'Teacher kene tipu..'

I bought my paper this morning (more like at noon.. being bitten by the insomnia bug the past week has been keeping me awake at night, and sleeping after Subuh right till noon <--anak dara ape ni?). Went through the news, reading aloud to Yana who had just come home from her kampung at Kulim. Not that she asked me to anyway hahah..

At the cartoon section, my horoscope caught my attention by telling me to focus on something that makes me happy. Hmm, interesting as I've been a bit blue this weekend. Then I remembered something I had wanted to write about on Thursday..

I just had my form 1 class at Bagan Serai. I like this class as the students are either bright or posses a high level of inquiry. A mix of malay and indian student, I sometimes laugh at their antics in class.

Now, I've always encouraged my students to bring their schoolwork to class if they can't do it. This is so they could share the problem with the class while we try to solve it together. This particular day, my brightest student, Dinesh, asked me for some help with his work. Turned out his class was also learning the same chapter as we were.

Dinesh had some problems with factors. I had noticed he had 5 question, to find the factors of 48, 64, 100, 175 and 500. He had completed the first three questions but was having problems with 175 and 500. Since the other students were also calling out to me, and knowing that Dinesh actually KNEW how to find the answers, I just gave him the answers and asked him to check. I felt an unappropriate swell of pride when he commented on how he wanted to be like me, to answer straight from the head without calculating on paper or calculator so I told him, he could be like that if he wanted to.. he just had to love maths AND complete his exercises. He nodded in agreement and his bestfriend, Riisyinder gave me a smile that left me wondering if I had done something wrong..

I quickly shoved that thought away as I helped my other students with the exercise I just gave them. After that, we had a half hour of discussing the exercise. As I was ready to move on to the next topic, Nafisah called out to me, "Teacher, minggu lepas teacher ade bagi homework. Bile nak discuss?"

Opppss, nearly forgotten about that so I borrowed her book to copy the questions on the white board.

"List down all the factors for the following numbers
1. 48
2. 64
3. 100
4. 175
5. 500"

Hmm.. those number DO look familiar! As I turned around, I saw Dinesh sheepishly looking away while Riisyinder trying his best to keep 'something' from getting outta his mouth.

I looked at the board again..

"Dinesh!!!! Awak tipu saya yeeeee!!!!"

And Riisyinder gave up trying to keep it to himself. "Teacher kene tipu.. Teacher kene tipu!"

The other students were already protesting, with one girl saying to me, "Tu la Teacher, saya dah cakap jangan percaya kat dia. Mentang² la dia pandai, semua orang percaye kat dia!"

Yeahhh right.. saying that while the whole class laughed at me for being tricked into giving him the answers to MY OWN questions. Even the clerks rushed into my class, wondering what the ruckus was all about haha..

And to think that I was tricked by a form 1 student :p Hahah.. how careless can you get, Ayu?

Takpe Dinesh.. ade ubi ade batas! You wait.. one day, I'm getting back at you haha..