I thank God for giving me the opportunity to visit some families during Hari Raya Puasa.
Visitation to homes is something very new to me.
Originally, the plan was just to accompany my friend to visit her student’s home and to observe how she engages with this family. However, God has some surprises for me. His ways are higher than my ways and His thoughts are higher than my thoughts. He gives me the opportunity to visit some of my students’ homes too.
During this Raya, I have the chance to visit 2 of my students’ families and brought my colleague to visit his students’ families too.
During the visitation, we ate some Raya goodies and spent some time together. After this visitation, I realize that my relationship with the students become closer and I get to know more about their family’s situation. Before the home visitation, I was just a teacher in the class at the school.
After the visitation, I am both their teacher and their friend. They can come to me and confide in me. They become more open and willing to take the initiative to talk to me not just about their studies, also what they do over the weekends. Not only would my students come to me, but other class’ students also come to me and talk to me.
I am new in ALP learning centre and after class, the other students would normally just smile to me when we have eye contact.
However, after I followed my colleague to visit his students, they not only smile to me, they also wish me: “Good afternoon teacher”.
At times, they do also come to me and sit with me to talk to me. My conversations with the students are very warm and comforting.
After Raya, one of my students came to me and told me that his mom has invited me to visit them again during Raya Haji in July. I really appreciate the thoughts and understand now the importance of home visitation which can create a positive impact for both my students and me.
