When I was a trainee teacher

I did my training in a school that was made up of academically very weak students. A number of them were overage having repeated in some years.

There was a shortage of teachers at that time and I taught lower secondary English, Mathematics amd Science.

I didn't like teaching English. Correcting my students' compositions was like re-writing 40 compositions all over. In some cases, I had to correct every sentence. And since we had to set a composition exercise every other week, alternating with comprehension, I found myself writing compositions non-stop.

I was a very good Math and Science teacher though. Through getting to know my students,I learned very early on in my training not to make any assumptions about what my students already knew or should know. Their foundation was really very weak.

I was very systematic, organised and clear in my explanation. And I watched keenly my students' faces for their response to everything I said. I discovered that I had an enormous amount of patience. I don't remember ever feeling despaired that they couldn't understand even the most basic thing. If they did not understand the first time, I would try to explain the same thing again in a different way, or I would speak slowly and pause to emphasize whatever that I thought needed emphasis and to allow the idea to sink in. And I would explain an idea or concept as many times as needed, whether to a class or to individuals, until they were understood. You cannot move forward unless your students are moving forward with you.

The change in my students' facial expressions - from looking lost to "I see light", from frowns to smiles - those were the moments of satisfaction for me.

Years later I was on a few occasions stopped by people on the roads or wherever and they would tell me I was their teacher and that I was a very good teacher.

It amazes me that there are people who think they are doing students weak in their studies a great favour by calling for streaming to be delayed or worse, to be abolished altogether. They think by doing so they are taking away the stress of learning or the misery of a label. The reality is that the earlier you catch a child who is lagging behind and help him or her to consolidate their foundation, the less stressful learning will be later on for them because there will be less catching up to do.