The first school placement

This week, I was assigned to have school placement in one of the elementary schools in Toronto. Joyce Public School is small and with about ten classes. There are just about 300 students in the school. If I were one of the students there, I would probably love to go to school. Their classrooms are spacious (our two classrooms' size is their one classroom's size), the students can come out and sit on the mat and chat with teachers and classmates. There are twenty or even less than 20 students in each class. They have the same teacher teaching them all subjects (Music and PE are exceptional). They don't have to use textbooks but they do have a curriculum. Teachers can talk about the weather and the news with students and by doing that, the students are learning reading, speaking, listening, writing, phonics, grammar, social studies, Mathematics and etc. They integrated everything together and they are all closely related to students' daily lives. In Music lesson, every student has a chance to play the keyboard and music computer games. They are not just learning theory and singing only. They really learn Music, including playing the keyboard, music theory and singing. Even the students are poor, they still have a chance to play different musical instruments (including the keyboard and the xylophone). They don't have much homework to do. They do have to do classwork but it's easy and handy to do. They just need to do a few homework items every day. Teachers have plenty of time to talk to students and see how they learn. I really hope someday I can teach in such a school in HK. Well, maybe you will say I am daydreaming. I still believe people should have dreams and so that they will work towards their dreams. Dreams are good for us! Maybe I will say I have my target. I will work very hard to achieve what I want to achieve. I know with my limited ability and power and the limitation in my school, I cannot change the class, change the school or even change the Hong Kong education system so much. But at least I will try to change my students' mind and attitudes towards learning. I will show them learning English is fun and English is easy to learn and we can use English all the time. I know it takes time to show my students all these and I'll need to sacrifice a lot in order to motivate them to learn. Still, I will try to use limited time to teach them unlimited things. Anyway, teaching and learning should be fun. Education is not a tool to transmit knowledge only. Education does help people to grow healthily in physical, mental and emotional aspects. If I fail to achieve my target, I still have no regret because I know I have tried to do that!