`JOnathan~~

Friday, January 16, 2009

I went to Bedok library to study with Deborah today and it became a study session like none others...
Just as we were studying, a primary 6 Chinese girl came and asked us to help her in her math homework. We agreed to help her.

Frankly speaking, i didn't expect her...
to actually sit with us till about 8pm, for around 1 hour i think.
She was feeling helpless with her math exercise, which is on addition and subtraction of fractions (this will involve knowing how to get lowest common multiple as the common denominator) Apparently, she can't even add, subtract, multiply and divide properly. So most of the time in the beginning, she was just guessing answers. She would always want to use her calculator, (which Deborah confiscated in the process) and refer to her time-tables. She didn't really understand the mathematics behind it. All she has as a guide for the entire exercise, is a completed example of the first question, copied from the teacher.

When i was teaching her, i was feeling exasperated inside. yes, inside, because i dun wanna scare her. However, the both of us decided to put down our studies and take turns to just try to help her pick up the techniques required. And so, there we are, teaching mathematics in Chinese (because she can't really catch us speaking English quick enough) in the quiet programme space of the library.

The sense of satisfaction from seeing her solve some problems on her own was DEEPLY REWARDING.

Love is patient, love is kind. Indeed, if i can actually be this patient with this child, i can practise the same thing for others as well. This girl is God-sent :) Praise God!

Jonathan posted at 12:08 AM

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