A chat with Teacher Ivette, who loves to see her children face and solve problems independently

In this series of chats with our staff, we get up close and personal. They share about things like their favourite drinks, to their experiences and motivations at work.

Hello, could you introduce yourself?

I’m Ivette, a Senior English teacher at Hougang Centre, currently teaching K2s. This year is very special to me because I have a class that consists only of girls. For girls, you can say that it’s easy to teach them cos they listen, but also challenging because they always have a lot of questions to ask you. What does a typical day at work look like?

Everyday, when we step into the classroom, we need to first maintain the cleanliness. After that I gather my children and start the lesson for the day. We have different lessons everyday. The best part of my day is when I bring my children outdoors – that’s the time where they explore new things! So new questions and challenges for me will come out everyday during then.

What are some heartwarming moments you recall at school? It is when my children have difficulties in certain things, and from there we see how they cope and manage their challenges and solve the problems by themselves.

What is a pick me up that you need to keep you going? I think I cannot live without my milk, I need the strength and energy to teach them. Do you have any hobbies outside of work? I actually like to look at new recipes. Sometimes when I feel stressed, I like to cook to relieve my stress.

How is your relationship with your colleagues? When I first joined Hougang Centre, I felt that everyone was a bit cold to me. Maybe because I was new, and I didn’t have a chance to mingle around with them. I was trying to adapt to the environment. After a few weeks, I realised they are not cold - they are fun! They just need someone to ‘snap’, and start the conversation. Then they will start to joke and share things with you.

I really like the atmosphere here because we did a lot of teamwork together. We had to sit together and think about what we are going to do for certain projects.

For example when we were raising funds for the Zoo, our Centre Leader came up with the idea of making jam.

So we had to search for the recipe and discuss how to do the jam. We are not chefs, but we wanted to make a good, tasty jam. We needed to try it out. Everyone chipped in with ideas and were part of the testing process to find the perfect recipe. We helped one another out! What is one quality that a teacher must have? Patience, and being quick to think when children ask challenging questions. We must be able to answer because to them, we are very knowledgeable. Importantly you must be fun-loving, because you need to mingle and interact with the children.