Dealing With Mental Retardation Student (2)

 

It's the third week of my class with this special student. Basically the third meeting with him. My first impression is written here if you haven't read it yet. I am trying to keep update about teaching him here because he is so special for me. Definitely, he is.

So when we had our second meeting, I hoped that he got something surprising for me. And he had one. At the first meeting, he couldn't even differentiate between negative and positive integers, that positive integers always bigger than the negative ones. I had to tell him like 10 times (it's not exaggerating) But at the second meeting, he could! Can you imagine how happy I am?

But he can't understand the comparison between negative integers like negative 3 is bigger than negative 5 because he still thinks that 3 is smaller than 5 in any conditions including negative integers. That is okay, he showed me the progress of being able to say that negative integers are always smaller than positive ones.

I can see that he work so hard for that. So at that moment, I realize that I have to say things that he can and have to memorize because I can't ask him to analyze things logically. It's hard. So I keep trying to say so many things to make him memorize that, with a hope that it will work.

On the other hand, he couldn't do any addition and reduction using negative integers too much. He could, but only if the number is small. I struggled to say and explain that. But he finally get used to count it with a help of a tool.

Today, the third meeting, I asked him what did he learnt yesterday. I always do that, even though many times he said he learnt natural science (natural science is the class a day before maths) but I always do that. I want to know what he thinks about other subjects and I asked what he learnt in languages classes as well. I can see his enthusiasm in those and asked which part that enthusiast him so much. What surprised me today that he said he studied maths last night. WOW. I was happy to hear that. And when I asked him to answer all of the questions about previous things, he did it very well and all answers are correct. He was able to do the reduction and addition using negative integers with no mistakes. I said "Wow, you did a very good job today. Your answers are all correct!" then he said "YESSSSS!!!". His YESS somehow made me flattered that show me how happy he was when I gave him a compliment of his hard work. And hey he can finally say that negative 3 is bigger than negative 5. It's a big progress!

 

It may sound usual and nothing. Yes, it is, for students with IQ above 90. But he is not. That is why it is special and struggle in telling him things.

He likes to tell the story and I  like to ask him everything like what colour he likes, what movie he likes, how many friends he has, what kind of sports he likes to play, and it is cool to know that he likes to see old buildings but without any ghost 😂. It was fascinating when he asked me "Is Niagara hotel haunted?" 😂 It is recommended to give a break in the middle of class, and my break usually showing him about old buildings. Trust me I have a lot (well some of them are H's pictures of course lol). Beside, I can tell him the little history of that. I showed him Hotel Majapahit and Ayasofya today.

So what I learnt about how to teach a student like him, do tell them about things that they could memorize because they work better at memorizing things. It always a struggle when you usually don't need to tell them to do something but trust me, when they could memorize things, your jobs will be easier later. How much you could tell them to do things? As much as you need to tell them to write down the answer in their books.

Ini beneran, ketika dia mengerjakan sesuatu dan diajak bicara, dia akan stop melakukan sesuatu dan mendengarkan. Tapi ketika kita lupa beri tahu kalau dia harus mengerjakan lagi tugas yang aku beri tadi, ya dia nggak akan mengerjakan lagi. So you really have to tell them what to do consecutively.

Another surprise he asked today is "What is haram?" Boy this is a mathematics class, not agama class 😂 But I did give him answers 😎