A Malaysian teacher recently went viral after sharing her amusing classroom discipline method, where students are assigned extra questions for certain behaviours during lessons.
In a Threads post that garnered over 248,000 views, the teacher showed a whiteboard listing how many additional questions students would need to answer for various classroom behaviours.
Different classroom behaviours come with extra questions
According to the whiteboard, students may receive additional exercises for actions such as:
- Saying “Cikgu, dia bising” – 3 questions
- Asking “Cikgu, kena selang ke?” – 1 question
- Asking which Bahasa Melayu book version to use – 1 question
- Talking in class – 5 questions
- Writing slowly – 2 questions
- Saying “Cikgu, Nishan busuk” – 10 questions
- Smiling until teeth show – 3 questions
The unusual warning system quickly amused netizens, with many praising the teacher’s creativity and jokingly questioning some of the rules.
However, the teacher, Puteri Haziera told WeirdKaya the method works so well that some students have started pretending to tape their mouths shut to avoid punishment.
Students quickly learned not to test the rule
Speaking to WeirdKaya, the teacher said she got the idea after seeing a similar post on Threads and decided to try it with her Year 4 class.
“I got the idea from another post on Threads. It seemed efficient, so I decided to try it with my Year 4 class,” she said.
As this was only the second time she had used such a written warning system, many students initially did not take it seriously.
That changed when one student spoke loudly in class and the teacher assigned extra comprehension questions to the entire class.
Even students who had already submitted their books had to take them back and add more work.
Her classroom rule is simple: if one student makes noise, everyone gets extra questions.
They now ‘tape their mouths shut’ to avoid punishment
Following the incident, the teacher said students began jokingly pretending to tape their mouths shut to stop themselves from talking.
After that happened, the students started using the ‘tape your mouth shut’ technique on themselves to avoid talking,” she said jokingly.
She added that even when something smelled bad in class, students refused to react verbally because they were afraid of being punished.
Even when something smelled bad in class, they kept their mouths shut and endured it because they didn’t want extra questions.”
Instead, some students began using sign language to ask permission to go to the toilet or pose questions.
Why smiling also gets punished
One rule that particularly amused netizens was the inclusion of “smiling until teeth show” as an offence.
Explaining the reason behind it, the teacher said smiling is often the first sign students are about to burst into laughter and create more noise.
If they start smiling, that’s usually a sign they’re about to laugh and get noisy, so I wanted to stop it before it escalated,” she explained.
Encourages teachers to be creative
The teacher, who teaches Bahasa Melayu to Year 4 and Year 5 students, said educators should adapt their teaching methods according to students’ personalities and energy levels.
A noisy class means students are active and energetic to learn. Teachers just need to channel that energy in the right way,” she said.
She also encouraged fellow teachers to be more creative and not rely solely on traditional teaching methods.
“Don’t stress too much. Just enjoy the process,” she added.
Watch the clip here:
View on Threads
