My Experience (Reflection Paper)

        This is my first time becoming a teacher. It was such a big experience for me because as people know, Mondial Junior High School is a national bilingual school. Students use English to learn subjects and talk to each other, while I’m not that good at speaking English. I started to work on 1st July 2021. It’s been a year. I had so many experiences during my first year of becoming a teacher. Being a mathematics teacher, homeroom teacher, and PIC of many activities such as 17-an, Sumpah Pemuda, class meetings, and many more. I will share my experience and reflection during my first year here.

Because all of them were my first time, I needed to ask my fellow teachers if I have questions about the activity. Besides that, my fellow teachers also help me a lot during this first year. The first memorable experience for me was when I became a homeroom teacher. Even though it's only 1 semester or 6 months, it has taught me a lot. With this experience, I was able to have an opinion of school and learning from 3 points of view, students, parents, and teachers. These three points of view help me to make wiser decisions that are either beneficial or detrimental to them. Being a homeroom teacher also allowed me to accommodate complaints from my children, for example, when they complain that their assignments are too many. I can help to convey them to the teachers and also remind students not to be procrastinated, so the assignments will not be too many for them.

The second experience was being a math teacher. Being a math teacher is a familiar thing to me. Even so, being a teacher during a pandemic was not easy, especially with learning mathematics. By using the online system, I found it difficult to know the ability and the understanding of students in learning mathematics. Monitoring online was also difficult. Not all children wanted to talk when I asked, did not open the camera, and often did not do the daily assignments and assessments given by the teachers. But on the other hand, with online learning, I could learn to be more confident in chatting and delivering material to children, because at first, I was worried about how to deal with students. For me, the most important thing during learning is getting students to actively ask and answer questions and making the classroom atmosphere comfortable for students. However, I also need to be quiet from time to time when the child is chatting with his friends and paying attention to them. In that way, I hope they will be more mindful of time, when they need to speak and when they need to listen when someone is speaking.

Lastly, the experience of being the coordinator of an event at school. The teachers helped me in preparing the things needed during the event. I learned to be able to divide tasks and have responsibility for the continuity of the event. I also had to make sure what things were missing. In addition, as the event coordinator, I learned to be able to make decisions quickly and wisely, which in my opinion was difficult because I was afraid that my decisions could harm others. I learned many things by being a PIC and it made me become a more assertive person in making decisions.

These experiences are one of the many lessons that I learned. I will continue to learn to be a better character than before. Mathematics is known as a boring and tiring class, hopefully, with offline classes, I can break that stigma and make math class more fun.

Laurensia Lintang Setyamurti @ Medio July 2022