Pictures from the Movie Poster
Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman
Well, I am into my second year of teaching! :)
I have yet to meet many more cases of pupils and I felt that over these past two years, I have really experienced a lot and lost 12 kg in total. There are kids who simply are hard to handle. Let me talk about Kid A. He's special. He just has a mind of his own that he wanders off when he meets with a new or challenging situation that he cannot handle. Some say autism.
Dunno whether some of you have caught the 1988 movie "Rain Man" starring Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman? Dustin Hoffin played Tom's brother who is autistic. But he could manage difficult maths and numbers and managed to manipulate cards at the tables in Casinos - his intellect incomparable.
Although not confirmed autism, I am close to tearing my hair out.
I have problems teaching Kid A, he would make funny noises in class and uncontrollably beat up kids or destroy things. He can't look at me straight in the eye. I could count the number of times I have to search for him when he went missing in my PE lessons when I decided to change his play partner.
Kids like him are special, they need time to adjust to change, to one teacher, to a particular schedule, to simplified instructions. I was told, anything more than 7 words in a string is too overwhelming for them.
For example you say," Take out your Science Textbook now." 6 words in a string still can. But if you say,"Take out your Science Textbook and turn to page 15". 10 words in a string. I now realise suddenly in the midst of writing this blog why he always comes up to me and ask me,"What page?" "What page?" because from the above example,after the word "turn", the rest are mambo jumbo information to the kid.
Kid A is like this but somehow, he could produce for me excellent work.
Yesterday was Listening Comprehension Exam. Kid A was so scared of the new teacher that came in to test the class. We were not supposed to test our own classes, he went off the toilet and disappeared for 10 minutes!
Cannot la...I sat the kid down today and told him to respond to the teacher who would be testing him on Oral later. If he doesn't it would be a straight zero. After much prayers, the Lord worked wonders again! He scored the highest in the Reading, Picture Conversation component and a whopping 13 marks upon 16! God chooses to work miracles in the lives of least expected individuals. Are we going to believe, and just trust today?
He's special...He's smart...He's my little "Rain Man" :)
