Couple days ago, I had a chance to tutor some kids from elementary and junior high school at a mosque near my home. I accepted to have a go there after having an invitation to be a volunteer from the prosperity council of mosque. The material I gave was simple and fundamental. It was 'how to operate a PC'.
You may think the job was bagatelle. It wasn't. Since most of the participants were from poor family and orphans. Few of them have really interacted with a computer. Therefore, I used extra energy. It could be proved during my tutor time. However, in my opinion, they already know how to define what a computer is in the modest way. At least, I am sure, they must have heard a stuff called 'computer' before.
The tutorial was separated into two groups based on their level, the elementary school group and the junior high school one. The elementary school group had more than 40 children and the other group had more than 20 children, sorry for not counting precisely :) I and another volunteer got the elementary school group. Each group had only 2 used and obsolete computers. Back to 486 processor era though. What a condition :-)
Okay, the interesting story just begun. First, I let my friend to explain what 'Folder' is. The class went enthusiast so I thought it would be okay. Then I decided to watch the other class for a while. Surprisingly, the class had not started yet. Apparently, one PC failed to start and the tutor seemed frustrated fixing it. Well, I helped him finding out the problem and asked him to start the class. The class went 'normal' after I overcame the problem. The two PC worked well then. The material for this class was 'Word Processing'. I noted that the tutor had limited knowledge about computer particularly the material he taught. However I appreciate his enormous spirit and motivation teaching kids. I thought at least the material was just how to align a paragraph. Therefore it was very basic and he explained it well.
Finally my tutor time came. I called one by one all kids to sit right beside me so they could 'touch' keyboard and mouse and look at monitor screen directly. Then I told them how to move a file from a folder to another. When I explained it they seemed understood. Surprisingly they didn't know how to operate and move a mouse though. Wow, their hands extremely hard to move the cursor to point certain buttons. It was forced me to teach what mouse is and how to operate it in order to navigate smoothly in a GUI environment. Not to mention the time needed just to write down their names using keyboard. They looked for each character one by one and used right-single-forefinger to press the character they aimed to use though. Well it took about two and a half hours to accomplish the tutorial including the practice.
First, what I am trying to say here is it needs extra energy to teach elementary school kids. The patience needed to handle their slowness to follow the materials I gave. The patience needed to overcome their naughtiness and loud noise they made during the class. Furthermore they come from poor family and orphans. The knowledge they have might have been as not much as those wealthy children. For instance, they didn't know how to move and operate a mouse. FYI, I already gave many lectures and I didn't find any difficulties since most of my classes had good materials knowledge.
Second, the gap between the rich and the poor still can be seen. The wealth can provide their children best education needs from expensive school to hiring private teacher. No wonder, there is a stereotype that education is just for wealthy people. There is little chance and opportunity for the poor children. They'd better find a job and loose their right to get education. Not to mention underdevelopment villages that really lack school. If only the new minister of education could have handled this. Thanks Lord for giving me many chances and opportunities having good education!
Third, I would like to give my deep respect to all elementary school teachers who dedicate their life for education. I don't know how they can get by having low salary from the government. They have family to feed and look after!
Last but not least, by this post, I would like to invite all readers to participate in education. Your help doesn't have to be in advance. I know some of us are not good at teaching. Our help could be simple and modest things such as donating old text books to orphan foundation or underdevelopment villages could help a lot.
al'Ilmu bilaa 'Amalin ka asy-Syajari Bilaa Tsamarin
Knowledge without spreading is just like a tree without fruits