time to say goodbye
Saturday, September 30, 2006, 11:20 p.m. #1199
Went to Pulau Semakau with my form class last Thursday. That was probably our last class outing before the exams, so everyone especially treasured our "last moments" together. The best parts were the hour-long ferry rides, when we enjoyed the winds and waves and laughed and talked... Pulau Semakau is really beautiful. It's a pity that it is not open to the public.
Made a video for my form class last week as a form of farewell since I won't be seeing much of them anymore. Apparently the video has been passed around among students of other classes and they have been telling me how touched they were... After more than three years of teaching, I'm still so sentimental at the end of each year. Very hopeless eh? ;)
You may download the Farewell Video HERE, or watch it online HERE.
annoy-nymous
Wednesday, September 27, 2006, 05:12 p.m. #1198
I hate it when I receive a random sms from a student and the sender asks me whether I know her (or him - but usually boys don't do such stuff), and then goes on to give me clues as to who she is... It may be easy for her to know us teachers as she may only have about thirty teachers in her entire secondary school life, but teachers meet hundreds of students every year. How am I suppose to recognise her merely from a string of numbers that show up on my handphone?
So, students out there, it's very nice of you to remember your teachers, but please don't play this guessing game when you want to talk to them. Do a proper self-introduction if it's your first time calling/sms-ing. :)
hady's win
Wednesday, September 27, 2006, 10:05 a.m. #1197
Disclaimer: This entry is not meant to be racist, and it is merely a neutral expression of my observations.
After reading Yuf's blog entry about the recent Singapore Idol, I have to confess that I had the same sentiments when the results were announced, and a Malay has won again. I didn't watch much of this season as I've gotten quite tired of such "commoner-turn-idol" shows, but in those few rounds which I'd watched, the sms-es that scrolled at the bottom of the screen were mostly Hady-supporters, and they were almost always sent by Malays. From this, I can gather that the Malays are a very united race and they really support each other very fervently. This was evident even in the classrooms, where Malay boys and girls would ask me to vote for Hady throughout the competition. I don't see Chinese girls going crazy over Jonathan (maybe he's not as good-looking).
Another more probable reason for Hady's win is that the Malays view artistic talents very highly, much higher than the other races. This agrees with the national survey which had been conducted earlier, which revealed that the "natives" (Malays) value artistic abilities (for music and all other art forms) significantly higher than the "immigrants" (Chinese, Indians, Eurasians), who value logical thinking higher.
So, is the competition fair? Well, no competition can be truly 'fair', and since this is how Singapore has voted as a whole, it MUST have been fair. I think both Jonathan and Hady are talented in their other ways, and either of them would have been a deserving winner. So, no complaints. :)
raging testosterone
Monday, September 25, 2006, 06:23 p.m. #1196
Another noteworthy event today. When I was teaching in my form class this morning, I suddenly saw some books being thrown out of the classroom next to the one where I was teaching in. Then there was a loud devastating scream and a boy stormed out the classroom. His face was very red, like he'd been crying. Anyway, when the boy ran out of his classroom, a few cleaners were in the middle of cleaning the corridor, and a large garbage bag was right on the path of that raging boy. Without a moment of hesitation, the boy kicked the bag hard - so hard that the garbage bag burst and rubbish flew all over the place (just outside my class) - and he didn't even look back as he continued his run. One of the cleaners was so angry that he yelled at the boy and chased him. As I was so near to the incident, I had to leave my class and run after the two angry people to stop them from causing more damage. Luckily they were stopped by the Operations Manager, who happened to be approaching from the opposite direction.
Wonder what made the boy so angry. Exam stress?
the untold stories
Sunday, September 24, 2006, 05:30 p.m. #1195
A nice work-less Sunday afternoon. Many things happened in the past weeks which made some of us feel rather discouraged about working life. Let's start with the story of my colleague Z.
Z is a very hardworking girl who entered the teaching force only last year, and her diligence and efficiency are probably so impressive that she has drawn the jealousy of some people. Another teacher, H, who holds a more senior position in the same department, started to feel her threat and began her plan to bring Z down. Apparently H has heard some rumours that Z hasn't been teaching well in some classes. One day, H approached Z and smilingly asked whether she needed help in teaching. Z said she had no problems. Then immediately after, H went to the HOD and reported about Z's "inability to teach". Z wouldn't have known if not because the HOD asked her about it. She felt even more disgusted when she remembered how H often smiled to her and seemed so friendly. Since then, Z had to go through a slew of lesson observations for her teaching abilities to be gauged. And there was once when H personally went into Z's class when Z was teaching, and suddenly scolded the class for misbehaving - the class didn't even know what they did wrong... Z suffered from a period of depression and delusion until she picked herself up recently. According to her, it was my dialogue with her that made her see the light. Hmm. Can't remember exactly what I said to her though.
In a totally unrelated event, the scheming H is the star again. As she is the teacher-in-charge of subject combinations, she conducted a survey for the Sec 2 Technical class for them opt their preference of subjects for next year - students could choose between Science, D&T and Art. However, the survey was apparently not done in a fair environment. Just before the survey, the students were told that Science was the best choice which would open up more choices for them later on in ITE - which was a blatant lie. While Science may be important in JCs and polys, only TWO out of the scores of ITE courses require Science. How do you think those Sec 2 students would choose after a teacher told them that one subject had more potential than the others? Naturally, a majority of the students chose Science, which is an extremely difficult subject for Technical students, who are frankly not suited for memorising scientific terms and formulae. Most schools offer more hands-on subjects like D&T for their Technical students, some don't even offer Science.
So why did H do that? Lying to innocent children and getting them to choose a subject which they will most likely find difficulty in excelling?... Remember how D&T is the "elite subject" in our school? The HOD of D&T has been protesting that she didn't want the Technical class to take D&T - for obvious reasons - she didn't want her glorious history of 100% distinctions to be tarnished. In addition, this year's Sec 2 Technical class has proved to be the most chaotic and challenging one in the school history. Naturally the HOD didn't want this class to study D&T. We surmised that H did what she did, most likely to get into the good books of the D&T HOD - that's the "elite department" afterall - in fact there are rumours that the D&T HOD may rise to become our vice-principal soon... In her attempt to help herself, H pushed the kids into a trap which she had skilfully created. When the Science department protested about the students' ability, and asked for the class to be split between the options of Science and D&T (to be fair for the students, since some, if not most, may favor a hands-on subject), we were told that the students "preferred" Science, according to that unfair survey which H conducted. How could the future of the students be toyed around like that? Just to protect that "honour" of 100% distinction, and just because of one selfish teacher?
In one small meeting which was chaired by S (a friend of H), I questioned the validity of the survey and mentioned that I'd heard rumours that the circumstances under which the survey was conducted wasn't too fair. But I was immediately told that the decision about the subject combinations has been made and nothing could be done. Of course, I'd landed myself under the radar of H and S by doing that (and there were several repercussions, which I shall elaborate in other entries) - but I merely wanted to let them know that some of us knew about their devious methods.
Isn't education about helping our children learn better and maximising their potential?
bloglessness
Friday, September 22, 2006, 12:28 p.m. #1194
Another busy week went by, and it feels quite weird to be away from blogging for so long. Somehow if I do not record my events or thoughts, I'll feel like those days have just gone by without my consciousness. It's like I went into a coma for five days and I just woke up. Besides the mundanity of work, I seem to recall nothing else at all. Is that the first sign of aging?
right or wrong
Sunday, September 17, 2006, 06:31 p.m. #1193
I'm sure most of you must have read about that woman who got pushed onto the MRT track by his angry boyfriend because she suggested a break-up (it's in the newspapers for the past few days). That cad walked away after his murderous act, and one guy chased after him and threw a few punches at him to pin him down before the police came. This guy then wrote about his rage in his blog, and netizens actually labelled him as a madman and criticised him so badly that he removed his entry... It's a thin line between courage and self-righteousness, but I really think that guy did nothing 'wrong' this time. That cad could have walked away without anyone to stop him! Is it 'right' to just stand and watch and wait for the police to come? Could the guy stop the violent cad without being violent? Oh well.
orc-ly crocs
Saturday, September 16, 2006, 04:17 p.m. #1192
Crocs are 'in' nowadays. The famous blogger KS professed his love for them in his blog, while another famous blogger XX expressed her disgust. This time, I have to agree with XX. The first time I saw these hideous crocs was last year, when the most fashion-conscious teacher in our school wore a pair of bright red crocs during our staff meeting. It looked especially gigantic and out of proportion with her slim figure. At first I thought she's wearing some red PCK boots for dramatic effect (she's in charge of Drama Club) or perhaps her legs were injured and she had to wear a cast with looked like clown shoes. When I found out that those crocs were actually supposed to be the next 'in' thing, I was flabbergasted.
But my colleague had been right. One year has passed, and now these gaudy crocs are everywhere - young couples wear them, even kids, uncles, aunties, old grandmas... It's frightening that people are flocking to buy these ugly $50+ shoes for the sake of fashion (even old grandmas are joining in the fun!)... Our SWC (Staff Welfare Committee) even asked a crocs vendor to come to our school to sell them at discounted prices. According to those teachers who got the shoes, they said these crocs feel extremely light and comfortable. I just can't believe that anything can be more comfortable than normal slippers. How can holey shoes be more airy than slippers with no covers? And if it's the crocs material which makes them so comfortable, why can't the inventors at least give the crocs some decent designs and unobtrusive colours? Can't we use the material for the soles of a pair of normal-looking slippers? Must we really look like clowns in order to walk in lightness and comfort? (Apparently these crocs do have an Athens model which looks like normal slippers but I don't see them here yet.)
Don't think I'll be trying out these crocs until there're better-looking ones around. If only some podiatrists can give their views on how good the crocs really are...
the new theory teacher
Saturday, September 16, 2006, 03:13 p.m. #1191
My music theory teacher Regina is on leave for three weeks, and we've got a relief teacher Angela to take over her today. Unlike Regina, who looks and behaves like a music teacher, wears jeans, and is usually stern, Angela is the direct opposite. She's a voluptuous lady in her late thirties (or even early forties, but it certainly doesn't show) who wore a cardigan over her low-cut tanktop, and she's so dynamic and lively that she smiled throughout the lesson and had all kinds of expressions on her face when we responded to her questions. She's also quite 'touchy' - she would praise us quite exaggeratingly when we answered intelligently (she said I should be a theory teacher next time) and would ruffle the girls' or one little boy's hair when they answered her questions wrongly - she only touched my shoulders though - guess I'm too old for her to make any daring 'advances'. She also asked whether we had time for breakfast since our lesson was very early, and asked whether she should bring along some buns for the next lesson. While Regina is a let's-just-get-down-to-business kind of teacher (more of the 'lecture' kind), Angela tried to know us personally, and her method of teaching was more sequential and concise for children. I like her personal touch, but I think that little boy hates her for messing up his hair. Haha.
tgif
Friday, September 15, 2006, 06:59 a.m. #1190
It's Friday finally! It's been a hectic week for me, writing 600-character testimonials for 40 students (which I still have not finished), amending exam papers, attending students' project presentations, and marking. Am hoping that the exams come sooner so that I can take a break from teaching (but that also means loads of MORE marking will come in soon after)...
Two more weeks to exams. Holding on...
sing sang sung
Saturday, September 9, 2006, 01:40 a.m. #1189
Went singing again with Ed, EL and ZL after our keyboard lesson, as we sort of got addicted to the idea of cheap buffet-cum-karaoke sessions. This time we ate and sang at the Marine Parade branch, and the food there was even better than that at Marina, with a much wider range to choose from. Besides the usual Chinese dishes, fried rice, dim sum and dumplings that could be found at the Marina branch, there were also tempura, sashimi, salads, Thai tofu... and even strawberries with ice-cream fillings... Not many chances to indulge in food and singing anymore since school is reopening in two days. Holidays are ending!! Ah!!!...
P.S. Received a late Teachers' Day gift through email today. It's a song written and sung by an ex-student. You can't possibly imagine how touched I was when I was listening to the song - the fact that a student still remembers me and bothered to spend time to write and record the song is just very overwhelming for me. To the student: I know you'll be reading this, and I know this will sound very cliched, but I still have to say this - Thanks. Your appreciation and achievements in life are the best gifts for me. :)
in the name of security
Friday, September 8, 2006, 11:04 a.m. #1188
Yesterday has been a long day of work - even longer than a regular schoolday, when it's supposed to be a holiday. Conducted a SPA test for the Sec 3s in the morning, then spent the whole afternoon doing the Holistic Report Cards (HRC) for my form class students.
For the uninitiated, the HRC is like the testimonial for students, and it has to be keyed into an online MOE portal. Getting onto this HRC online portal (Cockpit) is already a chore. In order to ensure online security, each teacher now has to use a VPN token (a key in the form of a thumbdrive) to log on to the MOE intranet. This key will dial up to the secure MOE network when plugged to the computer. The idea sounds perfectly fine and feasible. But in reality it's a nightmare for everyone. Sometimes we simply cannot sign in, for no apparent reason - and that means we cannot do a lot of things - checking emails, updating students' details, HRC... And even if you're signed in, the system is extremely slow (may be the problem with the computers in our school), and I haven't even talked about the laggy firewalls - starting up the computer now takes about five to ten minutes, and launching the Internet Explorer sometimes hangs the system. Let's say I'm patient enough to start up, dial up and I manage to log on to the intranet, there's still one more irritating thing - I'll be automatically signed out every hour.
This partly explains why so many teachers are now lagging behind with this HRC business (I know of JC teachers who are also facing this problem right now so this is not just a problem in my school). As I have mentioned, getting onto the HRC portal is one big hurdle already. Writing the HRC is another major deadweight.
There are three parts to the HRC. In Part 1, the form teachers have to grade their students on various values like responsibility and sincerity. In Part 2, we have to key in all the students' achievements (in the domains of cognitive, physical, social moral, aesthetic and leadership) over the year. Then in Part 3, we have to write a 600-character remark for each student. And all that is not as easy as typing in a Word document as we have to type into a very rigid template online. This is especially tedious in Part 2, when every item that is to be added requires selecting from menus and filling in a form that requires us to state the Area, Specific Strength and a short description of the achievement. And every student has an average of 5-10 items to be keyed in. Multiply all that work by 40 for a class of 40... I wouldn't be ranting if I were a data-entry clerk.
Imagine the frustration when you get automatically logged out in the middle of all that work, and you can't log in again for no reason.
That's what I was doing the whole day yesterday until the schoolgates closed. Managed to finish the first two parts, after calling up and pestering the Helpline several times due to log-in difficulties. So... if you're a student, please appreciate the report cards, testimonials and leaving certificates that you receive from your teachers! :)
wholly daze
Wednesday, September 6, 2006, 02:38 p.m. #1187
Finally - one whole idyllic, hermitic day spent totally at home, doing things that aren't important (told myself not to touch work today): watching the hilarious Green Wing series, listening to Snow Patrol, reading newspapers, practising the violin and guitar, researching on music in the Classical period, playing the outdated but still very active online game D2x, and perhaps going for a jog in the evening... Oooh I love holidays. :)
mass lecture
Monday, September 4, 2006, 04:29 p.m. #1186
Just came back from the Teachers' Mass Lecture at Expo, where 5000 teachers all over Singapore (out of the total teaching workforce of 28500) were invited to listen to Mr T and some foreign speaker deliver updates and inspirational talks on education. If the terrorists had planted a bomb there, one-fifth of the teaching population would have been gone...
No, the lecture hasn't ended yet - I left after Mr T finished his speech about the restructuring of our rank and pay system (okay, there're some good news - they should be out on the papers tomorrow). And when I left I wasn't surprised to find the Expo MRT station filled with teachers with their bright green goodie bags (and they didn't even bother to hide those hey-look-here-I-left-early bags). My whole row was already vacant when I left - I wonder if the lecture hall is even a quarter full right now - we're not very good role models for our students, eh? ;)
The first picture below shows the mass lecture (we were standing to welcome the arrival of Mr T), and the second was taken during my CO practice yesterday when I was too bored...
jayous and furious
Sunday, September 3, 2006, 07:12 p.m. #1185
Just viewed a few new music videos of Jay Chou - even before the album is out - that's the wonder of Youtube. Think his new album seems very promising (have pre-ordered it, by the way), especially the song in which he duets with Fei Yuqing - his enunciation is unusually clear and there're some changes in his voice quality. Hope this album will redeem his last few uninspired ones.
Finished setting and vetting all the exam papers today, after hours of braincell-killing and hair-pulling... Finally have some time to complain about some things which made me very furious last week:
Two weeks ago I came up with a schedule for the September holidays, for the Sec 2s to present their projects and Sec 3s to practise their SPA skills. Sent in the schedule to the VP for approval then - yep, in our school, we need the principal's approval for every extra lesson, unlike other schools where principals would love their teachers to stay back every day to conduct extra lessons. Two weeks of silence went by. The Sec 2 and 3 teachers went ahead to inform our classes about the schedule, thinking that the VP must have been too busy to be bothered with us. And then, to our greatest horror on the last day of Term 3, just minutes before the students were dismissed to enjoy their one-week holiday, the VP informed us that we CANNOT have the lessons in September as N levels will be going on and she didn't want non-candidates to be in school. That's so, so, so last-minute! Teachers like us then scrambled to inform the kids before they were released and cancelled all our programs. Now we'll have to cram all our plans to Term 4, when we'll have only 3 teaching weeks. Actually we knew about the N levels earlier, but the instruction was for students to not loiter around the exam areas, nobody said we couldn't conduct other activities! If we'd known this earlier, we could have scheduled some of the programs in Term 3, then we wouldn't be so hard up for time in Term 4...
Not only there is no structured plans on the management part, they are so slow and unsupportive in response to teachers' initiative - so slow that we teachers have to bear the brunt of all that nonsense.
What made me more furious were the P and VP's questions during the last staff meeting. Apparently one parent asked the principals why we don't have many after-school programs, and why the school seems so quiet in the afternoon. The principals directed the questions to us and asked whether we could consider planning more programs for after-school. What the ****! We (especially the Science teachers) have been asking for time after school all the while, and what did we get? Plans rejected. Two hours of lab lesson got cut to one hour - what can we do in lab within one hour?! And now they have the cheek to ask us why the school is so quiet after schooltime?!
Not all departments get Design & Technology (D&T) Department, is the elite department which got the nod for conducting lessons every day during the June holidays so that the other subjects could not "book" the students. Reason? The past years' students scored 100% distinction in D&T, so in order to maintain this excellent record (so that the principals can have the glory of having ONE subject with 100% distinction), they're given more priorities than any other department. (Frankly, if any subject was given the same amount of time, it would have scored marvellous results too.) But is that fair for our students? So what if a student gets distinction for D&T, when he gets trash for the other subjects in his L1R5? Is it fair to sacrifice the grades of so many students in order to earn the glory of "one subject with 100% distinction"? And really, how relevant is D&T to a student's future? To be realistic, surely Math, Science and the humanities are more "important" than D&T?? As an educator, I really hope the principals have some good reasons which I'm ignorant of.
They keep asking students to write reflections and teachers to write Reflective Portfolios - I think it's time for the principals to communicate their hidden well intentions and reflect on themselves too!
teachers' day
Saturday, September 2, 2006, 04:28 p.m. #1184
There's so much to blog about but there has been no time for me to organise my thoughts and write them down.
31 August. The Teachers' Day celebration on the eve has been great. The concert was boring, but the cards and gifts that the kids gave me were all very sweet - no more red pens this year though, quite surprising. A few ex-students came back, but all of us teachers had to rush off to Fort Canning for the school lunch, so we didn't have much time to interact (thoughtless planning by the organisers I'd say).
Lunch at The Legends was quite boring too, and the food was only so-so. Some games like scavenger hunt have been played, but they were all very lame... Didn't win anything in the lucky draw either (sigh). The best part of the lunch must have been the revealing of the identities of the angels and mortals! So Jane has been the sweet angel who has been giving me bah kwa sandwiches, cakes, peach tea, chocolates and cards! Thanked her with some Japanese chocolates. :)
Ed, EL, James and I then went to Marina K-Box for a buffet-cum-karaoke session after the lacklustre lunch. Very value-for-money, considering we got an eat-all-you-want buffet with only ONE additional dollar to the usual cost of the karaoke package. You'd think that the food must be horrible since we only paid one dollar more, but it's really quite the contrary! The buffet included Chinese dim sum, Japanese sushi, rice dishes, seafood - even oysters! Especially liked the guo tie (fried dumplings), I think I ate about ten of them.
Ended the night with a long chat at Coffee Club. It's James' last day in school as his practicum is over and he'll be back to NIE for more training. Time really flies... After the September holidays, it's three more weeks and then the exams will start. And soon the schoolyear will be over... Hmm...
1 September. Slogged the whole day setting exam papers. Only took short breaks at meal-times and when I went for the keyboard lesson. Woohoo! I can play melody and chords together already! Also mastered several Chinese pop songs. Am so tempted to buy a keyboard now...