Hello guys, this is your angel, Thain, and this is the second part of my narrative in relation to my teaching journey. 

Actually, I was still seeing these kids and they occasionally asked when I would formally return to our session. I am planning to be back next week but maybe this time we'll be in a different location since our headquarters were already finished. The nipa house is already fully constructed now with walls and windows, unlike before, so it's closed every morning, but I'm still hoping that we will be able to continue. 

Anyway, here's the narrative. And we are now in week 5. 

Week 5

Week five is for KR. KR is short for Krispel Rosaine. KR is a very genuine kid. I don't know what’s with her, but she’s very genuine and kind. She’s honest with me about everything regarding her progress, and that’s a good start. 

I would always hear of her being bullied by other kids outside of class when they’re playing because she’s too kind. KR does not love coloring her dawings, so most of her drawings only contain patterns and no colors. When it comes to reading, she reads English pieces such as "The Wise Little Girl," "The Little Mermaid," and "Beauty and the Beast," while Mariel reads Beauty and the Beast and Snow White.

KR is still slow at mental math. We track her progress and she’s either lacking 1 or 10 in her answer. Sometimes her answers are over 1 or 10. which is an indication that she doesn’t know where to start counting while subtracting and adding something. 

We learned the detailed process of borrowing numbers and carrying them, the basics of fractions, and a little bit of mental math. 

We would always form a circle and let one another hold a book and listen to the other while he or she read their part. Sometimes our time runs out because they tend to tell me about what happened in their present lives, how they are as kids, their progress in other things, hobbies, and the sports they play. Thus, there’s a conversation between us that took place a week after, and it was a very genuine one.

Week 6

This week was for genuine conversations—full of character, bravery, and dreams.

On that one particular day in the week, we sat down and I just read them. The story of Hansel and Gretel. After storytelling, I spent the last few minutes with them, and we started talking about our dream professions. They asked me what I would like to be in the future. Stef I immediately exclaimed,

"Oh she wanted to become a scientist," which, though not really a dream, I said yes to because what I envisioned for myself in the future was the same as that.

Mariel wanted to be a teacher, Rea wanted to be a doctor, and Carah wanted to be a cop. 

Then I heard, "You're going to be a police woman, but you're so small."

Carah immediately responded, "Would you please not dictate to me what I want in life; I'm not dictating yours."

What a bold narrative, but it’s a good thing that they acknowledge that they are the only ones that could decide for themselves and not others. I also learned that KR wanted to become an engineer, only to change her mind a week after, so I told her that we would master math so it would be easier for her someday.

Adi wanted to become a teacher because she wanted to spend her money on treating kids with food. And it’s a good thing to know that they have dreams and they tried to elaborate and fight for them because, as people who were not really fortunate, dreams could be our weapon in persevering.

Week 7

The net week was for Adi. And I was really thankful I was able to listen well during my entire time in science classes because she bombarded me with the periodic table, asking whether helium and oxygen gases are the same. Why don't we have a winter? Do aliens exist? And so on and so forth?

Adi is very curious. She lives a well-off life compared to the other kids. KR is her cousin, and KR, too, has a good life, and when I say a good life is when both parents are professionals, so they’re consistent in attending schools. They could get what they wanted in life, not just what they needed. By this means, Adi already has a phone and so is very attentive to it. She rarely goes out of their house to play and would rather learn educational stuff.

Adi’s character is that of being a law abider. She always wants to follow the rules and tells her classmates that they should do the same, which is a good principle. Cheating is always cheating, no matter what face it takes. So she’s very honest when she doesn’t know what to do with her equation.

She’s also a vocal person and easily irritated, which is why Carah sometimes likes to tease her, but the kid definitely knows how to handle drama. I bet Twitter personas should go to her for advice on how to handle bashers.

By the end of our session, Adi came up to me and said, "I hope you’ll get what you wanted for Ate." And that just warmed my heart to have someone happy with me achieving my dream someday. 

Week 8

Week 8 was a wrap; it was just casual. We actually stopped a little or we had a little break after the kids got busy with Flores de Mayo. We drew after having our post test, with Mariel and Stef already getting the perfect score in math.

Carah and KR can now read both in Filipino and English. They have already fixed their errors in math. They already know where to count when numbers are subtracted or added, and they've mastered the technique of mental math multiplication, which means they've lost a lot of my ballpens.

I bought a set of different colored pens for them to have unique pens and not fight over a certain ink, but after playing hide and seek, they lost some of my stuff. I didn’t require them to find it as they might get injured from getting scraped by bamboo. 

Adi and KR are planning to build a salon someday, which I intend to visit; Stef still wants to become an engineer, and Adi wants to be a teacher. KR wants to become a flight attendant now. I ended that day with us playing. Then they found out that I sometimes filmed our sessions. It was a fun week with kids.

Not only were they learning from our lessons, but I did too. These kids have taught me how to be helpful in ways that can but do not really cost money, and I’m just happy teaching them. I’ll be happier when I see them succeed and get what they want in life. 

Generally, it is hard to manage all this teaching stuff, especially since I am still a student. Technically, this is one of our projects in school, which is why it should be just 8 weeks and we were advised to just do it weekly. But I do it every day.

I do the session everyday because they might forget all the crucial things we learned in If we still had to wait for 7 days to learn again, chances are we can't really move forward to the next lesson because we're going to review the events of last week again.

Sure,the kids need time to rest. That's why I gave them the weekends. But their minds are easily forgotten and they would prefer to play. If we did it weekly for 5 hours, they would be bored and be unproductive all day. Plus, I consider practice as an essential tool in math. If you want to get better in math, practice, practice, and practice. I assure you that you should never stop practicing! You'll find it easier to calculate math equations in the long run. 

It is also hard in the part where these kids have different needs, such that the other kids need math skills and others need reading skills at a different level. They also have their childish tantrums and boredom, which I also need to deal with. And you can't really go hard on them because they're kids and very fragile.

How much more can kids sulk and be stubborn if adults can? But all in all, I was really happy teaching them, even if that meant staying up late at night to check papers and track progress and waking up early to prepare the space and materials we needed.

Thank you so much for reading this, I hope you have enjoyed.