2nd Part: Interview and write-up on a family member
After the 2D family project, Little Boy had to quickly get down to the 2nd part of the project. The 2nd part required him to interview a family member of his choice and write an essay comparing his life with the life of the interviewee. Without much deliberation, Little Boy had decided to interview his paternal grandfather. For this part of the project, there was plenty of guidance from the teacher, hence, I left Little Boy alone to formulate the interview questions and do the write-up. The only problem I faced was to get Little Boy to be on task, check his deadlines and hand in the drafts on time.
Little Boy enjoyed the interview process, as the role of the interviewer gave him a sense of importance. We discovered many things about his grandfather that we were previously unaware of. Little Boy was very intrigued by the childhood games his grandfather used to play. He also felt very sympathetic towards his grandfather who had to go through poverty during his younger days. For me, I was mesmerised by my father-in-law very good looks when he was in his early twenties. Upon closer observation, I do see some resemblance between Little Boy and his grandfather. haha...
Little Boy's grandfather in his twenties |
3rd Part: Personal Reflection
The last part of the project (which I thought should be the easiest of all the tasks) required Little Boy to reflect on the whole journey he took from the start to the end of the project and document it down on a template provided by the teacher. However, this part proved to be quite tough for Little Boy who had never written a reflection before. He was also seldom asked to reflect on any processes. His initial reflection was irrelevant, superficial and lacked insights. It was only with much prompting and guidance from me that he was able to complete this last part of the project.
I could not comprehend Little Boy's struggles and his contorted expressions (whenever I told him he's not doing his reflection right). It's personal reflection! You just need to write what you think, feel and describe what you had gone through. How difficult can that be? It took me a while to realise that mainstream students are seldom asked to reflect and think. It is very common to have the teachers spoon-feeding the students and telling them what to think. Mainstream students are not given the opportunities to reflect and think on the processes either. Most of the time, teachers are only interested in the final product of a project and often neglect the process. Personally, I feel that writing personal reflection is a very important skill to have and that all students should be taught and be given ample opportunities to do that. Students who just spend all their time mugging exam topics and practise more challenge sums would end up like robots; devoid of feelings and personal thoughts.
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