Today's class gave me two kinds of boosts -- one from Janice, and one from ma'am. This was the class that tired me out the most, but which, looking back, was also the most fulfilling, for my teaching and for myself, as a student.
As a student, and as someone who had ridiculously high expectations placed on me, over the years I've figured out what makes me work harder. Self-pressure works, yes, genuine initiative also works, but what keeps me enthusiastic about learning after initiative is praise. People assume that because I'm an only child, that because I did everything my family expected of me, that I'm not devoid of praise. But I am. I was devoid of praise because I was expected to do things way beyond my ability, and because I'm the youngest among my cousins, by the time I came around, the standards I had to exceed were very, very high. Getting into UP was not an honor to the rest of my family -- it was a responsibility to the family reputation, and a necessity to my parents. While there are times when having to jump through hoops and fire is beneficial, like now having the chance to receive a UP education, it damaged my self-esteem a lot. Which is why I think praise from my teachers and people who matter in my education is something I really react positively to. Most of the time, I need to be praised before I really start working as hard as I can, and while I was working very hard on last week's lesson, the praise from ma'am Juachon today for the worksheets I prepared and which Kelly also borrowed, was that wake-up call I needed to realize that I can keep working hard and expect not just praise, but good results.
I don't usually start sessions with reading right away, I have Janice color in the star for her attendance chart or we play a visual game, just to get things rolling. But today while she was coloring her star and while I was fixing the syllable cards I had made, she asked me if we were going to read today. This wasn't the first time she asked me that -- last Thursday towards the end of the class she also asked me if we were still going to do any reading -- but I was shocked all the same because I didn't expect her to ask that early on.
That was when what ma'am said about making your students want to read, willingly, really sunk in -- when it was happening to me, and my student. I was taken aback at the time, yes, because I was handling Janice alone for the first time (Kelly had to take over Clares, Almira's student) and I was flustered (though less than I was yesterday) because in my mind I was saying "she wants to read already wait what do I do now." But looking back at it now, this was one of those big breakthroughs that ma'am was talking about -- Janice wants to read, more than she wants to color or draw. Typing that statement out right now made me realize the gravity of her actions today -- she
wants to read.
But the other thing ma'am said about how when the breakthrough comes, it's full steam ahead from there, was so, so true. I didn't expect it to be that fast, but Janice's enthusiasm wasn't the only big breakthrough that happened today. When Kelly and I noticed that the tachistoscope was no longer effective and was confusing Janice, we decided to take the suggestion to divide words up into syllables. Over the weekend I made a set of syllable cards, and while I'm not sure if Kelly managed to make a set for herself, I had prepared them for yesterday. While Alison managed to form words, she didn't really take to it as well as I thought. Which is why today, I brought them out again and used them with Janice -- I made her pick one syllable from a small stack, and then pick another syllable to form a word.
At first Janice was just copying the words I'd form, which wasn't really my aim at the beginning but I thought was okay too because at least it meant she could pick out those syllables and read them, but then I introduced three syllables -- I showed her the word "malala", which she read. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, she grabs "ma", "la" and "sa" from the spread of 8 or so syllables and says "malasa" without batting an eyelash or mispronouncing a syllable like she does half the time, and I was utterly shocked. I spent a good portion of the class, and even my time after, freaking out because it meant that all my hard work last week was worth it. But beyond that, it meant that Janice is finally moving forward -- she had the initiative, which she showed at the very beginning, and that translated into her participation without me having to tell her it was her turn to make a word, or ask her if she knew any other words we could form. We still have a long way, she still mispronounces some syllables and permanently attaches vowels to some consonants, but today's breakthrough was a breakthrough in every sense of the word.
