Mimi’S Garden of Reflections: Transpiring a Teacher’S Journey to Inspire

By Shamimi Shamsuddin

This is about the beautiful journey I had throughout my teaching year in 2015. In the span of one year, I have gone beyond my official portfolio as a mathematics teacher to become an accountant, a financial advisor, an English motivator, a Thinking Skills course instructor, as well as a science projects advisor. Some would call this versatility. Is it? You tell me.

This is about my exploration into the heart of Borneo, to the rural and to the urban territories, for work and for pleasure. It is by no way a suffice travelogue, but you can count on it taking you somewhere unfamiliar from your comfy chair.

This is a diary. It was shared with only a handful of people I trust with my thoughts. Now Im trusting you. There were some pressing issues I cared to share but couldnt do much with. Who knows? Maybe you can.

This is my garden of reflections. Reflecting on anything I felt strongly connected to. Reflected and translated in the form of free-flow writings, poems, as well as selected book and film review related to education in general.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Jan 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781482855333

Shamimi Shamsuddin

Shamimi graduated with BSc (Hon) Mathematics from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and currently teaches in MARA Junior Science College Mukah, Sarawak, Malaysia. She considers herself as a work-in-progress educator, an aspiring poet, and a book lover who loves books more than the worms themselves. This is her first book.

Book preview

January

Biography

Hi. I'm Shamimi Shamsuddin, teaching at MARA Junior Science College Mukah, Sarawak, Malaysia @ MJSC Mukah. One of the three MJSC in Sarawak. This is my third year of teaching. I teaches secondary school Math (age 13 -- 17) for technically every level but this year I'm teaching Form 2 (14 y.o), 4 (16 y.o) and 5 (17 y.o).

I will be coordinating the Mathematics for Form 2. This means that I will be responsible for the scheme of work, the materials used, the assessments and the lesson planning in general. I will team up with one more teacher for this. Fingers crossed, more teacher could come and help. Getting one more teacher is good as well.

For Form 5, I will be teaching one class during the first semester and after that I will be teaching in class or with students as assigned by my coordinator. Form 5 has a big exam at the end of their journey, Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM). Good strategies are needed that shouldn't confine them to normal teaching and learning in one class only.

Apart from that I will continue to be responsible as the treasurer of MUAFAKAT, the parent-teacher association here. Being a treasurer has been very tedious and challenging for me. At one point I felt like an ATM machine where people could come to me and request money for their programs as quick as they please. I learnt a lot along the way for sure but it didn't make the job easier with no prior accounting knowledge. However, all those changed now. I learnt new bookkeeping strategies in a course last December. It's time to put those knowledge into better accounting experience this year. I hope I won't get too stressed out with that and focus more on advising the financial expenses of MUAFAKAT.

A little info about Mukah. Mukah is located by the seaside in the middle of Kuching at the South and Miri at the Northern Sarawak. This place is reachable by road and by plane. Yeap, plane. A small plane called twin-otter that could carry only 19 passengers at most. I was told it's the smallest commercial plane yet the safest plane available. Mukah is known for its Sago processing and recently the SCORE project. SCORE stands for Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy. Mukah will be the administrative centre for the Regional Economic Development Authority (RECODA). In short, it will be the centre for renewable energy development in Sarawak. Fancy terms, yeah? Fancy terms aside, I like how Green this place is going apart from the readily beautiful environment we have here. I hope I can learn more about it.

I hope I can learn more of Melanau languages this year too. The school comprises of mainly Melanau students that comes from Mukah and the nearby area. Near or far, Melanau languages are very distinctive to its localities. Melanau Mukah and Melanau Dalat languages are almost totally different although they are only 30km away! Aside that, we also have students of other ethnicities such as Iban, Kenyah, Kayan, Lun Bawang and many more and all these has their respective ethnic languages too. These students usually come from farther away from Mukah. From Kuching to the deep Belaga and up until Lawas region. So diverse!

Alright, that's all for now. I'm looking forward reading about you guys and the place you're teaching!

P/s: MJSC is also commonly known as MRSM (Maktab Rendah Sains MARA) in Malay Language so you'll see me interchange these two terms. They are mainly the same thing!

Feeling wonderful

Written at: 12/31/2014 19:43

Last modified: 01/01/2015 22:15

MRSM Mukah, 96400 Mukah, Sarawak, Mukah, Malaysia

Why Teachers Diaries project?

Naomi asked of what I wish to achieve in this project. Following was my response:

I thought of it as a space for teachers to share bits of our life with one another. In doing so we could learn and gain insights from life of other teachers such as the teacher's character(what drives him/her), what kind of students we have, what kind of learning cultures we have in our respective institution and localities.

We could also provide space for commentary where we could comment and discuss our challenges. Therefore, instead of merely ranting (when we have bad times), we could come up with solutions or at least, a support system of our own.

In short, I wish to promote a constructive reflection of our challenging yet inspiring teacher's life.

In the long run, perhaps we could produce a book! (With consent and careful selection of course). But I'm not focusing on that for now as I wish our diaries to be genuine and fun for us.

Prior to coming up with the idea, I drew inspirations from exactly these two things:

1. Life Through My Eyes 2 : From Kg Kenang to Kasoa written by Muhammad Hafiz Ismail - Book

2. The Teacher's Diary (Khid Thueng Withaya) - Thai Movie

I'll dedicate another entry as to how they inspired me, exactly.

Sounds fun. Especially the part about publishing a book. Lol. #Chouji

Feeling wonderful

Written at: 01/06/2015 19:43

Last modified: 01/08/2015 22:15

MRSM Mukah, 96400 Mukah, Sarawak, Mukah, Malaysia

Day 1 at school.

It's day 1 at school!

Well, let me be honest. My spirits fluctuate this past few days. Not that my teaching spirits fluctuate, but it's more about living and resuming life itself. Long story short, I had few family problems at home and it affects my mood to start the year. I'm much in denial. It's totally opposite from what I hoped.

I'll try my best to take it easy and breathe. Doing the best while enduring the rest. Who knows teaching could be the best thing for my broken soul?

u can do this mimi! #mary

Feeling dizzy

Written at: 01/13/2015 19:27

Last modified: 01/14/2015 11:36

MRSM Mukah, 96400 Mukah, Sarawak, Mukah, Malaysia

HeavyRain

23°C

Day 2

Reflection.

Reflection.

Reflection.

Today I decided on another diary project, with the students. The Math Diary will provide space for the students to jot down important and interesting part of their learning as well as their difficulties. I will use that for my reference and take necessary action to improve my teaching in the future.

I bought the book myself. Just the usual exercise book. 30 cents only. The idea is the student will be given 1 minute at the end of the lesson to write in the diary. The teacher will collect the diary afterwards. The teacher should also have a diary to jot down memorable observation and reflection on lesson and students understanding.

I hope the students will like this project and it will benefit both ways in the future.

Tomorrow is my first day of class. As much as I'm nervous, I'm quite excited to launch my Math Diary project too!!

P/s: I have so much diary writing/reading to be anticipated this year.

Feeling relaxed

Written at: 01/14/2015 21:42

Last modified: 01/14/2015 22:00

MRSM Mukah, 96400 Mukah, Sarawak, Mukah, Malaysia

Cloudy

26°C

Day 3

It's day 3 of school but it's my first day in classes. I was pretty nervous on making the first impression for the year.