Trisha Reloaded said:

Juxtaposed among my anguished thoughts about Mr Y and Mdm C is the noisy ranting of an 18-year-old college kid with her “elite uncaring face”. And this is what I want to say.

There is no glory in being an elite. No honour in trumpeting one’s own success. Any of us could be born into a family visited by sorrow upon sorrow, where circumstances work against you and fate tosses you around like sand, so that you can’t get out of the shit even if you want to.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "A teacher comes face to face with the Singapore underclass, and has some words for the Singapore elite."

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Balderdash said:

A friend sent me a copy of the contract MOE made him/her sign. While some of the (presumably non-exhaustive list of) examples are pretty standard, 2 in particular stand out:

"Examples of Misconduct or Offences

8. Speaking disparagingly of the Government
14. Immoral behaviour"

The problems with the latter are not hard to see (e.g. definition, enforcement etc), so I will dwell on the former, which is eminently unenforceable, as presumably even going: "Aiyoh, Public Transport Council approved a public transport fare hike again! They just want to earn the bus companies profits" could get you a written reprimand, verbal or written warning or worse.

More worryingly, it is pointedly partisan.

Recommended by at82: "Why is MOE politicizing in our schools?"

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stressed_teacher said:

I feel tired and worn out. Every single bloody day. On the way to school, I take out my handphone. There is still ample time to call in sick. I open up my handphone and pull out my school's number. All that separates me from making that call is just a press of a button that requires a force of around 1 Newton. And I surprise myself by being able to resist that temptation, even though I know that at least three colleagues who will make that morning call.

Recommended by tinkertailor: "Teaching is a fulfilling career in Singapore."

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Revival of a Singapore Teacher's Life said:

I have this card system which I have used for the many years of teaching. It works like magic for many reasons. I just shared this idea with my class MT teacher who found it useful too. How does it work? 1. Each child has his/her own card. 2. The card is kept with the teacher. 3. The card is sent home when the child does something wrong or doesn't complete his/her work. 4. Parent will sign and return it through the child.

Recommended by Miss Loi: "An interesting non-intrusive way of informing parents of their child's misdemeanors in school."

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Otto Fong in RI said:

When you ask me who I am, I will answer: I am a son, a brother, a long-time companion, an uncle, a teacher, a classmate, a colleague, a part of your community, a HDB dweller, a Singaporean. And I am also gay.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "Wonder how the authorities will react to this?"

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Flying Low said:

And I do think there is a tendency that a teacher’s work in the classroom is often ignored during grading exercises, unless we have failed to produce satisfactory results. In that case, our unsatisfactory results alone will overshadow all the other contributions we have made to the school. The question is why does this happen? Surely most people would agree that what we do in the classroom is of greatest importance and not how many carnivals we organised for the community.

Recommended by tinkertailor: "Why we have so many unmotivated teachers."

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Trisha Reloaded said:

I hate teaching because:

1) I hate waking up at the crack of dawn. And I hate watching my 7-year-old daughter wake up at such an inhumane hour just to go to school. I don’t care what problems the transport companies will face if we start school later, I don’t care if my ancestors had started school this early, I don’t care if Japan or Switzerland starts school at 7am, I just want our students and teachers to have a decent wake-up time. Is that too difficult to change?

Recommended by tinkertailor: "Why teachers have it really tough."

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Singapore Dreaming said:

Do you have a school teacher in Singapore who has inspired you in some way?

This Teachers Day, Singapore Dreaming is giving out 100 pairs of movie tickets to honour teachers who have been an inspiration to their students.

Treat your favorite teacher to a Special Gala Screening of the film, Singapore Dreaming by filling up a simple nomination form on below OR by sending a nomination email to teachers@singaporedreaming.com.

Your teacher stands the chance to win two tickets to see Singapore Dreaming before it actually opens in cinemas everywhere on September 7th.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "Thank your teacher today! "

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JollyPuddle said:

I admit that I am one of those apolitical Singaporeans who is more interested in my own welfare than anything else. However, I have been following the coverage on this year’s elections a bit more avidly - from online newspapers to blogs. And have I learnt a lot!

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "An Apolitcal Singaporean learns from this election. "

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Mis-Educators said:

For one, does anyone really dare to write their true opinions on these things? When there is that chance our job security may be at sake, or worse, that we may have to sit in our tutor's office for god-noes-how-many hours listening to an impromptu lecture on why the Ministry is right and we, the untrained, uninformed, unworthy trainee teacher is wrong? Nope, most people would rather take the safe, easy route out and simply write down whatever it is that the higher-ups want to hear.

Recommended by Anonymous Coward: "The author, an NIE teacher trainee, tells why there's no incentive to be honest in the feedback form for their community service project. A deeper societal problem is also explored. "

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Mew said:

I have a whole mental library of bayi what color jokes but as an educator, i'm supposed to be neutral medium of information. I have to make a conscious decision to deliver my curriculum and leave my biases at home. Further on in life, these children may form their own opinions about people but it is not my role, job nor right to influence them in the way i think.

Well written piece by a dedicated, sensible childcare/kindergarten teacher.

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Edo Muffin said:

There was a teacher from Raffles Whose expositions were tedious waffles

It's teachers day! happy teacher's Day! Pls backtrack any other blog entries to our beloved teachers.

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thatjedi tells us why teachers are busy and gives us a list of things that teachers are expected to do.

assuming a teacher has exactly 30 periods per week, that works out to be 17.5 hours in the classroom. Each teacher must also have at least one Co-Curricular Activity, or CCA for short. That means 3.5 hours of CCA per week. So if I am a teacher, the minimum hours I work is 17.5 + 3.5 = 21 hours per week. So, then why are we so busy?

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yj, a trainee teacher, ended up posted to the school that his dad teaches at:

Somewhere along the way, though, most of the staff have figured it out. It’s not very hard when we arrive in the same car every morning, and I sometimes drive my dad’s car home if my mom needs a ride somewhere (although a colleague did ask him, with a bit of concern, “Did you see that trainee teacher take your laptop and drive your car off?!”).

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Mis-Educators said:

Some people may say, "Oh, but that's so fierce! What if I scare the little darlings?" and I say, "[insert name of animal faeces]" remember that you are outnumbered 40 to 1 in a classroom, and that if they were to suddenly realise that they could all scream, shout or run out of the class and you wouldn't be able to stop them all, you are so screwed.

Everyone has one of the "old, grumpy Chinese teacher with the bad dress sense and the perpetual PMS" in their lifetime Now you know why, and how...we become our own least favourite teachers.

Then again, my mother lasted 40 years doing the exact opposite, that is, being human, and to this day, her students still remember her with fondness.

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(Pardon that obfuscating title!)

Ondine said...

Yesterday, we were made to go through a course on how to teach kids NOT to have sex. All this is in response to a recent newspaper report on how some of our teens are addicted to sex. So, they subject us to mindless platitudinal teaching like "Abstinance is the best protection" in bright flashing bold red words.

Also includes a chart to show how walking side by side leads to sex (if you read it correctly).

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Tym said:

It turns out that at least one of the students I currently teach lives a stone's throw from me. She shyly asked about it a few days ago, to which my immediate response was: "Have you seen me around, in my old spectacles and dressed like an auntie, at the coffeeshop or something?"

You may think only celebs have to make sure they don't go out in their ratty home clothes, but even teachers have that problem. Life in a fishbowl, so hard!

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