy, just like in a traditional market a few days before a great day (lebaran).

Suddenly become a teacher in a short time, sometimes an observation is not valid enough to know what their interest, what they know and something close to their life that will be a good hook for a teacher. It is not easy to find the link of the lesson and children’s life because every school has students with different background.

In grade 5, I teach about daily activities and timing. It is not too hard to hook the students. I tell the students what I do before going to school since waking up and the time in Bahasa and English. Then I ask them what they do before going to school. All the students answering so the class becomes noisy. Then I choose one student each row. Each student answers my question in Bahasa so together we translate it. I think I succeed to activate students in the opening.

Are There “order and safe, success, task comprehension, challenge” in My Class?

           In previous school experience I teach grade 5 about timing and daily activities. At the beginning, I start it with class discussion how to mention timing in English. Then elicit students to mention their daily activity before going to school in Bahasa and translate it into English together. After that I gave students individual worksheet that still open a chance for students to ask their pair. Each student has to draw a watch based on their daily such as waking up, praying, taking a bath, wearing uniform, having breakfast, studying and going to school passed in 20 minutes. They also required mentioning how to read the time in phrase.
           The next activity is group work. Each group has to stick pictures of daily activities before going to school in right order, mention the name of the activities and the timing.
           There is safe and order in my class. Most of students raise their hand and come to me and say “saya Miss, saya Miss” when I elicit their understanding. They also work cohesively in group and finish the assignment on time. However their enthusiasm to answer my questions does not represent their understanding. From the individual worksheet I know that there are some students have not able to draw the arrow of the watch correctly. All the students have not catch the objective of the lesson.
           I think the task is also comprehensible and challenging. It is comprehensible because it mentions students’ daily activity. The connection with their life is very close. They will be able to mention their daily life and mention the time in English. The task is also challenging because it needs students’ ability to transfer L1 (Bahasa) to L2 (English). Subconsciously they also comparing those terms in two regulations because of the differences of language.

Self-handicapping on My Previous Senior High

When I was in Senior High, I was not interested on my academic performance because I was in science class and studying was not fun at all. I was more interested on camping with scout, practicing on theater club, exercising martial art for competition, sometimes playing basketball and take a part in some organizations. Therefore it seemed that I ignored all the assignments. I did my homework in last minutes before I went to school so it was not finished. Fortunately some of my classmates did so because they also focused on non-academic performance. Therefore together we just copied the answers from a diligent friend.

I also seldom studying before quiz but I was trying my best to get good score. Actually it was because I had no time to study and lazy to open the previous material. Somehow I had determined to show my friends and teachers that doing what I like in non-academic part had no bad effects on my academic performance. It was non-sense but sometimes I was lucky to get good score and some of my friends looked at me just like they exclaimed “How could she?”.  Then I showed my ‘devil smile’. It was satisfying, believe me.

However I did not habituate and habituated to blame others when unpleasant things happened. One day I ever did my remedial quiz twice alone for physic because my score was bad. I did it calmly because I knew it was because of me. At the time I had martial art competition and absent for some days. At least it was accomplished even in slow motion.