ECP3002: Day 1 at a Catholic Primary School.

Thursday was officially my first day at a primary school. Even though it was the first day of the practicum, I did not find it as hectic or busy as I had stayed for almost half a day with the children during Orientation on Wednesday. It must be admitted that I was feeling a little bit at unease on Orientation, and the extra hours and extra day I spent with the children helped me to ease into the mindset and also possibly made the children feel more comfortable with me (or more for me indeed!)

Just to add more details to what we did on Wednesday, the class went for a swimming session at a public state. It was exciting (for me because it was my first time joining a class for swimming!). The children really enjoyed themselves there although they possibly only swam for about 13 minutes and possibly had taken more time to change into and out of the swimming attire than swimming! On Wednesday afternoon, the children watched possible the first third of the cartoon movie “The Incredibles”, which is part of their unit for Term 4. The children continued watching another third of this movie today after their lunch.

The children in this class with Ms. J (she’s married btw) and another class, Mrs. C collaborated together to write out the unit plans. Both classes watched the movie together, and undertook learning for the same unit as well as similar lessons. The difference that exists maybe the style of teaching that is demonstrated by the homeroom teacher, as well as to differentiate for some of the students in the class who may need differentiation with the learning of the curriculum.

The children have a routine that they follow when they come into the classroom each morning. However, they do not enter the classrooms till about 8.30am when the morning bell rings. This is among the routine that they perform when they enter the classroom.

• Put their bags away on racks.
• Take out their homework folder and hand in their homework.
• Take out the Red sheet (reading log) and place on the table
• Change Readers
• Get morning talk ready
• Hand tuckshop in (Mon, Wed, Fri).

I believe a routine helps children to ease into the mindset of getting ready for class and learning for the day. After the children have done that, the teacher will take roll for the day. Once she has done this, one of the children will take it to the office. The teacher also checks for the homework and the red sheet (reading log) each day.

There was Assembly after morning tea, and students from all year levels gathered in this room beside the Year 1 classrooms. One of the Year 3s presented a very beautiful moving message conveyed through powerpoint, videos, a play, singing and dancing. I believe that they must have put in a lot of time and practice to put in this performance for Assembly. The children from the other classes also enjoyed the Assembly as well.

Among one of the enjoyable aspects during the Assembly was when the teacher was called out to take a Raffle ticket from a jar. The Raffle tickets was given as part of positive behaviour management reinforcement strategies for children who “made good behaviour choices” during morning tea or lunch time.

The fact that the prize presented was a Tuckshop voucher for $1 did not matter, but all the students were awed by the “tuckshop voucher”, and this seemed to motivate the rest of the students to give a louder applause when the receiving child from Year 2 went forward to collect his prize.

I also enjoyed understanding the management and the workings of a Catholic school as up to this point of time, I had not been to one. I find it much more enjoyable as I also share and believe in many of the core values of the Catholic faith. Over all, the first day of the practicum was found to be a very enjoyable experience.

There are many so called "Catholic" and Christian schools in Malaysia, but the question is how many of them are actually run the way they are here? I'm not too sure how many of these schools have management that has been returned to the govt, but I do hope that it could be run voluntarily, as I do believe that there will be parents back in KL who would still aspire to have their children sent to these schools too.

ECP 3001: A debrief (2007)

You know, professional experience should be handled in a very "professional" manner. Much more so at a tertiary level. You would expect universities be able to handle this, and assist students in negotiating the timing of the practs to succeed, not to fail. Am I not right?

Yet at this point of time, we as students do not have much information to go by. Yes, the staff has apologized to the students (if they felt marginalized by the delay in preparing us for the pract). The fact which has occured is yes, we do feel marginalized as a group. They cant throw us out as students to pract (and further more this is our first Primary school level pract) where everything else is different from childcare or Prep level.

Yes, it will be our first pract at primary school. How can we go for any more pract meetings if we have to go for pract during the school holidays? The meeting for "presenting your professional experience folder" is ir-relevant if we have already gone for pract, without attending the relevent pre-professional experience meetings.

Further more to add to the insult, we also have other assessment components which requires a compulsory attendance to pass all aspects of the course. This is very frustrating for us students who have to negotiate with the pract. mentor, who may or may not understand our situation. Which looking at the circumstances, at default, is already putting us students at a huge dis-advantage.

I am really dis-satisfied with the way the university has handled this aspect of our practical experience on their part. It has left a very bitter taste in my mouth.

ECP 1001: Day 3 Preschool Room Practicum

Today is my 3rd day of the practicum in a private childcare centre. One of the different practices here is the strict policy of having to disinfect tables & chairs about 3-4 times a day. This is normally done after meal times, activity time and depending on what the activity that has taken place.

There are 3 different coloured table cloth for that very purpose of differentiating whether it is just to
a) disinfect the equipment,
b) to clean the equipment, &
c) whether it is to clean equipment which comes into contact with food bits.

My friend said that it is a common policy here. The thing I am wondering is that is it that the practice almost the same in most childcare centres/ preschools? Well, maybe it is. I just am not sure how it is done as obviously I have not been to other centres before.

I am used to the rationale of having to "just" cleaning tables with soap and water. "Disinfecting" is really a new terminology which I have yet to internalize yet, and I probably would not be able to do so within such a short period of time.

The assistant of the group said that we aren't supposed to write the children's name on the paintings, because some of the older ones could write theirs. She also said that if the adults wanted to write their names, it had to be at the back of the painting, and if we wrote their names when they could write theirs, it was a sign that we disrespected their work...

What do I think? I basically think that there's really no point in writing the children's name in front of the paper because the paint would cover the name anyway! I also think that the practice probably differs from centre to centre, because this was the first time I heard anyone mentioning it!

Another practice I am also not used to are the long hours of outdoor play I have seen at the childcare centre which is part of the normal curriculum in most learning centres. In theory, I have read and learnt about it. In practice, the opportunity to observe this in action is almost a rarity in Malaysia, like how one could find a 1000 dollar note on a pavement. Which is almost close to zero. In practice as well, most Asian parents I have come across disapprove of their children having so much outdoor play as in contrast to book learning and writing activities as well.

There are different stations set up with different activities. The "permanent learning stations" are the home corner (dress-ups), book corner & block corner. The other stations which are rotated around depending on what the group leader plans could be 'mobilo' manipulatives, play dough, cardboard blocks, collage making, cutting magazines, baking, and puzzles.

I'd say that the set-up cost to provide so many different kinds of manipulatives in one place is not cheap, and especially in Asian countries, it would be costly if all these materials are imported and not hand made. It also requires a lot of resources in order for the success of the program to be realized.

Going through the practicums has enabled me to have a feel of how the running of a learning program in an Australian childcare centre goes. It is important for teachers in training to know what goes on, but even more important for those who come from a totally different culture so that they could compare and contrast, as well as understand and celebrate the similarities of how different learning programs take place.

It is probably unsettling for me to experience some of the subtle culture shocks that I am experiencing now, but that's probably how counsellors would term it: "something which is temporary to go through, but once I get used to it and have got it out of the way, would enable me to look at the learning environment in a more objective manner".