the next steps...

Dear friends, colleagues, supporters, followers, readers,

I am Muhamad Hafiz Bin Ismail, a primary school mathematics teacher, posted to Sekolah Kebangsaan Kampung Kenang, a remote school in Perak, Malaysia, in the Temiar people's community.

To deal with the challenges of teaching the aboriginal people in the school I decided to blog my experiences. I not only shared the daily experiences but I also shared some of the active learning activities that I developed to meet the pupils' needs.

To my surprise, as my writing and photographs were initially a series of personal reflections, the blog was discovered and loved by many people. To my delight, the blog was turned into a beautiful and powerful book by MPH and UCSIPH. Then, I received many invitations to address seminars and conferences locally and internationally. Moreover, the blog won a big ICT award - the Prime Minister's Best of the Best APICTA Award 2011 - as well as winning the award in the e-learning category.

My story has inspired many people and I hope it will also inspire you too. As a simple teacher in a rural area, I never dreamt that using the internet for good could lead to so much success for my pupils, my school and for me. The successes we have enjoyed have transformed our lives and opened doors to many opportunities. My pupils are the stars of the blog and they love to see how their daily learning and life in school is so popular with audiences across the world. It motivates them to learn every day and motivates me to become a better teacher for my pupils.

So, if you feel that Life through my eyes inspires you, if you understand that Life through my eyes is impacting on the teaching profession, on the pupils' education, on the lives of everyone who is touched by the blog, then please vote for Life through my eyes by simply clicking on this link:

http://www.wwwow.my/display_entry.aspx?ID=7544c481-6a54-44a3-8c87-94eb407c6821

1 vote per day per Facebook or Twitter account. Vote as much as you can from 23 April 2012 to 13 May 2012. In addition, share it with your family, friends, students or whoever you are in touch with via the internet.

This is life through my eyes which helps you see life through your eyes and together we will see life through our eyes.

Thank you.

Hafiz

You know what? It's not gonna stop me! Woohooo!!!

Not everybody will like what you do even it is a good thing. So, be prepared! There will be somebody that will try to knocked you down and their eyes are burned when they see you successful. They will do whatever it takes to see you fall down, failed and stop doing your thing!

Actually, they were wrong. They thought that when they do all kind of bad stuff and be mean to you they will make you give up! It's not like that. The more they try to stop you, the more stronger you will be. You will try to discover much more talent or creativity or whatever it is that you need in you! Yeah...believe me. They maybe successful to make you cry, sad and upset but all those feelings never last. When the time come, you will rise like the phoenix from the ashes and fly high to the sky!!! Yeah!!! 

I tried to be positive towards this issue. But I don't deny that it's really hurtful. Sometimes when I think with my normal, intelligent reflective mind (wahahaa) I can't believed that people really can be so mean and bad in real life. I thought it just in the movie or drama but actually it's not. The mean peoples in those drama are real in real life!!! booo!!! :D But whatever, at least those things give me an idea to write this entry...so THANK YOU!

So, what to do...never give up...organize your feelings so that you not miserable all the time to all the people around you...yeah you can!!!

p/s: believe me you can even you thing u can't! (Do I sound positive enough? haha)

Counting fingers up to 20? Can or cannot?

My pupils today were trying to solve a problem to count until 20 using their fingers. They keep telling me that they only have 10 fingers on their hands. It is true and that is good to know that they do realized that they have 10 fingers.

So, to count up to 20, we do a group work. 4 pupils in each groups, they will work together to get 20 fingers. First, they will draw their fingers on a colourful paper. Then, they cut it out and paste it on a white plain paper.

When they finished doing it, they started to count the fingers and realised that they got 20 fingers on the paper. Yay! What makes me more excited today was to see Nurbaini, the quiet girl that don't want to do anything, or go anywhere or say anything suddenly joined the others to go to Math lab. She also do her fingers thingy! Wahaha!

P/s: who knows when will our last day will be, how about live everyday life as it will be the last! :D

subtracting and painting? any similarities? :D

Last Friday, I brought my year 1 pupils to the "not ready yet" Math Lab. We still learning on subtraction numbers below 10. I let the pupils used the beads to subtract the numbers that I wrote on the white board. Then, I continued the lesson by giving them a few questions in the exercise book.

While busy helping some kids to understand and do the exercise, Aidil suddenly asked me about the circles on the wall that already there but still not finish to be paint. Yeah, his correct. It is still not finish yet. I need some more time to do it as the wall is quite big.
His question makes me think that I can used it as a reward to them. I think they will love to colour the circle too. So I promoted to them that who ever can finish and do the subtraction correctly will get a chance to paint the circle.

I think it quite successful. The advanced learners of course can do it correctly and the slow learners, even though some of them doing something that I can't really understand but at least they were trying hard to finish the work given.

At the end, I decided that all the kids will get the chance to paint the wall. I just feel really guilty to not let them doing it. Especially after some pupils doing it, I can see some pupils that did not get the chance started to say something to each other. So, I called them one by one and let them do it (while I'm praying in my heart that they will not make the wall dirty...wahaha)

I think we have fun doing subtraction and paint the wall!

p/s: feel like everybody can hear my loud voice while teaching since the Math lab is situated in front of the office! wahahaha...