Cool days and cool nights are the order for the day! I have absolutely no complaints whatsoever. The past two nights have seen temperatures drop to around 24-25 degrees Celsius compared to the usual 28-30 at night. Perhaps our lovely location in Matang had something to do with it?

Just caught 22 boys (students) who were sooo late for school. The disciplinary teacher was there too but he was far from being subtle. The boys are immune to all that shouting coz he does it rather regularly. Dealing with them will need more thought and patience put in. Teachers in Malaysia (and also Saudi, i'm told) shout a lot. We so need to tone down and be polite - if we want them to be polite to us. If at home they see their parents screaming at them, and come to school to have their teachers scream at them too, how do you think they'll turn out when they leave pre-adolescence and enter the scary world of free will, self-gained money and power (AKA adulthood)???

What can we do? 1. Deal with them in smaller groups. Talk through their faults and misdeeds. 80% of the time it works. 2. Ask them what should be done to them (or what they should do) in order to 'pay' for their offences. Usually, they hit themselves harder than we teachers do! 3. Forgive. Yes, we can do that! and we should (all 77 x 7 of the time and more!).

Sounds too optimistic?

I've tried this with Boys from a very low achieving Form 4 class in KL and with students from a high achieving class in Kuching. It works, more often than not. You do get some recalcitrant ones but generally, you can iron out most of the problem creases easily. Less fussin' makes for Less Cussin'.

Life is still good.