Less Teaching, More Learning?
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Nope it is not a norm, in my opinion.
While for some schools, it could be a school practice
on keeping and returning files policies… For my DDs’
school, assignments are returned periodically and
promptly for parents to check and have them all duly
signed… This way, parents can keep up with what the
school is currently covering and also we can be updated
on the abilities of our children… their strengths and their
weaknesses as well.
There are parents who DO NOT file the worksheets in the
respective folders given and teachers find it hard to revise
or go through the questions nearing assessment or exam time.
Some children’s worksheets do come back like soggy pratas and
a few others super torn and worst is lost or dunno where.
Our DDs’ teachers allow for the files to be kept at home until
the next time more completed and marked worksheets need to
be filed in. They will again bring the files back for parents’
perusal and revision.
On top of these tiring manual chores teachers have to do, they
also prepare past year’s exam papers for the students to practice
in class & also bring some home for the children to engage in further
revision. The papers are given 2wks to 3wks prior to the SA1 exams…
The teachers also go through the questions together in class & discuss
the more challenging questions (esp for Math… ) where all the children
are engaged in the thinking process of how the answers were derived.
My girls are in neighbourhood school.
Having said the above, NOT all teachers are like that. It is subjective
to the individual teacher’s style and passion… as it can be seen with
my P3 DD’s teachers. Math & MT teachers are more than fantastic but
the form teacher is utterly ridiculous, of pre-historic teaching days kind…
(read : dry & boring everything-whole-class-read-from-the-book kind)…
and has no inkling of creativity… hence burdening us parents with the
imperative need to re-teach every single thing again at home. Now,
THAT is exasperating. Form teacher some more! :x
In short, while it is possible some of them in this indudstry do spoil the soup…
it would be biased blanket statement to assume all teachers are like that. JMHO. -
For my kids’ sch, the problem isn’t that bad for lower pri. It’s at upper pri that things get messy.
Different teacher has different style. Some teachers keep all worksheets and return only near exam. That’s fine with me since i dun really rely that much on sch material for revision. The worst thing is when teachers give out tonnes of worksheets but never manage them. Some worksheets are never done until end of the term, some half-done, some half-marked, etc, until i completely lost track and dunno which to file at home and which to bring to sch.
Nowadays my son bring to-and-fro a stack of worksheets almost the thickness of 2 workbooks becos we simply do not know if the teacher will use them or not.
On top of that, there are so many workbooks to bring and since teacher never specify which one they will use on which day, to play safe, my son just bring everything to sch everyday, so the sch bag is super heavy. In the worst case, the Eng subject alone can have 5 books. :!:
I think the teachers simply can’t be bothered to make life easier for our poor kids.
I also heard from my son that recently they were made to type out the compositions they have written into computers at school during english lesson. Takes 2 period to do that. Wonder why the teacher is doing that when she should be spending time more productively as PSLE is so near. -
ChiefKiasu:
Taught at various level before. Just don't know why the teachers at pri sch like to keep files till late late then return.
Donkey Kong, I'm confused. You implied that you are/were a teacher yourself in another thread. I do not understand why you do not believe in the notion of getting your students prepared for examinations.Donkey Kong:
Before exams, teachers then returned all the worksheets...
Ask them do corrections, until they cry....
Why like dat? early early don't give.
:?
Example, tomoro maths exam, tonight, poor kid is supposed to finish up the Chinese correction. Where got time to revise maths? :stupid:
Chinese correction a lot for comprehension..... very siong.... :shock: -
[quote]Example, tomoro maths exam, tonight, poor kid is supposed to finish up the Chinese correction. Where got time to revise maths?
Chinese correction a lot for comprehension..... very siong.... [/quote]If like that, I insist my child to do maths revision. I would say \"who is more concerned about your exams? Who give birth to you? If teacher scold you, ask her call me!\" -
It is very siong for those handling first kid because we do not know sch requirements. Luckily for my first child, file were kept at home. So now 2nd child’s files are only returned at the 11th hour, I based on previous experience / requirements to teach/revise.
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I think files keeping by teachers is for lower primary. By the time they reach higher primary, there are lots of worksheets and mock papers to file. I don’t think the teacher would want to file. Moreover the students would be more mature to take care of their own papers.
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Especially P6, tonnes of papers, I see them I headache. I insisted my girl to to file properly as she herself knew which comes first, not me.
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School bag too heavy....
Not referring to the show by Cynthia Koh, but kid's teachers ask them to bring so many worksheets files plus books to school. :x May break their little spines..... -
Yes, I’m currently teaching in a secondary school.
Honestly, Primary school teachers are more stretched than us.
Most of them have to teach at least 3 subjects (English, Maths, Science, Social Studies, PE)!
In Secondary school, we mostly focus on 1 or 2 subjects. If manpower permits, schools always try to give teachers their core subject, which means they only teach 1 subject, and maybe CME too.
Education is part of growing up. As parents, we expect the teachers to settle all the academic parts of education. However, we need to be realistic if our children need more individual attention which is hardly achievable in a school setting.
As a parent, I won’t be surprise if my boy can’t thrive in school. Yes, he learns fast, but he is distracted and may not pay attention in class. Even if the teacher can teach very well, my son is not listening in class, do you think he will learn alot from the teacher?
When we plan to have my boy, we already know that we need to put in effort to spend time revising with him. Our parents may not have done that because they did not have the knowledge or were too busy struggling to make ends meet. However, my dad gave me moral support by staying up with me when I’m doing my revision (I prefer to study at night when everyone is asleep because it’s quiet).
At the end of the day, which is more important? Your child hearing about your grumbling about his school/teachers or your child feeling your support in his/her studies?
I think parents need to take a breather and think through carefully too.
How you react to the large volume of homework and the difficulty level of the work given will affect your child’s mentality towards schoolwork.
When my mum tried to help me with my Maths problems, she was also stuck. What did she do? She looked through my textbook for explanations, relearn the model method and taught me. Once, she was really stuck and couldn’t solve the question. What did she do? She went to call her friends, she went to ask neighbours, she went all out to search for the answer. This is the attitude I learnt from my mum. Never give up, never be afraid to ask, never be shy to say that you have problems as long as you find as solution.
Teachers are humans too. We try our best, but it may not seem like it to parents. Think about it, if you are in the teachers’ shoes, will you be able to do a better job than them? -
mrswongtuition:
How you react to the large volume of homework and the difficulty level of the work given will affect your child's mentality towards schoolwork.
When my mum tried to help me with my Maths problems, she was also stuck. What did she do? She looked through my textbook for explanations, relearn the model method and taught me. Once, she was really stuck and couldn't solve the question. What did she do? She went to call her friends, she went to ask neighbours, she went all out to search for the answer. This is the attitude I learnt from my mum. Never give up, never be afraid to ask, never be shy to say that you have problems as long as you find as solution.
Thanks! I like what you said in bold and I hope to learn from your mum to impart the \"never give up trying\" attitude to my son in due time!
:celebrate:
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