Friday, July 18, 2008
say it again... | 5:23 PM
July 18, 2008
Allow teachers to teach, or many will keep quitting
MY WIFE has taught in a neighbourhood secondary school in the east for more than five years. She is currently a form teacher in a lower secondary class.
Besides teaching, preparing lessons, marking papers, leading co-curricular activities and so on, she has to do a lot of admin and non-teaching-related work.
This includes selling donation tickets, collecting money and forms, taking minutes during meetings (rotated among teachers) and doing projects on new software. All this takes considerable effort and often eats into time she could spend on value-added work, such as preparing lessons.
Many of her peers also complain of too much non-teaching related responsibilities. In fact, those who have left the teaching profession shared with her that this was the main reason they quit.
Many became disillusioned as when they started they wanted to be an educator but they eventually became more of an administrator. The Ministry of Education has said it is looking into improving teaching as a career. Not long ago, there was also mention of hiring 'teacher-assistants' to help form teachers cope with admin and non-teaching-related work.
Well, this has yet to materialise in the neighbourhood school where my wife teaches.
Unless there is a change in mindset and improvement in working conditions, I am afraid turnover of teachers will remain high. And that is definitely not beneficial to students.
Christopher Tan
Labels: teaching
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
denial? | 7:10 PM
July 1, 2008
Aussie children: Angels to parents, devils to teachers?
Research shows today's parents feel kids are better behaved than in 1980s; teachers disagree
LITTLE MONSTERS?: A child playing with a life-sized dinosaur puppet at the Melbourne Museum. Recent research has found that most parents think their kids are less fearful and better behaved, compared with parents surveyed in the 1980s. However, today's teachers are reporting more behavioural problems than their counterparts did in the past.SYDNEY - CHILDREN in Australia may be two-faced, possibly becoming more so over the past 20 years.
Their parents say they are just as well-adjusted as their counterparts of 20 years ago and, if anything, better behaved and less anxious. But teachers appear to have a different view, just as they did 20 years ago.
This was revealed in research published yesterday by the Australian Institute of Family Studies, which compared two studies of children two decades apart, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
The study found that in both the 1980s and the first decade of this century, the 'great majority' of young children were happily adjusted.
Despite fears that modern life was producing a generation of badly behaved or anxious children, parents today were even more relaxed and less worried about their children's progress than were their counterparts in the past.
'Very few toddlers and children were reported as showing clear signs of behaviour problems,' said the study's authors, Ms Diana Smart and Ms Ann Sanson.
They said that today's parents may be more tolerant and understanding of, or less bothered by, challenging behaviour than parents in the 1980s.
The studies, in 1988 and in 2005, each involved thousands of six- and seven-year-old children. Researchers asked parents and teachers parallel questions about the children's behaviour and temperaments. Parents of children aged two to three were also asked similar questions in both studies.
Taken together, the studies provided a rare opportunity to test the common assumption that children in the 21st century are faring worse than yesteryear's children, the authors were quoted as saying.
Today's parents rated their toddlers as more sociable, persistent in completing tasks and less prone to acting out frustrations, than did parents of the 1980s. The toddlers were seen as less destructive, less likely to hurt other children, and even as having less difficulty falling asleep.
Although serious problems were uncommon in both eras, today's parents were significantly less likely to report conduct problems such as fighting or disobedience, or that their children were anxious, worried or fearful.
In 2005, 2 per cent of the six- to seven-year-olds were considered disobedient by their parents, compared with almost 8 per cent in the 1980s; and 3 per cent of today's children were said to have 'many worries', compared with 12 per cent in the 1980s.
But today's teachers were more likely than those of the 1980s - and more likely than today's parents - to report that six-to seven-year-olds had conduct problems, the Sydney Morning Herald said.
About 8 per cent of today's children were hyperactive, teachers reported, compared with about 6 per cent in the 1980s; about 3 per cent were disobedient, compared with 1.6 per cent in the 1980s; and 3.5 per cent fought with other children, compared with 2.9 per cent in the 1980s.
The report, Do Australian Children Have More Problems Today Than 20 Years Ago?, said teachers today may be more aware of these problems than teachers of the 1980s and more willing to report them. But the authors also said changed behaviour, perhaps due to less regulated classrooms, may also be a factor.
They also said it was unusual in this type of research for teachers to report more problems than did the parents.
Labels: behaviour, parenting, students, teaching
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
What I've Done | 8:44 PM
I got so bored minding the students outside the interview room that I stopped those whom I knew well for a photo.
There were some who were amused by the webcam on my laptop. I caught one of them making funny faces. Scroll down the following pictures quickly to see the effect. 
One of former leaders, Marcus, who had been one of the 4 faithful core pillars in our planning for level activities (see saint2003away blog). He's now studying in the JC and when one of them comes back to have a chat with you, you get a swell in your throat and heart over the extent your former efforts have evolved and how time flies indeed. It is one awesome satisfaction which perhaps no other job will bring. Labels: bored, fun, satisfaction, teaching
Monday, April 14, 2008
Teachers' woes part of working life | 6:33 AM
Saint2 : This forum article from TST reeks of the hands of propaganda. I bet someone from the civil service must have ask his/her non-teaching spouse/ relative to write this counter attack note - probably to do some damage control after the attriction rate was leaked out in the press. Then again, the press is a pure propaganda tool, so perhaps the leak was to forcast something on the horizon? If the following letter was from a neutral source, it just reflects how callous some are to the real predicaments of the teaching profession - teachers, with all the added trappings, can no longer truly teach and mould lives. It is now a show-and-tell performance for many in the bid to survive the system. What then are the implications on the future generation? Like I had mentioned in the a recent entry, something's coming over. Mmmm....(yes, that's a line from a song).
April 14, 2008
Teachers' woes part of working life
IN RESPONSE to Mr Ho Kong Loon's letter last Thursday, I would like to offer my views as a non- teacher.
The attrition rate of about 700 out of 29,000 is not high compared to other professions. Other professions experience an increase in workload in order to remain competitive. For example, to cut costs, most employers expect staff to take on another employee's job at the same time, meaning most have to work late.
On the need to attend self-improvement courses, this applies to other professions. Everyone needs to upgrade. Moreover, most attend these courses at their own expense and in their own time.
All appraisals are subjective, and no one can avoid them. In addition, other professions face the threat of retrenchment and pay cuts when the economy is down. They also face stiff competition from foreign talent willing to accept lower pay.
There are pros and cons in every job, and no one escapes work-related stress.
Tan Lee Hwang (Ms)
Labels: teaching
Thursday, April 10, 2008
what's new??? | 9:15 PM
Saint2 : If the press publishes a strongly worded letter like this about the teaching profession, I bet MOE is brewing some big news in the pipelines...
April 10, 2008
Yes, Minister, and here's what teachers face
I SALUTE new Education Minister Ng Eng Hen in wanting to make teaching the career of choice. But let me offer a caveat. The slew of attractive pay packages, bonuses and self-improvement schemes will not detract from the fact that there are underlying fissures within our very sound education system.
The pull or push factors contribute to a teacher attrition rate of around 700 each year. The teacher population of 29,000 does not translate into smaller class enrolments.
The marking load of teachers remains colossal. Individualised instruction, however useful and necessary, is not the norm.
Teacher ranking and the manner in which it is implemented sends seismic waves across schools in Singapore. One notable phenomenon is the fattening of one's professional portfolio. Teachers spend a disproportionate amount of time, energy and effort in padding up their portfolios. This includes attending self-improvement courses, going for sabbaticals, performing community service, launching personal initiatives and programmes to outrival their competition, and staying on in school long after dismissal time.
Appraisals, no matter how well structured, have to clear the hurdles of objectivity, impartiality and fairness. Teaching is a profession where productivity or effectiveness is difficult to quantify or qualify, even with the best-conceived scales and indicators.
The most critical yardstick that sieves the ordinary from the exceptional is the teachers' classroom performance.
I am talking about his relationship with the kids - his passion, commitment and staying power in order to make a definitive difference to the young ones. He could do this by being a good role model, and coming up with creative, exciting and fun teaching methods, and livening up the dreariness of repetitive drills with humour.
The hoi polloi of the teaching profession, who work quietly and diligently without fanfare and publicity, can easily miss out due recognition and rewards.
Ho Kong Loon
Source : Straits Times
Labels: MOE, teachers, teaching
