Sir Rez!

Hi hi,
Some thoughts on Sir Rez's class.

I thought that his getting us to be 'Special' students was so smart of him, until tutor K's inject (aka D, the loanshark) came into the scene. Gosh! I am glad my session is over. :) But Sir Rez handled it extremely well - calm, and not antagonizing - thereby preventing the problem from worsening. Although the student's prob was not settled there and then, buying time works. He could address the problem after class with the students concerned if need be.

I also like how he set the class to internalize the problems faced by different countries by dividing the class into 2 opposing sides and facilitating a debate, with students as officials from the 2 countries in question. Reminded me of my uni days. :D But I guess the class size is a limiting factor here. Perhaps they could have been broken into smaller groups, acting as officals from the Min of Agri, Min of Manpower, Min of Defence etc. There were many free-riders within the group. And our group members were exchanging notes on hand cream and applying them under the nose of Sir Rez. Till now, I am not sure if he has not noticed it or that he chose to ignore it. And I wonder what the other group was doing all these while.

I found the map of the Nile slightly dark. Related to the map issue, I thought it would be better if he could show a world map, and slowly zoom in on the Nile. Lots of people do not know where exactly the Nile is, just by looking at the Nile map.

Acting as a sleepy-head and waiting for Sir Rez to discover me was no fun. I could not have kept my eyes shut any longer. But perhaps because of the bags (2 plastic bags of Wes' prata and 1 paperpack of other makan) in front of me, Sir Rez did not manage to spot me until a while later. But I really thought that his gentle tone, when he tried to wake this sleeping beauty, was simply fabulous. First, I did not get a rude shock. Second, he kept asking if I was all right, a show of concern for a student. And finally, I didn't feel embarassed because he did not confront, fingerpoint or throw sarcasm at me. Wow! :) But, something that has been discussed before, and which I strongly feel, a male teacher should never touch a female student, even when trying to wake someone up. Sir Rez made that 'mistake' twice.

Accent in the video. The other time we have problems with Ang Mohs. This time, the local accents of different African countries were a little hard to catch. So tutor K's tip of putting in simple 'subtitles' will work well here.

I also like the handout that complements the video.

Some good practices:
1. Lesson objectives were listed at the onset
2. Summing up at the end due to time factor even though he has not finished all his slides
3. He enlarged one pic (the map of the Nile) when he realized that it was too small

Some questions:
1. Is it necessary to address teachers as 'Sir', although this is a 'Special' school?
2. Is it necessary for all lights to be turned off? It think it is too dark and most students would have fallen asleep with that kind of lighting. My HOD once commented this of my lesson, although I thought at that time that the natural lighting was good enough.

Okie, that's all for now.

SW