It's July

World Cup madness...Neymar is out, Brazil is still in the chase; soup kitchen blunders by our ever ready to shoot-themselves-in-their-own-foot politicians; a missing plane; political maneuverings, uncertainties about water rationing, instigations from the mouths of leaders..... the never ending effort to ressurect the ghosts of May 13...

Just came out from another round of activities. I made it to the papers too... in a paper I don't read and a language I am painfully lacking in. A feature article... Lol! Made my mom proud though. At this age, I still feel kinda good that my mom felt a little sense of pride. Mom is hardly one who will heap lavish praises. But still, it's just a 'paper appearance'... Lol! Prints fade, paper disintegrates. Today's news is forgotten after a while.

My classes are finally on the 21st century bandwagon. Started using the Chromebooks in class this term. It's slow going. Thought the students were tech savvy enough. Turns out, digital literacy is something which needs time to teach too. I run my class from what used to be an unused computer lab. It's a nice and comfy class for teacher and learners. Schools ought to have classrooms like this. In this spate of humid and warm weather, it is a wonder that our students can still stay alert after half a day of slowly being 'grilled' in the class.

I have no one to guide me in this area. So far it has been a trial and error run. Time is something which never seems to be enough these days. I would start a lesson and then discover that the students don't have the skills for what I have in mind. I have been doing a lot of adapting, modifying and changes on the spot. Sometimes I switch topic totally. Teaching language affords me that. It has been challenging. But in all that chaos, I think I sense an increased interest among students. I find it fun too. I started off ambitious, wanted to do a PBL. I scaled down to just teaching students how to use Google almost immediately... Lol. But we are making progress.

Time is the one thing that I lack. Too many teaching periods. Too many students in a class. A Victorian production mill we still are. Individualized learning... I think we are still far from that. Students look and feel independent enough but they are not. The challenge is not to equip them with the necessary skills or change the way we look at how technology can best be used in education but to inculcate the love for knowledge. It's not that kids don't get excited over knowledge. It's just they have been dulled by the rigours of rote. The chase for A(s) has killed the ability to love knowledge. Sad. More of everything though, I think the level of ignorance has remained almost the same too... throughout the ages. Seems like the graph is hard to change.

There are always other duties that stand in the way of teaching... and other things that crop up that need our attention. I wish teachers be left alone to just teach. And there is always the personal domain too... One that demands our attention as well. Work and family - they remain two areas in a working woman's life that continually put her into a conundrum of sorts. I find myself not just wishing for more hours, more energy but sometimes a release.

Social conditioning... Pavlov's experiment on conditioning. Been many years but of late this topic has caught my fascination again. A recent video highlights this very aptly...

Undoing a stereotyping or reconditioning? 5000 years of written history and for the most part women have been told they are not suitable or capable of many things. Women are set into a lesser role, to serve. Over 26 million hits in less than a fortnight. One thing for sure out of this though.... education is definitely on the roll here. 8) It would have been impossible to reach this many in such a short time, even as recent as 20 years ago! I watched my students as they laughed through the comic of the first part and then the silence. But many could not catch the message too. 8(
One thing I learned though. Many things which we feel are set or unquestionable, we actually have no certainty of the truth. One thing that feels certain is that the human mind is an active cauldron... one which is capable of 'cooking' up many things.... it's just we label them differently.
It's July... and it'll go away soon. August is waiting....

Bubbles

Was home visiting my parents and took the kids to the seaside. There were children playing with the bubbles and we bought for the girls too. It was nice just watching the bubbles being made. The bubbles came out in different hues of colours. It's quite amazing to see transparent bubbles with their own colours.

They come out in different sizes too. Some would be really tiny. They were the ones which would head the pack. Then there were those who were bigger. They lumbered along, some of them never quite managing to take off. Yet there were others who seemed to float around with great ease. An occasional one or two would float right up to the branches and meet their end there. Some would skirt the surface of the water and bounce up and down a few times before ending up in a spray of soapy liquid. Yet a few would float away on their own as if pulling away while the rest bobbed in a group.... but every single one of them would burst finally.

Then there were bubbles which seemed to have thicker walls. They were not the lightest but they seemed to float the furthest generally. The lightest ones would rush to the forefront and disappear just as quickly.

I dipped the stick into the bubble liquid and found out that I could roll those around and bounce them off my stick. I could even knock a few of them together and got them to kinda stick together.

Bubbles.... many thoughts came to mind as I watched them being made and then burst....

Projectors Epson EBW-18 and Epson EB-1776w

I finally bought my own projector... A slim and sleek Epson EB-1776w. It's the one on the right in the picture below. The one on the right is it's bigger sistah.. The Epson EBW-18. A friend bought it not too long after mine. Just so happened that the projector she was using at school went on its last legs. And she didn't want to be without a projector to use in class and so she dug into her own pocket and bought her own.

As to why she did not ask her school to buy her a new one... It's supposed to be difficult for schools to purchase such things. In a supposedly technologically dependent world today, schools are still not allowed to buy gadgets or electronic tools with the funds. She could repair the old projector that was on its last legs but we were told by the technician that it was not worth it. Anyway, teachers like her who dig into their own pockets to buy a projector for use in school are rare... People usually will buy if it gives them a tangible return.... like so many other things in life.

I am going to start with my EB-1776w. I am more fortunate. I have a boss who has been very supportive of my foray into the use of technology to aid teaching in class. I recently requested a new projector and was given a EBX-18. The main difference between EBX-18 and EBW-18 is of course the native resolution. EBX-18 has an XGA, 1024 x 768. Both the EBW-18 and EB-1776w come with a WXGA, 1280 x 768. Basically it means that you get a wider screen. Both projectors come with a 3000 ANSI lumens bulb, which means you get a bright projection.

One of the thing I like about the EB-1776w is its size. This is an ultra portable projector with many cool features. It auto corrects the projection you put up, meaning, if once you press the Screen Fit function, it would automatically adjust the projection. No need to fiddle with the buttons. I find that quite cool.

Apart from that, another feature which I like is the Split Screen function. Basically this means that I can use 2 devices at the same time on the projector. I have tried my iPad, connected via the VGA cable and MacBook via the USB cable simultaneously. My iPad would be on the other projector. What this means basically is I can have up to 3 different inputs running at the same time. Nice.

I am still in my early stages of exploring with the use of multiple inputs in class. This is has just been made possible recently after my boss allowed me to convert an unused computer lab into a class. In the coming months, I hope to incorporate the use of Chromebooks in the my classes. I am still reading up, thinking thorugh, hatching ideas of how to go about it as this is something which has not been attempted in my school. My students seem excited too.

Tools like projectors, tablets, computers are great tools to use in class. They make lessons come alive. They tickle the senses and cater to those who need more than just printed words to get moving. However, they are still just tools, I believe. What makes a lesson come alive, or inspire a student to move in certain directions... I think is the teacher. Teaching is an art which also requires constant rejuvanation, resupplying, resourcefulness and so on. And I think that is something which many of us have failed to realize in our quest to churn out students who can score the A(s). Learning is a process. And like many processes, it needs time.

And I think it's a shame that schools have not upgraded all their old projectors to the newer generation ones. I think it's a shame that there is so much control over what can be or cannot be bought using school funds. I think it is a shame that the budget is not decentralisd. I think it is a shame that we still think education is like a production line. I think it is a shame that we have so much bureaucracy. I think it's a shame that many of our Principals feel that they are the smartest people around, the way they force it on the teachers.

I attended a Taklimat (briefing) on PISA recently. And even before the briefing began, this authoritative lady from the Ministry told the teachers sitting at the back to fill up the front places. And that started an 'standoff' in the minds. What these education officers who is in their lofty office chairs failed to take note is.... If their presentation is interesting enough, if they are able to ignite the fire and passion in the audience about the subject matter, by the next session I am sure everyone of us would be clamouring to sit in front. That is what is lacking in our schools too....

Instead, we had to sit through a most boring round of what sounded to me like babbling... The stats could have just been printed out and given to us.... Sigh! This is just an example of what is happening at school too.... Relevance. Being given relevance and providing relevance.... The state of education system... We hear lots of barking but actually very little progress is made because at many points, too many things are crumbling... And sometimes I feel some quarters seem to want it that way. Ignorant and dependent fools are way easier to manipulate. Thinking fools tend to burn themselves and others along with themselves...

Getting It Right...

So what makes a good learner? Been teaching for over 20 years and good learners are elusive as can be.

It's exam season now. Mid year exam to be exact. We have our own version of 'common core standards' here. I am located in a state that is positioned third bottom in terms of achievement in the SPM, bettering only states like Sabah and Sarawak. Basically it means we are the last state in the Peninsular. And the Education Department has been breathing down our necks basically for the last few years because of this. Even Kelantan which is a poorer state has fared better.

Program after programs, detailed analysis, making calculated predictions, common exams set by a central committee... the list is long. Yet we fare no better.

My two sen of experience... I have just had the best round of grades from my students for their Form 5 History Paper 2. One student after another and scores over 80 greeted me again and again. I even have a few 98s. I should be ecstatic cos the results indicate that I must have done something right. Yet, it is now an open secret that every single paper in this mid year exam which came from the Department has leaked! So much for that momentary ecstasy that I had managed to inspire students into liking a subject which many label as boring and dead as those dead civilizations or people they depict.

Getting it right... Grades are all that seem to matter to majority of the kids. Good grades used to imply that a student is good. And a good student in turn indicates a good learner in the making. Well, that is a myth. It is also a open secret that straight A(s) students don't have good thinking or communicative skills, let alone creative thinking or problem solving skills. Prospective employers have complained enough about the quality of our graduates to give us an idea of what our schools are churning out.

Students have become very good at answering questions. Questions are hardly challenging. Grades are often adjusted. We are a nation of many straight A(s) scorers. Imagine a student with an A in English who cannot write a good composition. Or another students with an A+ who cannot solve a Primary Six (Singapore syllabus) problem solving based question. The PISA and TIMMS scores imply that our kids are around 2 years behind their counterparts. Well, I think it is probably more than that.

So, what is wrong? I think the whole way we approach learning has gone awry. Yeah! A(s) were super important during my time too. But I think we loved to learn too. I was surrounded with friends who loved all kinds of knowledge.... the sci-fi types to the lofty giddy poet wannabes. School was a place where we learned to learn. Most of the time we had to learn to find our own way, figure out the solution... in short we had time to reflect and dream. Kids today? Well, their time is jam packed with extra classes.... we have the schools to thank for that... and extra tuitions.... we have the kiasu parents to thank.

I was in my class when the History paper was collected. I had time to walk around the class before I collected the papers. I guess my students must have felt sorry for me for believing the unbelievable... that they were actually beginning to see some light in the 'dead' subject... when one of them piqued that they knew the questions beforehand. Of course I went into a tirade of sorts... But more than anything, I felt sorry for them. I felt sorry because the system has failed them. We are 'teaching' them to get the A(s) but definitely not in the way that benefits that in the longer run.

The questions leaked... We have to ask how and why. The how is obvious... probably teachers and the likelihood of tuition teachers being the culprit is high. When money is the motivator, little else needs to be said. Why? I guess it's a glimpse of the greater malaise that plagues this country too. This is a country built on sanctioned racial divide.

Getting it right. I guess we have to go back to the basics. We have to get it right at the core. We have to beat least seen doing right from the top. Walk into many schools in this state and it's not hard to see what I mean. Wrong people are sitting up there for the wrong reasons. We have to right that first. Good heads make all the difference. We have too many heads of schools who are not fit to lead. Yet they are there. I think I have served under 10 principals and countless Senior Assistants. I think I count 3, maybe 4 who made a difference. But what is probably worrying is most of them were in my early career.

It's hard to get it right. Life is hard to get right as it is too...

Boys Like Blue, Girls Like Pink

Two thirds of the year more to go... and another year would be soon over. Time has flown by and crawled in the past few months. I had a chat conversation with an old friend recently. Our conversation drifted to work... and we chatted about the things we were both doing and she said I should get a male collegue to help me.

I pondered a while over her statement and shot back a short sentence. "Why must it be a man?" Will getting a man to help enable me to move faster, achieve more? Or it could be women just don't have the time or maybe even the aptitude.... Women are just as guilty sometimes in putting their own kind into straight jackets.

Even among my most independent minded friends, their frame of mind is still carved along gender. I have been doing some thinking about gender roles. We'd like to think that boys and girls should be given equal opportunities. And I think great strides have been made towards that end. But what we have, how we live out our societal norms..... gender roles are still apparent.

Blue-pink, engineer-nurse, leader-follower, housework-yardwork, boss-secretary.... I wonder how much of it is hardwired and how much is conditioned. In 2007 a study came out claiming that colour preference was hardwired. Recently another study said colour preference is conditioned. Actually, we do not know much...

We like to think there is equality. But is there real equality? There are religions which teach its believers that women are not meant to lead. There are social norms which lay down gender roles. Men must be the bread winner. He goes out to work, she keeps the house clean. He makes sure that food can be put on the table. She makes sure that it gets to the table. Well, unless you come from the remote Lugu Lake in China where things are somewhat different. There, the gender roles are a little different in this little known community. There are still exceptions....

Yet, as society evolved, we see changes in the gender roles too. Women are in the work force now. Some men are house husbands. I read sometime ago this theory called the Malthusian Trap. Apparently data now shows that we have broken out from the trap for the first time in 3000 years. Big corporations can no longer dictate everything. Governments too. Free flow of information is apparently good for the little people. Once upon a time one needs capital to start any ventures. You need to depend on banks for loans. You pay interest for that service. These days, there are the little people in the crowd you can holler over the net... for your banking needs. Cool?

And because of that, anyone can start anything. Crowdfunding made possible by the net has enabled many wonderful products to reach the masses and turned many into entrepreneurs. Other Half has bought stuff from Kickstarter. A friend of mind recently jumped onto the crowd funder group too. More are becoming aware of such a thing. I was told that now we have peer banking too... supposedly will free us from being at the mercy of the banks. Something more tolerable than the Ah Longs.

And tecnology has something to do with it. So, I wonder too whether gender roles too are experiencing that sort of breaking out from its own version of 'Malthusian Trap'? When it happens, I think there is probably going to be another social revolution. I think too that we have to change the way we raise our sons. We have to teach them what equality really means. We have to teach our daughters the same too. So maybe boys like pink or maybe pink and blue??? Or maybe still continue to like just blue? But it will just be because it's a personal preference and not a gender one.

The world that we live in is full of surprises and unknowns. And because a human life does not exceed a century for most of us, a lot of what we think or hold to be true sometimes may not be the simple truth because we actually do not know. Each of us try to make sense or perhaps even create sense within the finite constraints that we each have. When I was a kid, I learned that the highest peak was Mt. Everest. I recently learned that the highest peak is somewhere along the fault line under the ocean, somewhere between the Americas and Europe. I recently learned from the same explorer that there are rivers under the oceans too.... There are many surprises..... many unknowns even in the world we think we know.

Thoughts on Labour Day... a day I labour more around the house doing what is perceived a woman's domain.... Lol!

 

 

Busy

My time is kinda filled up these days. There seem more things to do with the same amount of time. Co-curricular activities... they're not just for students. Lol! They have been taking up quite a bit of my time these past few weeks. Getting my students ready for debate, followed by the FLL robotic competition, with coaching volleyball in between were my extra-curricular activities. I've basically been functioning as if on steroids.

And oh yes.. SPM results were released in between too. Am quite pleased with my students' results. For the last one year, the iPad has enabled me to use mind maps and engage students in a more meaningful and interesting way. Overall, there was marked improvement for my History classes. There were one or two moments which will always be etched in my memory. There was this boy who had been flunking his History until I started teaching him. He got an A... And I was overjoyed with him. He came to see me after he got his results and before he left, he muttered a word of thanks in a tone that only both of us understood... it was a poignant moment. I used to challenge this boy to rise above himself. He did. His BM was atrocious but somehow, simplifying things helped. And he got lucky too...

I learned one thing though. We talk a lot about modern learning concepts these days. During my days as a student, they key words were read, write, arithmetic... These days it's all about the Cs... connect, collaborate, curate, critical thinking, communicate, create... I don't know whether there are any more to add on. Anyway, no matter how we phrase or present the words, one thing stands out to me. There is a need for guidance. Maybe guidance is hardly the right description since we are very into all these high powered words. Mentoring... Mentors make a difference. There is only so much a person can know. Somehow the length of one's life on earth still makes a difference in how we act or think. Experience still very much play an important role in shaping character and forming habits. And this is where teachers step in.

But I think what makes a good teacher good is a good teacher inspires. Everyone of us needs to be inspired one way or another. I think there is way too much emphasis on results that we fail to focus of character building. In other words, we teach but I think teaching is mainly skewed towards getting the A(s). We rush through the syllabus and focus on answering techniques. All these come with a price and that price is often indicative of the sacrifice of the soul.

Anyway, I am currently embarking on another project, one that will hopefully enable me to try out all these learning concepts... Flipped, flexed, blended and what have you not... And am fortunate that my current boss is very supportive.

Knowledge is useless...

Knowledge is useless if we don't know how to apply it... That's what I see happening in many of our students these days. They go to school, learn things... we call it knowledge but seem too see very little application of the knowledge that they learn into their every day lives. School loses its meaning....

I just taught my girl geography... about landforms, rivers, highlands, flatlands. She had actually learned them in school but it seemed not to have registered. Well, either she has not been listening in class or like what I have been seeing in many, our students just don't feel that learning is fun. And perhaps too they are not challenged in their classrooms to think, see the bigger picture, apply what they have learned and make knowledge meaningful.

Knowledge to many is basically a meaningless memorized set of information only to be regurgitated to score A(s). I recently gave a topic on GMO to a group of 17 year olds. I drew mostly blank. Maybe if I had given more time for them to think... But generally, I see mostly students who don't seem to be making sense of what they are learning. Many are doing well, but seems to lack that passion. Or maybe we have failed to ignite the passion to learn.

Geography is a fun subject. I showed her on Google Earth how where the Kenyir Dam was placed and how they built the dam. She was surprised to see the Nile Delta as the only green patch of life in what is an arid landscape of Northern Africa. I talked to her about it being one of the places for early civilizations and I could see flicker of understanding and interest as it dawned on her the importance of rivers in early civilizations. I explained to her why rapids are found at the source of rivers and how the flow tapers off as it heads to the sea. I told her about the importance of geography and linked it to the how a good understanding of Geography and Science helped the traders from China and India sailed to Malacca.

Lessons should be fun because it helps us understand our surrounding And we have technology to help us these days. Maps can be called up in an instant. Google Earth enables the learner to see the actual place... some in 3D! I wanted my girl to see the tectonic plates and a simple search got me the graphic I wanted. It made it easier to get the point across.

Anyway, why do we learn? Is it to pass exams only? To hone our skills?? To fill our time? I think knowledge that cannot be applied is like data that is just numbers without any real world associations. Knowledge that is not shared is useless too, cos it sits in our heads for our own consumption only. It's kinda like some of us who sit around and lament about the state of our surrounding but do not do anything about it. I think for knowledge to be useful, we need to be able to associate it with its context or relate it to other contexts. Or perhaps use it to improve ourselves.

Which brings me to this... If teachers cannot ignite the passion for learning in students, then we have failed to pass the torch. Learning if not ignited, dies???? I don't know but it feels like it's quite dead in many of our young.