Busy with consultations the last few days and had our Promo Exam this morning which means it's time for some fast and furious marking! Hope the kids found it manageable after all the help that we and myself have given...
Just had my haircut ytd and my hairstylist suggested trying something different which was to leave a long fringe so that it could swept to the side but looks kinda strange to me perhaps cos I'm not used to it and also cos it's not long enough. I kinda get her idea but maybe it takes some time to see the idea coming to fruition haha.
Anyway, while waiting I was reading this magazine which had an article about guys carrying handbags for their girlfriends and I thought it was pretty interesting to see how much emotion it generated and I kinda rem seeing that there was this particular article on Yahoo some time back. In fact, I was asked something about it a few months ago and I felt that it's something I might possibly do cos my first thought was that considering the criteria that I have in mind for a gf, this seemed pretty trivial to me and also if I carry it it's prob cos she needs help with it. Back to the article there were various arguments offered and the main reasons why guys would carry handbags were that (1) It's a chivalrous act (2) They are confident with themselves to help carry it (3) The girls need help with it (if for some reason it's too heavy or they are carrying many things) while those who were against the idea said (1) It makes the guys look feminine (2) It could be the girl getting the guy to do it to feel a sense of ownership (3) It simply looks better with the girl carrying it! The third one kinda make a lotta sense anyway - if a girl buys a bag in the first place, it should be cos it looks nice on her so might as well carry it ya?
Also, just read an article about the possibility of people actually disliking people who are too helpful. I like the idea of the way the experiments were conducted to determine the psyche of some people and that's one of the things I really enjoy about psychology and if I ever had to do an Arts course it'd definitely be my choice cos I'm always concerned about what people think.
Anyway, so the reasons why some people actually dislike it are (1) It makes them look bad (2) It goes against the convention when one is too selfless (3) They are cynical about the intentions of the giver, all of which sounded fascinating to me but it kinda makes sense also. So does that mean that we should try not to be selfless? No, but the article suggests that we make it known that helping others does give us personal benefits (e.g. sense of satisfaction) even though others may not be looking at those type of personal benefits. I suppose even in the field of teaching this could hold true e.g. when you give too much consultations others might think badly of you because you "spoil the market"... Interesting food for thought I suppose...
Back to recapping some of the major stuff that happened in recent times and a major one last week for me was attending the MOE Workplan Seminar. It was actually pretty interesting contrary to what I had perceive it to be and I found the breakout discussion as well as PS's closing speech to be the highlights as the speech gave a lot of insight into the recent changes to our education system and also. The breakout session was meaningful as the topic was on "Student-Centred Meritocracy" and I enjoyed hearing from the various P's and VP's from primary and secondary schools sharing their views as we thought about what we want to see in 2020 to bring out the best in our students and thus the conditions that were required for this to be in place.
Of course, at the moment some of the things sounded really far-fetched but that's why we tried to visualise what we wanted and then what we need to do to achieve it and set a realistic time-line for each of those conditions to be fulfilled, such as liaising with other partners (e.g. NUS, NTU or other associations that can provide special skills), getting feedback from the students about what they want so that we can actually try to cater to their needs more specifically.
I was intrigued because sometimes you hear about all this general talk about wanting students to do their best and wanting the best for our students but our system forces many students into the one-size-fits-all kinda of style. Also I never heard about anything concrete being done to try and achieve this so I was quite keen and contributed a fair share of ideas such as having modular systems where students can actually choose which aspect of a subject that they want to learn and also having more subjects offered at A Levels such as psychology which could perhaps be taken up by the universities cos I was thinking if they could do that for the external H3 modules then why not extend that to allow more students the opportunities to experiment with what they want?
Cos after teaching all this time, I've seen many cases where students don't know what they want to do after A Levels or they are disgruntled about studying subjects that they feel have no link to what they want to do in the future (sad to say Chemistry is one of them) and I've also seen cases of students who are clearly not inclined towards Chemistry but have strengths in other areas and yet they are stuck because of the limited choice of combination of subjects offered to them so it would be great if they have more freedom to do want they really want. After all, that would also mean that they would naturally be more engaged in the lessons which benefits both the teachers and students since teachers would have students who are already interested in the subject and students would be able to work to their strengths. Of course again, the ideal scenario takes time so we talked about the things that needed to be done starting from now so that at least within the upcoming years there would be progress seen towards that.
The whole affair also gave me a lot of food for thought about my future esp after my third cycle ends next year. I have always been more comfortable with the idea of staying in teaching but sometimes I feel that I wish I had more say in certain things to change how things are done. My best friend also said to me before that I have the intelligence and ability to analyse and the passion to improve things so I should aim to go out of my comfort zone and to take up positions and do things that can have a greater impact on others. I used to be very resistant to the idea of going to HQ cos I always have this perception that the people there can be quite cut-throat but I suppose that's actually not always true and I should see it as a personal challenge anyway. Of course my other reason is that I do enjoy teaching and talking to the kids (and hearing how some of the girls, even those guai guai type, are all goo-goo-ga-ga over some of the idols like some Korean guys / boybands is really hilarious to me) but it's precisely because of some of the conversations with my kids that has led me to think more deeply about the idea of having the power to change things.
When I hear things like they cannot see how chemistry is everywhere but something like economics stuff like demand and supply is something applicable everywhere and that they see no meaning in learning things like hybridisation cos you can't see it everywhere, it does give me some food for thought about how we are teaching and although nowadays I try to make more effort to give more real-life examples in lectures and even in tests/exams by trying to link to daily phenomena (e.g. how soap works, why dry ice is used to cool the grapes used in making wines), it seems apparent that many still fail to see the beauty of chemistry but perceive it as a subject where a lot of memory work is needed.
Perhaps there needs to be a major rethink of what students would enjoy learning and also how to assess students. I mean, while the geeks like myself enjoy an intellectual challenge like doing a tough deductive organic chem question, to the average student such questions become merely an exercise to train them to think logically (or worse to torture them by twisting their minds) and does not really benefit them in reality and they get turned off by the subject, which is pretty understandable for me so it is important to make changes to the syllabus that helps them make more sense of the world around them and appreciate the subject better. After all, I think the kids nowadays are thinking more about the meaning behind what they are studying.
In the past, at least during my times, I think our generation was such that we just do things and try to do things well, whether we like it or not, so that goes the same even when it comes to studying subjects that we disliked. Nowadays students question the value of studying certain things and it is sad if students just study something for the sake of exams. A recent conversation with my kids also struck a chord with me when they said things like, "Aren't life skills more important? Shouldn't we learn more about that?" and that they actually like Project Work to some extent because they find it applicable to them since they need to learn presentation skills and working with others and doing research BUT they do not like it when they have to do PW on top of all the subjects because they cannot cope. The last part was quite strange to hear considering how many students who told me they find PW stupid but again it goes to show that different people have different priorities and interests and thus it is important to provide them with the opportunities to shine in what they are good at.
I also find it tragic that many students are turning to tuition and having to spend extra hours on top of the long hours in school cos that means a lack of life. I like how one of the P/VP (dunno which one) puts it - when she hears about plans for remedial sessions she would question the HOD, "Is this really necessary? What are you doing in your normal lessons?" and when she hears about complaints of students who didn't do their homework she would question the teacher, "How much homework are you giving them?" As she puts it, if a kid genuinely doesn't understand a concept, giving him 10 questions to do ("for more practice" as the teacher claims) is simply going to make it more daunting for him and he'll likely give up. It would be more practical to really help him understand the concept and do 1 or 2 questions to check his understanding. Again it gave me much food for thought and that's when I wish I had the power to change things and question the practicality of certain things that are done but in order to do that I will have to prepare myself to deal with admin work that I absolutely hate and also learn how to be able to lead teams which is actually really not easy cos not everyone is nice to work with. In fact, even for myself I must say that not everyone likes my working style though those accustomed to it will know that I will do things well but it may be quite last-minute so sometimes they may feel stressed working with me (which is also why I usually end up solo-ing cos I'm quite perfectionistic also so I don't like to pass things to others).
All in all, I left the seminar with much food for thought and I guess over the next year I'll be forced to think about my options again. Who knows, maybe I won't even be given a choice? Anyways, good night for now! =)
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