of goals and purposes
i had to teach teens year 1 on goals and purposes. and as per usual, to teach one of the year 1 class, required me to have umpteenth replay of how i'm going to teach them. and countless times of checking up the trainers' guide, trying to get some ilham. hahha
so in need of catching their attention, i do get the ilham. it was to straight away open up with a story as soon as they get to their seat, the aim is to get their attention before they even got time to think. well, i think we did. i mean. they did give their attention. at my loudest, i told them of this:
of how a young man who wanted to travel to study, leaving his old mother, and how a mother's prayer was answered by God. to cut short (however, i believe most of us know of this teladan story~) the young man was framed of stealing, got both his legs and hands cut off, also blinded. a retribution for him for not listening to his mother's cries..
the story went well... but what i didn't manage to do was....to relate the story back to our lesson: on goals and purposes. i knew there was some gap between me finishing the story and starting up on the lesson. but i didn't realise it then.
only after doing some reflections did i notice. i can always relate back how the young man has a goal to achieve, however, he also has a purpose to fulfil!! i missed out on that!!
still, it's a learning process for learningteens as well as their trainer. and i have to say, other than preparing yourself for the class, it's always wise to reflect back on our teaching. so we will not do the same mistakes again in the next class.
it's how i realise my students needed precise instructions. sometimes we forgot that they need guidance and proper guidelines. so i give them that.
and for teens year 1, always say, "listen to my instructions, my dears" i see that always work with them~
mad factory
this post is not going to be about 2A or 2B, but for a different class, 1A, which i had to take over since their ustazah was away.
this class had been notorious since the first week of lessons. and their ustazah had a hard time managing them. i helped along the way and they came to know me as their ustazah, though i doubted they remembered my name.
after a brief discussion with Advisor, she mentioned were there any positive moments out of this 'mad factory'. i honestly had not been thinking about that, but when she mentioned about this, i started to rewind to that day. and yes, there are positive moments, brief moments when i felt like we somehow bonded. i really do. for once, they look like innocent young teens. we'll list them down....
iqbal and ridwan came up to me during break, they wanted to have a look at my playlist in Windows Media Player, having nothing to be secretive about, i let them have a look, and they saw some songs they liked, i allowed them to play (since it's break time)
they downloaded songs from my hp, talked about their favourite songs. and one very good question was asked by iqbal, "Ustazah, what do you look for in a song? is the lyrics or the music important to you?" i shared with them my thoughts.
azan gave a very good goal (compared to the rest who are plain cheeky): to pass exams
afiq actually helped to arrange the chairs back properly without me asking to.
iskandar and hakim were amazingly concentrating with their group's projectwork for the first 10 minutes, before getting distracted by the rest!
the group lead by ewan (there's iqbal, ridwan, azan and abdullah) was the best group to show exceptional hardwork and concentration in their projectwork.
the girls helped to clean the classroom after the mess they made.
khairi voiced out more than before (he was a weirdly quiet boy).
yassin and 'harry potter' helped me to bring back all my stuffs to the teachers' room after class.
in the end, ALL OF THEM did great last class.
we really should open up our eyes to see the best of the students, not only focusing on the obvious.
not forgetting 1B, the class way more smaller in number than 1A and better behaved i must say. i have one very cool way of letting them to 'stop' doing their projectwork when time is up. (one thing about them, they always like to 'negotiate' when it comes to 'time').
i played a song and tell them, as soon as the song ends, they have to stop their work, or change group. and they actually anticipated it! without me having to shout "Time's Up! Time's Up!"
i was actually thinking that i might have failed these students for i thought i did not manage to teach them anything, but reflecting back, they are learning without they themselves knew, even without me realising it.
mad factory no more.
off for term break!
hablun minallah hablum minannas is a very powerful concept and as an individual, even though i've been learning it before, i didn't really realise it's importance until i started introducing the term to my teens classes.
Hablun minallah is relationship/submission to Allah, while hablum minannas is relationship among humankind. submission to Allah comes first, however, having relationship with others is important also, for example respecting your parents, helping your friends, zakat and sadaqah, these are actions among fellow humankind which is encouraged in Islam, and insya Allah, recorded as good deeds.
you see, i had to teach the class on Lesson Worshipping The One, which basically talks about Solat and how it benefits us. now, there is the activity on Worshipping or Non-worshipping whereby there are four different scenarios of persons with different 'degree' of worshipping. (not that we can judge people that way)
so i don't know how, but while i was trying to introduce the subject to them, suddenly this term comes to mind and i straightaway use it.
for example, Badriyyah has not been praying but she comes from a close-knitted family and have good relations with others. question: which does Badriyyah has? Hablun minallah or hablum minannas or both? so the students start to 'evaluate' Badriyyah.
now, right after this activity was going to be another lesson on Humanity, and at that moment, i realised i can continue using hablun minallah and hablum minannas, but now focus on hablum minannas, in a greater sense, which is the whole of Ummah.
and showed them a video clip (from Youtube, just google Ummah, and you'll get several clips) of the different faces of the ummah, and they were exceptionally fascinated when there's a picture of an African Muslim community, and there was a mosque of very unusual architecture, which looks like mounds of sands with 'spikes' all around it. and then a discussion started.
so that day, learningteens studied one thing, and only one thing: hablun minallah hablum minannas.
