Educational stress in Singapore

Just yesterday, my pastor sounded out her alarm of how stressful Singapore kids are nowadays. Many local parents have to teach their kids how to add, subtract, write and read BEFORE sending their kids to primary school. Foreigners who are not familiar with our system often would find our educational system stressful and their kids suffer some kind of "cultural" shock.

Yes, I also find this amusing. Many primary 1 and 2 teachers often expect their students able to read and write before being enrolled into their schools. Those students who cannot read well would often be separated to a different reading class for catching-up work. As far as I know, not many teachers enjoy teaching these slow developers. It’s carnal, with such kids, it is difficult for the principal to grade your performance as a teacher or appreciate you.

Many teaching materials in school are catered for the so-called "mainstream" students who know how to read and write, and can do pretty well academically. So the test or exam papers set by the school would be for this kind of students. Those kids who are not often struggle and not able to do well. It's hilarious - out of 10 classes, only 1-2 classes are made up of "mainstream" students. So you can imagine how an average student would fare in their exam papers.

I have a bright P2 tuition kid whose parents are companies' executives. At her age, she can read relatively well. She can easily answer many direct comprehension questions but not those with hidden meanings. She goes to a neighborhood school. However, her parents are often stressed out by the frequent tropical tests the school would conduct fortnightly.

On top of my tuition assignment and schoolwork, the girl has to complete those issued by her anxious mother. This is the normal trend I’ve been observing as a tutor for bright and intelligent kids. Often thing would spiral to a point that the child loss the interest or motivation to excel because their “work” never seem to end. This I often caution the parents but still not able to tame down their fear.

On the contrary, I have a P4 girl whose parents are blue-collar workers. Unlike my P2 girl, she does not read well. She struggles in her comprehension, composition, vocabulary and even grammar. Her mother shows concern of her academic performance but is not consistent in “helping” the girl.

Two weeks ago, there was a short term break from school, just a week. This girl was found absent from my tuition class. Her mother reasoned that since it was a school holiday, her child deserved a break from tuition too.

Yes, the kind of background or occupation the parents have does make a lot of difference in their kids' academic performance. But how does a school cope with such disparity in the performances of their kids?

Amongst my school teacher friends, it’s a known fact that many of our local principals are young and ambitious. They strive to be successful in their career and achievement. Look at all the medals of achievement they have gotten for their schools. And they are still collecting.

Genuinely caring and loving principals are rare gems. I remember I have such principals in my school years back. They showed concern for latch-key kids and started activities or programs for them. They visited and encouraged these kids often. They would regularly stroll around their school compound to engage their students, teachers and even school-workers. They are the one who have left a legacy of goodness and grace but most of them have already retired.

If we would have this kind of educational leaders in our system, I believe our kids’ academic and personal development would be more enjoyable and meaningful.

Lanterns of Mid-Autumn Festival - 22/9/2010

As we move into 21st century, the annual mid-autumn festival has been celebrated with different fanfare than those in the 70s-80s. Those are my growing up years.

I remember clearly that during those days we only have one type of lantern to carry about and that's the paper lantern. They usually comes in 2 versions. One with transluscent colorful papers stick onto bamboo structures of various shapes and sizes. The other is the circular collapsible one which can be easily erected by pulling up the wire over its top to form a simple cylinder encasing the burning candle.

As young kids, my siblings and I would often need our parents to help us light up the candles and fix them into these paper lanterns before we ventured into dark corners with these fanciful "toys". Their dim glow gave us a sense of unexplainable delight in the dark "mysterious" corners of our playground. The challenge then was how to carry the bamboo ones in such a way that its flickering flame would not be blown-off by the wind. Those who were reckless or inexperienced would quickly have their lanterns burnt into ashes, ending their fun in the dark playground.

Later as we grew older, we began to light-up our own lanterns. It was a different fun for us. Alighting the candles, sticking them into the metallic candle-base and erecting the collapsible lanterns all need different set of skills and were challenging to us. Nevertheless, we began to enjoy this more. We started to volunteer to light-up the lanterns for the younger playmates in the neighbourhood instead of carrying our lanterns around. Sometimes, we would get so carried away in this newfound joy that we would burn anything we got our hands on with the candle flame.

Present day, we have a wider range of lanterns for kids to carry around during mid-autumn festival. There are the plastic ones which run on batteries. Some of these are so sophicated that they have music embedded in them. We still have the paper ones but the colorful ones on bamboo frames are a rare find now.

A few days ago, on the 15th day of lunar 8th month (22/9/2010), I was on my way home after an evening tuition. I saw parents helping their young kids alighting their lantern's flame in my neighbourhood playground. Some were demonstrating to their kids how to wave the sparkling sticks while the elderly folks gathered around chattering and savoring their mooncakes and tea. Of course, there were also clusters of mischievous older youngsters squatted at corners figeting the flames. It was quite a relaxing mood then.

I was glad the mid-autumn festive was celebrating with similar traditional fanfare here in my neighbourhood, with candles and paper lanterns. I did not see any plastic batteries-operated lanterns that evening. Maybe, there is a conspiracy amongst the adults that the paper ones are much more fun to "play" with.

I smiled on my way home.

About Rachel

I've known Rachel since she was 8 yrs old. She was loud, outspoken and tomboyish then.

Not long after she was in the student care centre where i worked as a teacher, i got to learn that her parents had divorced, and Rachel and her 2 older brothers live with their mother and grandmother.

Things had gone from bad to worse for Rachel when her mother later re-married and has 2 other girls. She had left Rachel and her brothers to fense for themselves with the 80 yrs-old grandma.

For a seaon, Rachel was not motivated to study and became very tempermental. She would often come to school very late and drowned herself with long-hours of computer gaming in the arcade, and even in her friends' homes. Her addiction had become so bad that she would squandered away the $60 monthly pocket allowance, which her estranged dad provided, within a week in the arcade.

With no money left for the month, I would often see the girl skipped her lunch and sometimes chew sandwiches brought from home. I had a hard time in coaxing her to be thrifty with her allowances. I had even handheld her in weekly budgetting but my effort was in vain. The girl could not and did not want to quit her gaming addiction. And this habit had isolated her from building meaningful friendship with kids around her. For a while, the girl were lazy and unmotivated.

Rachel is now a teenager studying in secondary one. She came to visit me on 1/9/2010 Teachers' Day together with the other kids. She was ceremonially late as usual. However, unlike before, the girl has exercised the initiative to help me to pack right after the others had left my place. To me, this is new milestone from Rachel 'cos previously she never seemed to take any initiative to help me in anything.

Being a class monitor now, she explained that she has gone for leadership training in school. And if she should fail to exercise intiative, she would be reprimanded by the teachers. I told her that I am very pleased with her transformation and encouraged her.

With given time, a child surrounds with positive influences would surely be transformed into a beautiful "butterfly". We, as adults, just have to be patient :)

Teacher's Day

Since school days, my birthday has always been celebrated together with Teacher's Day. Simple, just 2 days after my birthday would be Teacher's Day. My classmates would often sing me birthday song right after presenting the cake to the teacher. It was often a dual celebration. Strange but memorable.

Years later after i have stepped into the society to work, my birthday celebration has never been far from Teacher's Day.

This year i had my birthday celebration with my extended family - parents, in-laws, niece and nephews. It was quite a fanfair but i enjoyed it, consider i've often made effort to celebrate theirs. So i'm reaping what i've sown.

2 days later, my kids (x-students and current tuition kids) gave me Teacher's Day gifts and wishing me "Happy Teacher's Day".

It is a nice feeling to know that many people, young and old, still love me :D