I enjoy seeing my kids learning.

I am rediscovering the joy of teaching 16-year-olds! Thank you Lord!

My 16-year-olds never fail to surprise me.

Three months ago, they were so ill-behaved in the class that I had to resort to punishing everyone in the class, including the girls.

Two months ago, I think I told the class ten times, "A new teacher is coming. I will only be teaching until the end of this month."

Last month, all of the students failed in their English monthly assessment. And I think I told them another couple of times that "A new teacher is coming. I will only be teaching until the end of this month."

Last week, they surprised me by being ready to learn and being willing to learn.

Last week, they surprised me when they spelt "English" as "inglish" when they wrote in their essay "... Miss Sharon is my inglish teacher".

Today, they surprised me participating so eagerly in class. And that means we have accomplished our first skill under summary writing, which is categorizing!

This boy named A surprised me the most. He has a super bad reputation in school for being a disruptive and under-disciplined student. He behaved that way in my class when I first got into class as well.

He would smirk now and then. He would have a million reasons for not being ready, being late for class, being tardy, being forgetful. More often than other, he would skip my class entirely. He fits the description pretty well.

Maybe I did not know him well enough. Maybe there was more to than what it seems.

He gradually changed my perception towards him. And my heart warmed towards him.

He started showing up for class. Each time earlier than the last time.

He started to copy necessary notes from the board. He started doing work in the class.

He started trying to understand what is going on in the classroom.

He started doing his homework.

And today, he started participating in class. It was a tough objective, we are learning to summarize sentences using categorizing skills. This was the first lesson.

All the students shy away from question number 3 during GP. He stood up. Not entirely realizing what he was trying to do, I tried to coax another boy to attempt question 3.

A went all the way to the front of the classroom, took the marker, and asked me. "Can I try teacher?"

Later, during IP he was among the first to finish his work. And he raised his hands again and again to answer the questions on the board. I did not call upon him and he was so frustrated but he raised his hands for every question after that.

What a day for A! And what a day for me.

Thank you Lord.