Term break

I have slogged hard and spent sleepless nights working this week, and finally it is coming - after tomorrow's Teachers' Day celebrations, school will be off for a week.

But oh, Monday and Tuesday I will be in school because my ODAC kids are doing a first aid course. I need to set exam papers too. Plan the lessons for next term. Write rubbish for the CHERISH report. Key in height/weight data for the level. Update my record book. Do a store inventory check. Plan for the end of year ODAC activity.

And I am sure I left out some things from this to-do list.

Happy holidays, all teachers!

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Today my VP and my English HOD came in to observe my favourite English class. I think the lesson went well, I managed to entertaine all of them pretty well, and I was busy running around answering questions from the students.

I took the same lesson to another class, and only 2-3 person actually looked at me as I talked. And I just went on rambling while mentally making myself oblivious to the actions of 30 recalcitrant students, stopped after I am done, hand the worksheet to them, and get them to do. A handful will attempt it by themselves, another handful needed lots of help to understand the task, and more than half just sleep or talk.

I sinned a lot these days - I coerced these people to do their work, and only succeeded in making them write one or two sentence of nonsense. So many pristine sheets of paper were defaced because I harassed them to write something, and this wasn't the first time that happened. Imagine how much harm I did to the environment!

OJT lessons...

I just got some on the job training from a student in my new NT class yesterday. Giving them a break from me and the last common test, I played a movie for them to watch for the lesson. The class chairperson took the chance to come up to me then to tell me about how I should manage the class!

Apparently my English HOD who took them previously always revised specific parts of the common test paper with them before the actual test, and that is why there was a small uproar when I gave them the test on Monday without any sort of revision. I didn't realised that they needed this routine before they can feel confident about taking tests; without it, some of them felt outraged and simply refused to try the paper I think.

And he also wants me to tone down my voice when I speak to the class (I am awake of my loud voice but am still working at trying to make it softer), give them a period to do work and then another to slack and talk, etc. All very good advices, and I received them humbly and told him how I am still not comfortable with his class at this moment, and will probably need time to adjust myself.

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I learnt in a meeting later that day that the NT kids can fail every subject and will still get through to ITE for some courses. That knowledge does put everything into perspective huh? Maybe that's why many of them do not feel the need to do better. I'll still carry on and work at it nonetheless, because my conscience does not allow me to do otherwise.

I have test markings and lesson plans and emails to reply to et cetera this week, but am still trying to maintain my sporting lifestyle. After an English workshop on Tuesday, I simply cannot go for polo session on Tuesday and felt quite bad about it. I'll probably have to bring down my laptop and do marking while watching my juniors play games there.

Invigilation

Just watching my NT class take a common test makes me vomit blood. Many just flipped through the pages and then proceeded to put their head on the table and slumber. Some just say "dunno how to do so difficult" and waste the time staring at the paper. I wonder where they adopted this attitude from; in any case these people will probably not make anything of themselves in this school.

And I'm too stressed to think of fun creative student-centered activities for them to do in class. Any lessons have to depend on them staying awake too.

And a stupid kid from another class provoked another student this morning and when I helped to push him away from the other guy he challenged me to a fight. Man I was really hoping then that I can get my hands bloody. That will be a good way to vent my frustration.

Yet another school comparison

Let me comment about this letter in the ST forum today, the writer comparing Singapore schools with a UK school that she taught in -

• "The United Kingdom education system inspires and enables the child to learn, builds confidence and nurtures creative thinkers. 'Teaching to test' seems to be the objective of Singapore schools."

This is very true! So what can we all do about it? Nothing at all, unless a change of mindset, along with a change of syllabus etc comes from the top. All schools want to do well so that they will be higher ranked, all teachers want good results to get promoted; therefore there is no way things will change.

• "The class teacher spends considerable time planning and preparing lessons to meet the different needs of the children. No designated textbooks are used.

Not possible. As I explained in a previous post, the time teachers spend on planning lessons is negligible. Again, if we are to put more effort into lesson planning, our work for all other things should be reduced. But then again, schools all want to be higher ranked, teachers all want to excel in their CCAs and committee work etc for better performance grading. Again, things will not be changed.

• "One has to look into how confident, articulate and expressive Singapore pupils are and who does most of the talking in class, the teacher or the pupils?"

Is this a school's problem? I think it is more of a societal problem as a whole. How many of our citizens dare to speak up against injustice, ill-manners, discourteous acts, and wrong-doings? How many of us believe that by speaking out, we can make a difference? The child simply follows what the adults do, which is nothing. School can help to encourage children to speak up, but it will be useless if the rest of society doesn't believe in it.

I like this statement the best -

"I respect the teachers of Singapore who try their very best to deliver the Government's expectations. But it appears that, collectively, society has created a nation that is obsessed with rankings and success."

Patience

It is as I feared - my new normal tech class refused to do work today and got me freaking pissed.

Ok, not all of course. And their refusal may be due to the fact that the paper has quite a lot of questions on one passage, or that it is the last period of the day, or that they are simply not in the mood at that time. Many just say they don't know how to do it when I bugged them, and I shot back at them asking if they even tried. I wanted it to be a CA assignment, but in the end, because half the class copied from each other, I dropped the idea and got the few idiots left to forget about copying the answers to pass to me after the rest of the class was dismissed.

Maybe I got fed up because my imagined scenario really played itself out, because I actually accepted CA work from my other normal tech class even though a lot of them copied from each other too. Or maybe I was just finally fed up with not being able to stop that from happening. It's not as if they will learn anything from copying, so the whole exercise is futile.

Patience. I must remember that these mentally immature kids usually do better with the soft approach; no use scolding and alienating them permanently. Some really do try hard, and I should carry on doing things for them. They are the product of years of mismanagment by their environment, and it will be arrogant for me to think that I can change their behaviour after knowing them for a few days. Just carry on, help those who seek help, in between say a few encouraging words to the recalcitrant few and see whether miracles happen.

I am in school for 12 working hours for the past 3-4 days. But I wouldn't complain working even longer hours if I only had to sit in an office and do paperwork; that is nothing compared to having a bad lesson which makes you feel depressed and useless for the entire freaking day.

Good writing

I chanced upon this entry in A Pedagogue's Progress on my first visit there, and am pleasantly surprised by the read. Learning to read critically, to get past useless words and discern the real meaning and intention behind writings is the most important thing that I acquired from my studies in NUS, and I often sought to practice this skill when reading the Straits Times. It is an entertaining exercise because so much of the writing inside about local events carry hidden significances behind the superficial meanings; noticing what's conspicuously absent is interesting too.

Things that make me angry

Browsing the Straits Times can be unbearable at times. I'm one of maybe ten people on this island who considers the state of prose -- no pun intended -- to be an important barometer of the nation's health and who gets upset by bad writing. Consider this latest egregious specimen, culled from today's Forum page:

As global uncertainties are now greater than ever, I contend that the long-term security and prosperity of Singapore require a shift in paradigm to one in which we cultivate a broad-based pool of highly critical and creative thinkers from multiple disciplines [italics mine].

The author isn't a government official, but he sure does his clichés like our ministries' finest press secretaries. There are six of them in the small sentence above, each a sin against the English language and clear thought. Since I'm in a particularly vicious mood right now -- it is Imagined Community and Manufactured Enthusiasm Day, after all -- I'm actually going to explain what any avid reader of good literature will tell you is self-evident: I'm going to devote time and space to analysing that sentence.

So, "global uncertainties are now greater than ever." Than ever? Ever? Even greater than during the Great Depression, Second World War, Cuban Missile Crisis, 1970s oil crisis, Asian Financial Crisis, general crisis of the 14th century? Every generation takes perverse comfort in reassuring itself that the world is going to hell in a handbasket (a uniquely American term, apparently; I first heard it from Bill Spengemann), but is never able to demonstrate even the slightest ounce of historical judgement required to validate such sweeping, inelegant claims.

Why always talk about "long-term security and prosperity"? Why not just say "future"? More matter with less art.

No no no no no no. Do not ever use paradigm shift unless you have read Thomas Kuhn (I haven't) and know precisely what it means. Even then, it's intellectual pretentious. All that the author is saying is that we ought to think differently. Which is ironic, since he's not doing that at all.

"[B]road-based pool" just doesn't make sense at all. It's an awful metaphor.

Ah, "critical and creative thinkers." And not ordinary ones, but "highly" to boot! (Maybe it's just me, but "highly critical" brings to mind crabby Chinese teachers.) We've abused this catchphrase so much that we no longer have any clear idea what it means, except that it is a Very Good Thing (rather like Democracy in some other places). Seriously now. You can neither legislate morality nor marshal intelligence and intellect to serve the ends of nation-building.

What does the author mean by"multiple disciplines"? Are we talking about scholarly disciplines like Anthropology, Physics, History, Art, and Music here, or pseudo-subjects like Hotel Administration, Event Planning, and Motivational Speaking? Because you aren't going to find very many "highly critical and creative" artists, physicists, musicians, and anthropologists who are willing to hang around in this place. Certainly not when they are only supposed to be contributing to "long-term security and [material] prosperity."

The ideas underpinning the sentence aren't only bad and lacking in analytical rigour; they're also markedly unoriginal: we need more intelligent people to ensure our nation's future. It's common sense (which, as one begins increasingly to realise, isn't very common at all), and the government has been saying it for years. Why has our author cottoned on to this only now?

Sadly, what limited experience (which, "though noon auctoritee / Were in this world, is right ynogh for me") I do have of Singaporean prose suggests that sentences like the above are the norm rather than the exception. I've no way of proving this, of course, to any satisfactory degree, except to say that I don't recall ever reading anything in the local print media that's struck me as really well-written. The best Singaporean prose stylist, as far as I can tell, is Xenoboy, but while the quality of online writing is on the whole much higher, we still have a long way to go before we can match up to the likes of this guy.

Just a sobering thought, this Imagined Community and Manufactured Enthusiasm Day.

Bourne Ultimatum!

I just caught The Bourne Ultimatum on the big screen! It's a great movie, fast-paced and thrilling right to the end. Excuse the shaky camera effect during the fighting and chasing scenes, and you'll have the movie of the year. Go catch it!

A short break...

...that I couldn't really enjoy, that describe these few days past. The thought that I will be teaching another class of English bothered me so much that I never really enjoyed myself these few days. I can only give a turn up the corners of my mouth and give a wan smile when people remarked about this long break.

On Thursday, the Odac people got invited to Skee's place to have steamboat dinner, and I got Emily out early to Kinokuniya to get books at 20% discount. Kundera's The Curtain was the only one I really wanted, since I have got so much stuff at home waiting for my time. It was good for us to meet up and talk again after such a long while, about things in the classrooms and out in the wilderness. I felt much more at ease with myself after relating my plight at having to teach 2 normal tech classes, and realised that my apprehension about it might stem from the fact that teaching these people gets me really depressed. The school gives up on these kids (that's probably why I ended up teaching them), and they probably give up on themselves too; no one can exactly pinpoint the reason why they ended up so weak academically, and to all it seems that hopes on them to do better have already dried up.

On Wednesday, I witnessed 4 of the kids from the 2 classes arguing with the DM, who threatened to sack them for their insolence. They threw up their arms and went "sack sack lah!" and cycled off angrily. The DM had seriously hope that a punch came his way so that he could get them expelled immediately, and the kids probably find no reason to want to stay in school (or do anything while he is in) either. Angry and upset about their attitude towards school and life, how can I change things around? If only I can shout at them to seriously consider their reality and effect a transformation via an revelatory moment - if only it was that easy.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the glorious view of the city from Skee's balcony. I'll take things as they come, in any case. A week at a time.

Fatigue

Tired. Very tired. There are days when events takes up so much time that there's none left to do any work at all, and other days when time is spent chasing after various miscellaneous details at work that nothing really productive gets done. Someone better had the next English unit plan done for me man, cos I ain't have no clue about it at all. This Wednesday I foresee myself staying back at school till late to do work while I can, and I think the break from Thursday to Sunday will be equally hectic for me because there's nothing planned for English yet for the next three weeks. I also have to mentally prep myself with taking over the worst class in school for English from next week on.

Practiced throwing balls at the wall on Wednesday last week, was at the gym on Thursday, polo training on Friday, climbed with Roland (and did an extreme route, still uncompleted) on Saturday, and Sunday had my usual badminton practice and polo training. Today I practiced wushu in school in preparation for ACES day, and my arms ache just to hold them up. Mental fatigue setting in too, feel like I'm not gonna be good for the coming competition cos my mind just isn't that strong and alert to cope.