Hi, everybody…long time no see, how are you?
I am here for FEAR FACTOR! 2 experiments and my experiences in kindergarten on FEAR!!! Well, might be little bit boring for you….If you don’t like science.
Last year, I read 2 articles on fear.
Exp1. First theory: A group of scientist did a research on how fear works. The scientists use some rats to do the experiment. For your information, rats like dark place and they hate light. Firstly, 2 box are prepared, one is without light(dark) and another one is with light(bright). When the rats are released between the boxes, all rats will go to the dark box……..After that, they put a electric wire on the entrance to the dark box and food in the dark box, the rats are starved for few days and they are made to enter the dark box, and when the rats enter the dark box, they will get a slight electric shock, but of course, it’s not a comfortable feeling….but they get foods……and then the rats are made to go into the bright box without electric shock and without food. The 2 steps are repeated for several times….after that, when the rats are put between the 2 boxes again, all the rats will enter the bright box because the fear of getting an electric shock drives then to do that, even there is no food inside. the neurone scan during the experiment but it explain why we remember traumatic events better than joyful event (something to do with a part call amygdala in our brain produce a protein that store fear in our brain)…and we will do anything to prevent FEAR. The power of fear is greater than our need!
2. Exp 2: Second article I read is a very long one….It says that we do not need memory to remember fear and react so unexpectedly during danger….well, I will skip most of the biological part….
Second theory: Here is the main thing….A doctor did this experiment with one of his patient who suffer from a debilitating form of amnesia that made her incapable of forming new memories….Every time when she entered the doctor’s office, the doctor will introduce himself, shook hand with her and start the treatment…but if the doctor leave the office for 2 minutes, she will forget everything they did just now, so the doctor have to do the introduction and shake hand part again every time he went to wash room…One day, when the doctor put a needle in his hand, and when he shook hand with the lady, the needle will prick the lady’s hand. After that time, whenever the doctor try to shake hand with her, she will looked very uneasy and refused to shake the doctor’s hand even she has no memory at all about what happens last time. This has proven that Fear do not need memory like what we need for studying…
The third thing says that When we encounter a very dangerous situation, our body knows how respond to the situation unexpectedly without any training. Within a second we realize any threat, our brain will send an alarm that activate about 15 pathways in our body called the danger pathway that makes our body goes into another phase that anable us to respond…And this is why we are still here…without these pathways, our earliest ancestors would had extinct being prey of dinosaurs and wild animals.
Both experiments comes to a conclusion that when something traumatic happens to us, we will remember it forever (unless you do something with it) without us realizing it, land when we sense that it’s going to happen again, we will react to prevent the fear automatically, without any conscious command from our brain…For danger, it seems to be registered in our brain, that anyone of us has the chance of becoming the greatest swimmer in the world when we have a shark behind us.
Third Theory: The third thing says that When we encounter a very dangerous situation, our body knows how respond to the situation unexpectedly without any training. Within a second we realize any threat, our brain will send an alarm that activate about 15 pathways in our body called the danger pathway that makes our body goes into another phase that anable us to respond…And this is why we are still here..without these pathways, our earliest ancestors would had extinct being prey of dinosaurs and wild animals.
Both experiments comes to a conclusion that when something traumatic happens to us, we will remember it forever (unless you do something with it) without us realizing it, land when we sense that it’s going to happen again, we will react to prevent the fear automatically, without any conscious command from our brain…For danger, it seems to be registered in our brain, that anyone of us has the chance of becoming the greatest swimmer in the world when we have a shark behind us.
Now, these are my experiences in kindergarten…..
First, I found that these 2 experiments are especially true but wrong at sometimes……..I have one student, let assume him as A…..A is a very irritating boy, slow in study and has problem understanding things …Every time he don’t understand something or do something irritating, the mother will whack him….The mother said, “My cane is faster than my mouth…”
The experiments are true because: every time I want to touch him, or my hands get near him, he will, instantly, bend down his body or move away very quickly so that I can’t reach him….Because he thought that I am going to whack him….Here, the theories above are proven right! The experiments seem not so accurate because he will keep doing the irritating things all the time even he got whack by the teachers and his mom…He has got a habit …biting nails…and that made him admitted to hospital suffered for whole week in hospital due to all the nails and pathogens on the nails that he ate. Every time he bite his nails, teachers his mother will beat his hands…..but he keep doing it al the time…Aren’t he is suppose to have trauma from all the whacking and suffering that he shall stop being so irritating and stop biting fingernails? Coz the 1st exp said that fear is greater that our need….
Secondly, last few weeks when I tried to prepare
Milo
for the kids, my finger is hurt by the steam coming out from boiling water….it gives me a trauma….I am very scare of getting near hot water now….
Thirdly….this is today’s event. I have got a student which really gets on my nerve….try to test my patience…not just mine, but all the teachers’ patience. She is six years old, but now in 5 years old class. She can write, but she refused to do that………..She is very lazy…all the teachers had tried various ways to make her study, (praising..persuading..scolding..beating..) but nothing works. Today, I was the only teacher in the afternoon session, and I had to deal with 9 students ranging from 4-6 years old, all with different levels and different books at the same time…..So, I gave her some thing to write, it’s yesterday homework, writing her own name, Kauseliaya, and for 50 minutes, she had only written her name twice…..I seriously beat her with my hands at the buttocks (Ouch, it hurts , my hands were so painful), took her into a dark room, and ask her to write there, she begged me non-stop….crying..looked very scare. I thought this would have taught her a lesson. Then I asked her to continue writing….After 15 minutes, not even once she wrote her name. I was so surprised and angry, I lock her inside the store room, without the light, I think for about 3 minutes….She cried and beg, trying hard to pull the door, her strength was sometimes greater than mine, she nearly opened the door sometimes….She is 6 years old and I am 19 leh….So, this has proven the third theory is correct. She became much stronger in danger. Well, the story continues…I let her out. She promised to write very fast….I wait for 10 minutes just to find that she write her name once and realized that almost all the she had written down is wrong. beat her again, with my something like cane, it looked like those dried thin bamboo, she cried again, asking me to stop beating her. I asked for a reason and she said that she is a good girl and she can write very fast. I nearly puke up…..speechless….Ok, Then, I let her write coz I really don’t want to hurt her and really don’t know what else can I do…I observed her after that, she never wrote a thing, keep looking out of the windows, I seriously got angry now, my blood pressure spikes, I pulled her to the door and threatened her to kick her out of the school…..she, as usual , cried and begged me, hold me some more, I got so angry that I want to beat her with my hands, who knows, she want to defense the buttocks, put her hands quickly at the buttocks…the problem was she had got a sharp pencil on the hand and the the pencil pierced into my finger..ouch, it’s so painful, it’s bleeding, even it’s a small hole….but quite deep. And now my finger is swollen and the diameter had so far increased by 0.3 cm. I can’t play piano, cannot really bend my finger now……..Haih, you must think that I was a dinosaur, too strict with the girl, but she is really irritating…at home, when she refused to study, she will miss the dinner… Ok, after the school, we locked her alone inside the school, and the teacher pretended to send the students back home and told her that we will come only after she finished…(actually, I am outside the school, hiding outside the door…he..he..)She screamed and cried..after 10 minutes, we opened to find her sitting on the floor, and the book is closed, and pencil and eraser are arranged nicely on the table….seems like she never even planned to write……and it’s true, she never wrote a thing. See here, when we punished her, she is so scare, so terrified, but she still refused to write…According to the theories, isn’t she supposed to have trauma for the punishments? Even she don’t have good memories, she will still have the FEAR, right? Every time after we finished beating her, she will wipe off the tears and be as usual….now I doubt whether she ever scared of all these punishments!!! or maybe the amygdala thing in her brain is not working…..
When you read till here, you might think that I am not a good teacher, actually, I never act like that before….when I beat her, I beat her to scare her, to threaten her, I don’t beat to hurt or to release my anger although I am angry coz so shock that she never changed after so much things that I have done.. and I have good anger management, ok?
Working in kindergarten means everyday must chase and shout to the naughty one, saying GOOD BOY, CLEVER GIRL, WELL DONE, VERY GOOD for thousands times a day. But I am close with some of the students also, especially a 2 years old girl, I don’t know why, I really love her lah. Every morning, I will take her out from her mommy’s car, take off her shoes, hold her, bring her inside the classroom, take her bag, teache her to recognize pictures and numbers….Recess time, I will make her her daily drink, watch her ear, after school, I will help her to wear the shoes, take care of her in the play station, play with her…..Yesterday I was told to start teaching 5 years old class on Monday instead of 3 years old class that I was teaching….because one teacher is leaving and they say that I will be the most suitable to take the class and to displince them, to tame all the ignorant, lawless monsters in that class….seriously, that class is the worst in the whole school…..but I feel so sad because I can’t be with the girl anymore, and she cried to find me today, when I was not around. She will be taught by another Indian teacher, but the girl can’t speak English, she can’t even speak Chinese properly…so worry about her….I really treat her like my own child, like how I love the 2 dinosaurs at my house, Liang and Xuan. Hope she will be well without me lah…feel so sad to separate with her….
Anyway, my life is good….well organized, contented, tiring………
