21st century economy but a 19th education sys-Rupert Murdoch
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We need some negativity. To know the positive. lol
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...to think I could have been an Australian citizen if I did not break up with my Australian gf all those years ago... she even said while we were breaking up "most guys would love to marry an aussie girl so that they can live in Australia"...
Australia will always have a special place in my heart. (hehehe I hope she does not read this and my wife does not read this post).
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Attention Parents,
This is a gentle reminder from a anti--oz lionnoisy:
I think u are professional with foresight and visions.
U do things with proper planning and preparations.
Prepare teacher shortage in NSW,and probabaly in other
places in Oz....I dunt think it just happen in NSW.
"We have 16,000 teachers reaching retirement age in 2012," he said. "We have a further 25,000 teachers reaching retirement age in 2016. That represents more than half the teaching service of NSW."
At the same time, NSW is listing a record number of births, which experts say is due to the baby bonus and improvements in IVF technology. Last year 285,000 births were registered Australia-wide, the highest number since 1971. More than a third of those were in NSW.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/teaching-crisis-looms-in-nsw/2008/11/08/1225561201526.html
Teaching crisis looms in NSW
RACHEL BROWNE | Skyrocketing NSW birth rates look set to clash with teacher retirement figures.
i have postedas graph showing abt 6000 teachers leaving oz in a year.
A NATIONAL TEACHER SHORTAGE
Australia's Teachers: Australia's Future
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mmmm
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Attention lionnoisy:
pls explain why this can happen in our education system!
Teacher posts her "Ah Lian" photos on blog
Gwen posts pictures of herself in micro bikinis and blogs about her tattoos, piercings and her wild parties with friends at the pub.
She even admits that her actions are "very Ah Lian", which means 'gangster girl' in the Hokkien dialect.
Revealing photos of her in barely-there bikinis would have raised many eyebrows, what makes Gwen's blog stand out so much is the fact that she is a primary school teacher.
The blog came to the attention of the Singaporean online community last week when Netizen alvinology wrote on his blog that he found a Singaporean girl's photo in an Australian bikini contest.
alvinology identified the girl as Gwen and commented that the picture of her in a micro bikini was rather tame, though other pictures found on the contest site were not safe for work.
Another Netizen by the name of Steve Lee then revealed that Gwen is actually a teacher, and posted the link to her blog.
A Shin Min Daily News reporter visited the blog and found Steve Lee's claims to be true. According to information found on the blog, Gwen identifies herself as a primary school teacher, although there was no mention of the school she teaches in. She also said that she was born in the year of the dragon, and it is believed that she is 32 years old.
Tattoos, piercings and "Ah Lian" behaviour
Gwen's blog posts are peppered with profanity, and she reveals that she has tattoos, a nose piercing and often goes partying with her friends.
In a posted dated February 26, 2007, Gwen wrote, "I got myself a new tattoo, it's a picture of a dragon. I was born in the year of the dragon. I know this is typical 'Ah Lian' behaviour."
She also uploaded a picture of herself getting her nose pierced, and says that she is considering getting her tongue pierced as well but has second thoughts, "But my friend who did it had trouble speaking normally."
"I will call the whiteboard a f***ing idiot"
On her blog, Gwen says that she enjoys her job, but there are times when her students get on her nerves. Unable to punish her young charges, Gwen says that she will start hurling expletives at the whiteboard to relieve stress.
"Teacher Gwen will turn to face the whiteboard and start wiping the whiteboard clean (because she thinks this will help her calm down). Then she will start calling the whiteboard a 'f***ing idiot', stressing on the word 'f***'. Once she's done, she will turn around and say, 'Where did I stop just now?'" -
Former Singapore school teacher charged for sex with teen
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Dear lionnoisy...
In my sec sch... I am not allowed to talk PAP in class, once I say PAP bad, SDP good, to someone, the teacher come and tell me to shut up!!!
Why liddat? why teacher so scared? Want talk politics but teacher stop you? -
Lionnoisy, Australia has an education system that produced 10 nobel prize winners.
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Originally posted by googoomuck:
Lionnoisy, Australia has an education system that produced 10 nobel prize winners.
There are many people who made inventions or discoveries or contributing to
mankind.Yes i agree Nobel Prize is important.But I am doubt if it is fair.
SG so far has not produced one Nobel prize winner.
But it dunt mean SG is poor in sciences or other aspects.
Since u talk about Oz.Can u explain to me why Oz took 10 years
to upgrade the APC M--113?ST Eng already put the M113 in the the products list many years ago.I think u know they have a strong
car assembly industry.But assembly and upgrading is 2 total different
things.U give a car assembly line to third world country,train the people
and supervise them eith strict QC .I think they can assembly car as
good as anyone.
look at this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariff_Bongso
Prof Ariff Bongso
Do Noble prize is color blind or language blind or citizenship blind?
Take GAO XINGJIAN or 高行� as example.
He abandoned his home country (the better term is exiled)
in 1987 and became French citizen in 1997!!
I dunt know why so many Chinese so happy when a French citizen
won a Noble prize.Literature is without border,so to say!!
Very few Chinese know his name before he was awarded Noble.
I dunt know how much his presence in Paris and his works
translated to French BEFORE he was awarded contributing to
his nomination and finall awarded!!
Did the Noble committee want to show they support democracy in PRC!!
Born in 1940 in Jiangxi province in eastern China, he studied in state schools, earned a university degree in French in Beijing, and embarked on a life of letters. Choosing exile in 1987, he settled in Paris, where he completed Soul Mountain two years later. In 1992 he was named a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. He is a playwright and painter as well as a fiction writer and critic.
http://www.bookbrowse.com/biographies/index.cfm?author_number=529
http://almaz.com/nobel/literature/2000a.html
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%AB%98%E8%A1%8C%E5%81%A5
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I do agree with Sg Ty that the following also happen in SG,
as well as in other places.But the question is how serious it is?
Dirty talk: Schools swamped by perverts
Are teachers being unfairly accused of sex abuse?
November 10, 2008 12:00am
SCHOOL teachers are being accused of sexually assaulting students or entering inappropriate sexual relationships with them at a rate of almost one a week.
Sexual allegations have been made against teachers 86 times over the last 2½ years - about a quarter of them in government primary schools, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.
Poll: Have you experienced inappropriate behaviour by a teacher?
But the data obtained under Freedom of Information also suggests some teachers are being unfairly targeted by unfounded accusations and facing career damage as a result.
Just three teachers in the period were convicted of criminal charges and one has been jailed.
Seduced student: Lesbian teacher found guilty
In another 10 cases teachers either resigned or retired, were put through "remedial action" or had their casual teaching authority withdrawn because some truth was found in the claims against them. In dozens of other cases no evidence of misconduct could be found................
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I shake my head when Victoria Education Minister said it is fine
that a primary school Princiapl had allowed a nude child photographer
scouting for nude telaents in her school compound.
I salute the openness of oz !!
No action against Henson model school--
see the master piece of the photographer:
Australia: Art Magazine Publishes Photo Of Naked Child On July ...
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Aussie Students stay silent on sex assaults
05:00AM Schools frequently dismiss sexual assault as part of the "rough and tumble".
Australian Institute of Family Studies - Australian Government
10 November 2008 Young People and Sexual Assault: What Schools Can Do
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SG MOE shall take a leave from Aussie situationa and
take proactive actions to reduce the incidents.
Punish any Princiapls and teachers and management of schools
who cover up.
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the small kids from my son's public school can spell better than lionnoisy. and they are not shy in speaking their minds too!
i assume Lionnoisy was educated in SG? if so, please tell us the name of your school so that we can warn our relatives and friends NOT TO send their kids to it.
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Attention lionnoisy:
pls explain why this can happen in our education system!
Teacher posts her "Ah Lian" photos on blog
Gwen posts pictures of herself in micro bikinis and blogs about her tattoos, piercings and her wild parties with friends at the pub.
She even admits that her actions are "very Ah Lian", which means 'gangster girl' in the Hokkien dialect.
Revealing photos of her in barely-there bikinis would have raised many eyebrows, what makes Gwen's blog stand out so much is the fact that she is a primary school teacher.
The blog came to the attention of the Singaporean online community last week when Netizen alvinology wrote on his blog that he found a Singaporean girl's photo in an Australian bikini contest.
alvinology identified the girl as Gwen and commented that the picture of her in a micro bikini was rather tame, though other pictures found on the contest site were not safe for work.
Another Netizen by the name of Steve Lee then revealed that Gwen is actually a teacher, and posted the link to her blog.
A Shin Min Daily News reporter visited the blog and found Steve Lee's claims to be true. According to information found on the blog, Gwen identifies herself as a primary school teacher, although there was no mention of the school she teaches in. She also said that she was born in the year of the dragon, and it is believed that she is 32 years old.
Tattoos, piercings and "Ah Lian" behaviour
Gwen's blog posts are peppered with profanity, and she reveals that she has tattoos, a nose piercing and often goes partying with her friends.
In a posted dated February 26, 2007, Gwen wrote, "I got myself a new tattoo, it's a picture of a dragon. I was born in the year of the dragon. I know this is typical 'Ah Lian' behaviour."
She also uploaded a picture of herself getting her nose pierced, and says that she is considering getting her tongue pierced as well but has second thoughts, "But my friend who did it had trouble speaking normally."
"I will call the whiteboard a f***ing idiot"
On her blog, Gwen says that she enjoys her job, but there are times when her students get on her nerves. Unable to punish her young charges, Gwen says that she will start hurling expletives at the whiteboard to relieve stress.
"Teacher Gwen will turn to face the whiteboard and start wiping the whiteboard clean (because she thinks this will help her calm down). Then she will start calling the whiteboard a 'f***ing idiot', stressing on the word 'f***'. Once she's done, she will turn around and say, 'Where did I stop just now?'" -
Woman charged for sex with teen Written by Joyce See, on Thursday, 16 October 2008
Published in : The News, Latest News
A 32-year-old, married, ex-school teacher is now Singapore’s first woman to be charged with having sex with a minor. Should she be convicted of having had six liaisons with the 15-year-old boy, she could be behind bars for up to 10 years.
The alleged offences are said to have taken place between Mar 10 and May 8.
The Penal Code was amended this year to give protection to all minors, male or female.
Mr Ravinderpal Singh, a lawyer of 12 years' standing, said yesterday: 'Before, in consensual sex with minors, only females were protected because they were offences under the Women's Charter. Now, even consensual sex with a boy below 16 is an offence under the Penal Code.' -
Woman charged for sex with teen
By Elena Chong A FORMER school teacher has become the first woman here to be charged with having sex with a minor.If convicted of having had six liaisons with the 15-year-old boy, the 32-year-old married woman could be looking at up to 10 years behind bars, a fine on each of the six charges or both jail time and a fine.
The bespectacled woman appeared in a district court three weeks ago to face the charges for the alleged offences, said to have taken place between March 10 and May 8.
The charge details were made available to reporters only yesterday.
No other information is available, but the district court has granted the prosecution's application against the publication of any detail that would lead to the boy being identified.
The woman, who is represented by Senior Counsel Sant Singh, is out on $10,000 bail and is due back in court on Nov 7, when a pre-trial conference will be scheduled.
Up till February this year, an older woman who had carnal connections with a male under 16 could be charged with molestation. If found guilty, she faced up to two years in jail or a fine or both.
But the Penal Code was amended this year to give protection to all minors, male or female.
Mr Ravinderpal Singh, a lawyer of 12 years' standing, said yesterday: 'Before, in consensual sex with minors, only females were protected because they were offences under the Women's Charter.
'But now, even consensual sex with a boy below 16 is an offence under the Penal Code.'
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Originally posted by noisylion:
Think yr children safe in siggie school? he or she might be one out of four siggie children being bullied in school!
1 in 4 secondary school students bullied
ONE in four secondary school children is a victim of bullying, a recent Singapore Children's Society survey has found.
Of the 519 students questioned by the society, 129 said they had been bullied. And, even more worryingly, several of those who have been bullied go on to become bullies themselves.
Of the 129 victims, the survey found, 37 were also bullies. Of these, 10 said they became bullies because they were bullied before.
Said Ms Tan Bee Joo, head of the society's Bukit Merah Centre: "In these cases, the victims don't know where to vent their frustrations. They feel that they don't have to be kind to others since other people are being unkind to them. This is worrying because it becomes a vicious circle."
Penny (not her real name) is one example of victim turned bully. Three years ago, when she was in Secondary 2, she was a victim of school bullying and dealt with her feelings of anger and powerlessness by terrorising others.
In Penny's case, she wanted others to feel her pain. For a year, the bully in her class threw her books out of the window, hurled vulgarities at her, and once kicked her chair so hard that she fell forward and bruised her chin.
To compensate, she would throw her juniors' bags into the school pond. It was, she said, her way of 'feeling in control'.
The survey was conducted in March and the respondents were picked randomly from private and HDB estates islandwide.
u may think yr children having fun in siggie school:
but actually 1 in 4 getting UFC-style flying knee in face? dunt be not careful!
no wonder got parang attack in siggie
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SINGAPORE: 95 percent of students in primary and secondary schools have experienced bullying in their schools.
Out of 4000 students surveyed, almost all said they have experienced bullying.
Majority were victims of verbal bullying such as teasing and name calling.
But over 2800 cases of physical bullying such as being kicked, hit or pushed were also reported.
The survey was conducted by the Harvest Centre for Research, Training & Development, and also the Coalition Against Bullying for Children & Youth.
"Quite a huge percentage said they feel angry and the second highest would be the sadness and depression, which could lead to low self esteem. International research has shown that bullies, by the age of 17 to 27, have a higher tendency to enter a criminal career. There has been known cases where bully victims take matters into their own hands because they need to do something about it. For example, they slash their wrists with penknives or they plot revenge," said Esther Ng, founder of Coalition Against Bullying.
The survey also found that in primary schools, 46 percent of instances of bullying took place in the canteens, and 42 percent in the school field.
But in secondary schools, 38 percent of bullying instances took place in the classroom, 35 percent in the canteen and 23 percent in the school toilets.
In Australia and the United States, it is mandatory for schools to have anti bullying programmes.
But not in Singapore. -
Singapore education supposed 21st centry n world class
den how come produce pple like lionnoisy
dunt can use proper english
esp english basic working language of SG
is this acceptable?
dunt say i anyhow anti-SG, if SG education so good
how come produce youths that chop pple with parangs?
read:
this violents chopping crimes in siggie is a forrest not tree! go read and see:
'They came out of nowhere'
THE parang attack ended as swiftly as it had begun.
In less than five minutes, the attackers had fled the scene after pouncing on a group of seven friends.
The silence was telling too. It was as if the gang of around eight male attackers was focused on just slashing their victims.
One victim said the attackers were so quiet that all he could hear was the sounds of parangs slicing their bodies.
But the ferocity of the attack was never in doubt.
It left two victims lying in a pool of their own blood.
One had his left hand nearly chopped off - he "could feel it dangling".
Another victim managed to flee the scene, but not before getting a deep cut that stretched from his right ear to his mouth.
A fourth man and the three women who were with them escaped unharmed.
All three victims, men in their mid-20s, survived the vicious attack, which happened outside Liang Court shopping complex near Clarke Quay at about 4am on Sunday.
It was the latest in a string of similar horrific incidents.
The trio, who are colleagues at a pest control company, and their family members declined to be identified when The New Paper spoke to them in hospital.
All three victims claimed the attack had been unprovoked and that neither they nor their friends had offended anyone recently.
They also insisted they had not stepped on anyone's toes while partying at the nearby Ministry of Sound (MOS) on Saturday night, shortly before they were attacked.
Other knife and blade attacks on victims in Singapore
- Bar manager Eugene Chua, 31, beaten up after leaving a pub at Clarke Quay on 23 Apr. He died two days later. Three women and two men have been jailed for the attack.
- Five friends attacked by seven parang-wielding men at the void deck of Block 13, Eunos Crescent on 7 Sep. They suffered injuries to head, stomach and hands.
- On the same day, a 17-year-old was attacked by six parang-wielding men at the void deck of Block 463, Tampines Street 44. He suffered injuries on head, back and shoulder.
- An 18-year-old attacked by three parang-wielding men near Block 159, Tampines Street 12 on 15 Jun. He suffered hand injuries.
- Mr Zainal Nek, 46, died after being attacked by a motorcycle gang near a Central Square nightspot on 17 Sep last year. Six men have been jailed for the attack.
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Poor quality English in Singapore
My sister teaches French as a foreign language to secondary school pupils with ages ranging from 13 to 17. In Singapore, French is classified as a third language, which means that only those schoolchildren who are bright and doing well in English, their second language and some other subjects, are permitted to add French to their workload.
Thus, the students she gets tend to be the top 2 or 3 percent of each age cohort.
"Can you imagine, then," she said to me recently, "how shocked I was that no one in my class of 13-year-olds understood the English verb, to bat."
"No one among the creme de la creme of our schoolkids had come across that verb before!"
She was introducing the French word battre, and she tried to get the students to guess its meaning by telling them that the English word, to bat, comes from it.
Whereupon, nearly everyone in the class thought that battre was a kind of animal.
She doesn't like to use English in her French class, so she started swinging her arms to suggest a kind of action. She said it wasn't an animal, it wasn't even a noun, but a verb. Alas, that still led nowhere. If not a bat, then what?
So an exception had to be made. She had to give a clue in English. "It's similar to to hit"
And that brought on the second shock: some in the class weren't familiar with hit either.
So she took up something in her hand and started batting something else with it.
"What am I doing?" she asked, hoping to get some idea what English vocabulary her pupils had.
At last, their faces bloomed with comprehension. "Beat", some said. "Bit" others said.
* * * * *
"Yes, I think it's shocking," I said, agreeing with her. "If they've never seen that word, does it mean they've never read Enid Blyton, which they should have by the time they're 12?"
"They do multiple-choice assessment exercises," she replied, dryly.
* * * * *
It's not just the 13 year-olds. In another class, an older teenager, practising his French, constructed a sentence about going somewhere on the MRT.
My sister then asked him to explain what he meant by 'MRT'; it's just an acronym and an English one to boot. If you spoke to someone in France, it wouldn't do to merely say 'MRT', as no one would understand.
The boy thought for a moment, and then said, "train".
Now, "train" is a very broad concept, but try as she might, my sister couldn't get him to be more specific about his mode of transport. She began to suspect it wasn't because of any difficulty with French -- his wasn't too bad -- but was more due to the fact that he had no idea what other kinds of trains there were in this world and therefore didn't know where to begin to delineate the MRT (our local slang for the metro) from the broader concept of rail-borne transportation.
To him, metro (which he knew only as MRT) and train were synonymous. It's like asking someone to distinguish 'mother' from 'maternal parent'.
* * * * *
We were not yet rolling on the tarmac, and there would be a little time to make some commercial announcements before take-off. The Tiger Airways cabin attendant then took up the microphone to introduce a line of souvenirs, among which was an exclusive selection of fra-grAH'n- ses, a word that I had never heard before. The accent was on the much-elongated second syllable and it sounded like bra-DANces.
I was still bemused by that strange pronunciation, when bad grammar hit. "I let you have more information after airborne."
She had to pass the microphone to her colleague, as we had begun taxiing, and it was time for the safety demonstration.
We were told that to undo the seat belt, we had to leaf this catch... and that there were six emergency exzeeds on this aircraft.
* * * * *
Seated opposite me in the metro, a middle-aged executive was telling his friend what difficulties he had in his office as he tried to improve productivity and efficiency. Apparently, one of his more difficult subordinates was a young woman who was too often on the phone.
"I told her, when I work that time, I don't take personal core one." He doesn't take personal calls.
* * * * *
Then this evening the sitcom Phua Chu Kang was on television. The entire series revolves around a working-class building contractor who speaks Singlish, our local patois.
In this evening's episode, he was trying very hard to get his son and daughter into a top-grade private school, in the course of which, Phua had to deal with a Caucasian headmistress who spoke a very uppercrust English.
Sitcom series being what they are, the audience would long have built up empathy for Phua Chu Kang and his highly accented English and fractured sentences. The natural instinct in the audience would therefore be to see the headmistress and her brand of English, complete with well-rounded sentences and mellifluous intonation as much too alien and uppity.
* * * * *
These vignettes give you an idea how intractable is the "English problem" in Singapore.
We have children growing up who spend more time in exam drills than reading, and whose vocabulary ends up quite limited. We have youngsters with very little idea of the wider world and who think that the references and terms we use in Singapore are the references and terms used throughout the world.
We have huge problems with pronunciation -- in fact, as far as I know, the teaching of English in Singapore does not include the teaching of pronunciation -- due to the infiltration of Chinese and Malay vocalisation sets into English.
We have even bigger problems with grammar, because people don't read and aren't exposed to good English. Instead, they hear a blend of Chinese, Malay and English grammar, which is etched into their brains as the operating grammar to emulate.
Not least, we have a tendency to see good English as either quaint, only used by stiff old ladies, or arrogant, only used by those bigheaded ones who think themselves better than their peers. If you don't wish to lose your friends, DON'T speak like an angmoh (local slang for Caucasian).
* * * * *
15 January 2005
Straits Times Forum pageNo effort here to speak English well
In late November last year, I was fortunate to return to Singapore as a learner with a very diverse cross-cultural group of postgraduate and research students. We belonged to eight or nine nationalities and our ages ranged from 24 to 60. I was the oldest.
Our project was to investigate cross-cultural and inter-cultural management skills and subsequently use such skills to form strategies for negotiations at different levels of business. We had chosen Singapore as our springboard.
As we got down to work, I was most impressed by the ability of Singaporeans to accept strange people with strange questions. However, I was quite disappointed at the level of spoken English among the public - young people, shop assistants, bus drivers, MRT officials and so on.
No doubt, they could speak and understand English to a reasonable level but there did not seem to be any effort to speak in complete sentences or even speak coherently without the interjection of other dialectal or language words, although I realise it adds colour to the local communicative processes.
Those who did speak in complete sentences spoke really well and it was attributed to their job requirements. I was, however, quite disappointed when, on two occasions at a big shopping centre, I met some school teachers taking their Primary 3 and 4 pupils out on an excursion - the teachers were not speaking to the kids in complete sentences.
The impression left is a seeming disregard of the use of proper spoken English.
In contrast, when I spent two weeks in Shanghai on a business trip - where I had many opportunities to come into contact with students, teachers and those connected with tourism - I found that most of them were putting in a great deal of effort to speak English well, not only in full comprehensible sentences, but also with correct pronunciation, intonation and style.
Now, in all fairness, if I had not been part of a team of learners looking deeper into inter-cultural issues, I might not even have noticed the level of spoken English here and, even if I had, would not have thought any more about it, like during my past visits to Singapore.
When I was growing up in Singapore, we were punished at school each time we spoke improper English or mispronounced a word. So it is most likely that Singaporeans of my vintage would today speak reasonably good English. Regardless of our cultural heritage, we had always made great effort to speak English well.
I have always been proud of having had my initial education in Singapore and proud to say that I learnt how to speak, read and write English in Singapore.
I wonder whether enough is being done in Singapore's schools and colleges to foster the correct use of spoken English. Or has it become less important to speak well?
Richard Teo
Darwin, AustraliaHow this situation came about is too complex a tale for here, not that I even know half of it, but I shall touch briefly on the role played by our politics.
Up until the 1960s, and even in schools where English was the medium of instruction, no one assumed that the children spoke English as a family language. Consequently, the methods used were those of teaching English as a second language, which meant very careful attention paid to enlarging vocabulary and instilling the rules of grammar. Much time was spent on grammar drills to hone the pupils' skills at things like the future perfect tense, the subjunctive and the fine shades of meaning among similar words. See example at right.
However, in the 1970s, a rapid conversion of all schools into English-medium ones took place, as the government shut down Chinese, Malay and Tamil-medium schools. As demand for English teachers grew, so standards fell. Furthermore, geography, physics or carpentry teachers were also required to use English in their classes, but as these adults were not using English as their first language, it meant that the students would hear broken English from those teachers.
In addition, the rapid expansion of English-medium education meant that students from families that never used English at home had to use English in school. This was unlike the previous decades when the English-medium schools tended to attract pupils from homes that did speak some English. Just when the task of teaching English became wider and harder, the difficulty of getting teachers who spoke good English became greater.
At around the same time, the Education ministry experimented with American teaching methods. Those were the days when British prestige had sunk to new lows and even the Sterling Pound had to be bailed out by the IMF. America was the shining example of modernity. These teaching methods involved more listening and speaking than being drilled in grammar rules.
It was a hopelessly misguided change, for the linguistic background in Singapore was nothing like White middle-class America, where children absorbed English with mother's milk. Learning by immersion and example cannot work if the environment was saturated with bad English.
(Nowadays, the scales have fallen from our eyes. Every time we see some American write on any bulletin board something like, "What I want to know is whether your expected to tip...." we see living proof that teaching language without grammar drills simply doesn't work.)
Another American idiocy imported into our education system was the multiple-choice test. I myself don't remember any use of multiple-choice testing when it came to English in my schooldays. We had to write long essays. We had to read and re-read dense passages followed by some questions to test our understanding of the text, and those questions had to be answered with a paragraph or two. We had to paraphrase other sentences or condense an entire paragraph into a key sentence to capture the gist of it. We had to pen telegrams in exactly 25 words (which I thought was a useless skill since telegrams were obsolescent, only to discover decades later that I can tap out more concentrated sms messages than most). And we had to transpose sentences into other time frames to test our mastery of tenses, or insert new ideas into an existing sentence by means of additional clauses.
How multiple choice questions would teach students to do all that with language, I cannot imagine.
Thus, except for a small minority, the masses picked up, not English, but a corrupted form of it.
More politics was to come. The annual Speak Mandarin Campaign confused priorities. Together with political campaigns against western "yellow culture", official veneration of Confucianism and emphasis on our "roots", "aping the West" became a liability. It was a small step from here to a general ridicule of people with perfect English and internationally acceptable intonation.
Meanwhile, the economics-trained technocrats in our government said that Singapore must preserve our competitive advantages vis-à-vis a rising China, and one of them is the fact that we're an English-speaking country.
Lo! we're now officially an English-speaking country, because the government said so. Therefore, what we speak must be English. If it sounds like English and the government says it's English, it's English. Since we have arrived, why is there a need to make an effort to improve our English?
It's hardly surprising then that Richard Teo, in his letter to the Straits Times (15 January 2005), said, "there did not seem to be any effort to speak in complete sentences or even speak coherently without the interjection of other dialectal or language words."
As he concluded, there "is a seeming disregard of the use of proper spoken English."
Good he left it at spoken English. He'd get a heart attack if he saw the written English we have here!
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Singapore Principals who put down students have no place in educating our young
Sunday, 20 January 2008, 9:44 am | 307 views
By Andrew Loh‘It is very sad when your principal doesn’t have faith in you and will not give you a chance.’
- Student from school where the principal’s “apply for ITE” remarks sparked outrage.
That sums it up for me. This is the result of what adults can do to children with unthinking and insensitive words. And when such words come from a school principal, it is unforgiveable, really.
The principal had “advised” some 27 Sec 5 students “ to seek transfers to the Institute of Technical Education (ITE), since they were unlikely to do well in the O levels this year.” (Straits Times)
The “advice” was given on the very first day of the new school year.
The Straits Times further reported:
“To back her point, she even flashed the girls’ detailed N-level grades on the board in class using an overhead projector; she also stressed that she wanted 100 per cent passes in her school.”
Note: She “stressed” that she wanted 100 per cent passes in her school.
Principal’s impression of ITE and ITE students
From the words, behaviour and tone of words used by the principal, I can’t help but feel that she has a very poor impression of the ITE and ITE students. Which makes me wonder if the principal is aware of how far the ITE has progressed.
In a speech at the opening of the ITE’s new College East campus in 2006, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said:
“ITE itself has grown into an institution that has an international reputation for excellence in technical training. As a World Bank report put it, “ITE has achieved significant breakthrough by establishing itself as a post-secondary institution. It has effectively rebuilt and transformed its former ‘vocational’ institutes into top-line educational colleges. ITE has given skilled occupations a new social and economic importance, creating viable careers for its graduates.”
If that praise was not enough, the ITE also won the Harvard Award from Harvard University in 2007 which “recognises the world’s most transformative government programme with profound impact on citizens’ lives.” (Asia One)
Education minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam added his praise by describing the ITE as a “jewel in Singapore’s education system”.
Asia One also reported:
“The chairman of ITE’s board of governors, Mr Bob Tan, said a unique feature was its nurturing quality. ‘When students come to the ITE, they have a self-image of people who cannot make it. It’s a matter of raising their confidence.”
It’s The End – if educators and ministers put students down
Instead of taking a firm stand in support of the students, Minister of State for Education Lui Tuck Yew steps in and defended the principal. According to the Straits Times:
“Speaking to reporters after a teachers’ investiture at the National Institute of Education, Rear-Admiral (NS) Lui said it was important to separate the ‘tone’ from the ’substance’ of the message.”
The minister was also quoted as saying:
‘We can calibrate the tone, we can soften it, improve on the presentation, but there is a lot of work to be done between Secondary 4 and Secondary 5.’
‘Principals need to do their job to convey this message to the students and teachers to do their part to challenge them, set high goals and to help them achieve these goals.’
I am amazed that the minister would put his weight behind the principal’s words and actions – “conveying this message”, as he put it. Flashing the students’ results with an overhead projector in class? Stressing that she wanted 100 per cent passes? Telling the students to apply to the ITE because “they were unlikely to do well in the O levels this year”?
And doing all these on the very first day of school?
Conveying the message indeed.
The minister then goes on:
“’We will be hit by storms, there will be waves, we will be lashed by the winds… but we can be responsible for how we respond to it.”
The minister seems to have forgotten that it is not only how each person responds to challenges that is important but also the way leaders encourage and inspire others in times of challenges that are just as important, if not more so.
You do not try and get people to be ‘responsible’ by putting them down – especially when the people are young, impressionable students. And certainly, you do not do this in front of an entire class by flashing their results using an overhead projector!
Irony – PM Vs Principal
In his speech at the College East campus, PM Lee described an example of an ITE student, Sairin Sani, who did well:
“Last year, I visited ITE College Central (MacPherson) and met one ITE graduate, Sairin Sani. He came from the Normal stream and had little interest in his studies while he was in school. But his life turned around when he enrolled in ITE.
He took to ITE’s hands-on training like a duck to water, and regained his confidence and zest for learning. From ITE, Sairin went on to polytechnic and then to NTU, where he graduated with first-class honours in Mechanical and Production Engineering. He is now pursuing his dream career in aerospace engineering.”
PM Lee also described the achievements of another ITE alumni, Johnny Tng. PM Lee would make a better school principal, it seems. He related real life examples of ITE students who did well in what obviously was an attempt to encourage and inspire present and future ITE students.
This is what the school principal should have done, instead of her demoralizing and disheartening rhetoric of doom and gloom.
The bigger picture
The importance of ITE graduates cannot be discounted, especially in our small population of Singaporeans. As the Minister for Community, Youth and Sports, Vivian Balakrishnan, said:
“Together as a cohort, ITE students will form up to 25% of our future workforce. You have a significant role to play in our economy and to the building of our nation.” (MCYS)
25% of our workforce will be made up of ITE graduates. Now, that is something to think about – especially for teachers, instructors and yes, principals. Yet, that should not be the reason why we should refrain from demoralising our students. The only reason why we must be patient in nurturing and inspiring our young, perhaps, should be because it is simply a joy to mould young minds, see them succeed and make something of themselves in life.
Now, that calls for a breed of special people dedicated and dedicating their lives to the task - teachers, principals, parents and friends.
My last words will be for ITE students themselves. And here I would like to quote PM Lee and blogger I Am Not A Geek:
PM Lee:
“The Singapore education system will provide many avenues to suit different needs, with many routes up and many ways to succeed.”
Blogger I Am Not A Geek:
“I wish those Sec 5 girls all the best. Do not give up, the ‘O’ level is actually easier than you think, trust me! Just work hard, and never listen to people who tell you that you are a gone case.”
Principals who put down students have no place in educating our young - no matter how you “separate the tone from the substance”.
Period.