Along with taking part in ALP lessons and projects, one of the requisites in being part of the Temasek Foundation’s LEaRN Scholar program is community service. With that, 10 students from SUTD went to Hangzhou Hushu School in order to carry out lessons for the students.
Hangzhou Hushu School is a specialised school for autistic children. Among the large of number of students in it, each of them are divided into different levels according to their proficiency. While some younger students are taught simple skills such as mathematics and languages, other older students are taught lifestyle skills such as cooking, in order to prepare them for an independent life.
To teach a variety of classes, the bunch of us decided to split ourselves into 4 groups, with 2-3 people taking a class each. With Cheng York, Barry and I, the 3 of us began to conduct lessons for Class 9, the class we were assigned to.
For the month of lessons, the 3 of us started to teach the students English and Arts. For English, we started by teaching basic phrases commonly used in conversations and helping them in their pronunciations. For Arts, we taught them some interesting origami that are simple yet fun to fold.
In addition to regular lessons, our CIP group also offered to help out for events held in the school. One of them is a Class Performance Day where classes put up various shows in front of an audience. The other is a Talent Showcase, with students displaying all that they have learnt over the past months to their parents.
In the end, this entire CIP experience has been an eye opener for me. In teaching the little kids at the school, I have learnt about the difficulties that each of them face. Yet despite so, they are still able to look forward with smiles on their faces. They are by no means less fortunate than us, and I hope that they have had fun in the lessons we had for them, as much as we did in teaching them.
– Eiros
