Qinyi Zhang (MIC190701)

GIG 1005 SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT

REFLECTIVE WRITING

A Wonderful Teaching Experience In SMK Lembah Subang

Qinyi Zhang (MIC190701) Date: 21 March 2020

  Volunteering is something you do not for getting money, but for a self-satisfaction that you helped someone else. Few weeks ago, on 6th and 13th March 2020, me and my groupmates had a great chance to visit SMK Lembah Subang and had an opportunity to be a one-day teacher for Grade 10 art stream students there. We shared some basic DNA knowledges and led them through 2 experiments related to DNA. Both we and the students were all enjoyed and had learned a lot from this project.

  Before starting this activity, when I heard that we have to teach students from a chosen secondary school, I was quite excited since I love to communicate with secondary school students, also at the same time I was a bit over confident as I have done several volunteer works during high school time and had the experience to teach secondary school students. I thought I would handle and enjoy this activity well. However, things never go smooth when you are over confident. 

  I was extremely nervous and almost lost my passion on the first day when we just step in to the classroom of SMK Lembah Subang. I saw the desire for knowledge through those students’ eyes which made me scared that I could not fully deliver the information to them or end up getting them confused. Fortunately, that did not happen, instead our session turned out well. I felt a bit gloomy, when I found out that the students don’t speak much English so I was neither communicating with them nor helping my teammates to explain. But luckily the students there motivated me through their actions. Although those students were not science stream students, they still paid their full attention to our presentation slides and weren’t afraid to ask for our translation as they were educated in Malay language but our slide show was in English. Furthermore, they even noted down all the knowledge even when we didn’t ask them to do so. These has totally touched me and helped me to regain my enthusiasms. 

  On the second day of visit, things were easier as we all had the experience in handling the students. Especially me personally as I had “re-energized” myself during the first day by the students. I was able to use some simple Malay language to communicate with them this time! The activity assigned for the second day was a little hard because it requires students to apply immediately what they have learned on that day which had took them a longer time to understand than the first day. Students in our group failed to identify the real crime for the hands-on activity, but as Dr. Puah-- our advisor and instructor has said we will never learn until we made mistakes, making mistakes is a process of learning, so we waited until they realized they’ve done something wrong then we explained.  At the end of the day I was glad that all of sudden, students from our group asked us to take pictures to record this meaningful memory.

  To conclude, it was a very successful program we shared many laughs and knowledges throughout the event. It was satisfying to help art stream students understand DNA. Also, I feel thankful to have such opportunity to practice and develop our social skills while helping others. I strongly believe that the bonding between our groupmates has strengthen more after this significant activity. Last but not least, after being a one-day teacher I realized that it is not easy to be a teacher. We should pay more respect to them as they are educating our next generation to the maximum of their capability and ability which can’t be purchased by money.

(618words)