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
