Teach Less, Learn More
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insider:
But we ARE devastated because we did not see it coming. That is why, it is important to alert parents that failing in P5 is normal... and let them know that they can pre-teach... or they can tell their kids it is normal. It is for parents to choose based on the character of their child.I fail to see the reason of having to be so shocked and so devastated. To me there's no big deal in failing such kind of test where standard is set exceptionally high coz the ultimate PSLE will not be like this.
Just because we choose to pre-teach does not make us sheep, and part of a herd.insider:
What makes you think we don't do this? Did not Janet say that she refused to punish her child? Did not I say that I told my son that it is ok to fail? Did we not sit down with our children, cuddle them and put on a brave face?My kids never have to worry when they fail a test coz they know they have put in their best and best is good enough and together with mum, there'll always be a solution.
insider:
That is your choice. Each parent needs to examine their child's readiness for the material. I evaluated that my son is strong in Math, and we were able to complete the skills training enough to get estimated 80+. I can bring him up to 90+ if I take his play day. But I choose not to compromise play day (Sunday). That is a choice. We assess and we decide. For Chinese, he will fail. I know it. I have talked to him (told him the requirements were absurd for P5 SA1) and we will face the failure together. See... we don't disagree. You are advocating things we already do and know. We should not debate for the sake of disagreeing.(your solution is to pre-teach but I can IGNORE if those requirements are absurd enough and still carry on to march on towards PSLE coz these concepts subsequently can be grasped easier when the child is more cognitively ready.
We put on a brave face, smile at our child and let them know that with Mommy, things are alright. These you would do no? We do them too. I wish I had pre-taught. It applies to my situation. You may not agree, but do you know my situation?insider:
This causes pain. Whenever we suggest or support the causing of pain to a child, the think-through should be long and hard. It is not a hahaha decision.Come to think about it, actually not a bad idea to 'shock' kids once in a while... hahaha...
insider:
That is exactly the point this thread is making. Where do we disagree? Can you, by dismissing the hurt and shock felt by P5 parents make things better for these underprivileged kids? Reducing teacher-student ratio will help these under-privileged kids most. My son has me. Your kids have you. We both can teach. Who do the underprivileged kids have. It was a good suggestion but you didn't like it because you said \"not possible because not enough teachers\".We are in a vicious cycle, a 'storm'. The real ones who will suffer will be those under-privileged kids unless school can identify this group of children with a teacher caring enough to have extra extra remedial classes for them.
Insider, just please... don't let us dwell on how individual parents are right or wrong to be devastated. It is unproductive. Our children hurt, and we hurt... so... just be a bit empathetic. The really productive way forward is to generate enough momentum for change... and use the organisation that has the highest leverage against this storm - MOE. But in a previous post, you said that it wasn't worth the try because you couldn't see how it would work.
So, what is it you constructively advocate (apart from telling us we are a herd and that you fail to understand our emotional states)? What is it you constructively advocate? That is still unclear. The system is flawed, but you think it's no use doing anything about it (because we now must teach Indian teachers to speak)... meanwhile, parents are herd... and their hearts cannot be controlled, then how?
We continue to point at hurt parents holding hurt children and tell them that they're silly to be hurt? Why? Does that help improve the system? Gee... I sense that this is going nowhere so... I think I won't post anymore.
Propose a solution. -
Chenonceau:
That is why, it is important to alert parents that failing in P5 is normal... and let them know that they can pre-teach... or they can tell their kids it is normal. It is for parents to choose based on the character of their child.insider:
Look at the above 2 quotes. It is obvious that we agree, right? Why the debate then?You are advocating pre-teaching but I feel pre-teaching is not necessary. It's just two approaches towards an issue. Parents who don't pre-teach do not need to feel guilty but it is ok for them if they want to do so to feel 'better'. As said, my objective is to throw some balance into the discussion instead of making some parents feel the compulsiveness to pre-teach and as if dont do so 'will die' kind.
insider:
I am sharing MY choice just that you are sharing YOUR choice and neither of it is the only choice.
insider:
Yes... you can and should share your choices, but maybe you can be careful not to dismiss the genuine emotions of parents like Janet and even Tisha, who really are very worried.I fail to see the reason of having to be so shocked and so devastated.
insider:
Come to think about it, actually not a bad idea to 'shock' kids once in a while... hahaha...
Chenonceau:
This causes pain. Whenever we suggest or support the causing of pain to a child, the think-through should be long and hard. It is not a hahaha decision.
insider:
Look at the above quotes. Having a hahaha philosophy is well and good, but it is not the same as advocating that shocks to the child are good. These 2 are not same.\"hahaha\" is one of my philosophy in life...
insider:
But children ARE hurt. When children hurt. Parents hurt too eh? This system dishes hurt to ALL children including those with no parents, or absent parents, or parents in jail. What of them? They can decide they don't want to be hurt? Every teen who is cavalier and unconcerned today about his/her academic failures, WAS once a child whose heart was badly broken by failure he/she did not understand... and could not help. Parents don't have to yell and punish for the child to feel bad. Failure itself is devastating.No one can hurt you if you don't want to be hurt.
insider:
There're NO solutions and therefore I can't propose ... If there's a solution, those in MOE would have solved it long ago (they are not blind).
insider:
Really? No solution except for individual parents to sit back and accept B grades and C grades (actually, in P5, we're looking at FAIL grade) with a hahaha? Again, I say parents have a choice. Parents don't have to feel bad (for being a herd) about wanting to help their children get good grades ... just as those who don't think there is a need to help should not feel bad. After all, insider, if you learnt unitary transfer method 7 years ago (I didn't even bother at that time), you must have helped your child?If a parent is content with a 70 (like me, anything above is a bonus),
We also don't have to feel bad about trying to raise an issue to MOE's attention just in case it can help our nation's children. -
insider:
There is nothing wrong with you for not minding that. There is also nothing wrong with me/Janet/Tisha/Chamonix and plenty others who don't want that for our kids, is there? We are not a herd, nor are we too demanding.
See, that's the key difference between you and me (and some parents vs others).
I don't mind the B and C and I don't mind if my kid really has to end up in the ITE (I was prepared for my eldest son to learning cooking, which is his interest, in ITE or SHATEC if his O levels were not good enough or even to retain).insider:
It is not my job to give a well thought out proposal to MOE. We were just venting and providing each other emotional support, in the hope that someone would read... and think about the ideas... silly though they may sound. At this early stage, it's just idea generation. We were just letting off steam and doing a hahaha... so don't take it so seriously and stress on the difference between demanding parents and laid back ones.I have no intention at all to stop parents from giving feedback to MOE. My sharing may help to formulate a stronger proposal after seeing the constrains that MOE has (lack of teachers/good teachers, single session, parents' hearts, time limit, children of diversed 'pre-equipped'/'non-equipped' knowledge, bell curve, etc).
We're different. And so? -
insider:
You have switched focus again? Were you not talking about demanding A and A* from our kids - and therein lies our difference? Now, you are talking about our demands of teachers?We only do IEP for special needs kids and not ALL kids, even we only have 6 kids in a class.
To you maybe is not demanding. To me is ultra demanding coz you are expecting a teacher to have an IEP for individual child. This is a 'utopian' situation. More teachers will have to visit IMH if this is part of their job scope. You may try to make it happen...
It is not the same thing, you know.
Now, you have gone on to evaluate some of the admittedly silly ideas? Why do you think I refused to represent the voice of parents to MOE - because I KNOW some of these ideas need further evaluation, and I have no time and no interest to evaluate them. Even with you. As I said, these were ideas generated... many (like this one) may turn out to be silly... but it's not our job to write a parliamentary paper having thought through everything. I am already teaching stuff the school should be teaching. I am not gonna go into a white paper evaluation exercise on the relative merits of all the suggestions raised in this thread.
Let MOE do that. -
insider:
So when you dish out advice to newer parents in this forum about MUST PRE-TEACH 3 / 6 months in order to do well, so that kids will not get 'hurt', etc, you may want to know the expectations of the said parent first coz if hers is an above 250, then pre-teach maybe necessary. If her aim is to have a good-enough-pass of 210, then can sit back and relax a bit and smell roses...
I don't need to know each parent's situation to share that I intend to pre-teach. Parents can choose, no? See below, what I actually wrote.chenonceau:
That is why, it is important to alert parents that failing in P5 is normal... and let them know that they can pre-teach... or they can tell their kids it is normal. It is for parents to choose based on the character of their child.
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Whether to be relaxed about results is dependent on the child and what we, as parents, aspire for our child. Some children need a shock to work hard. Others are devastated and give up totally. Some parents are happy if their child have an ITE cert while others pin their hope on their child winning a scholarship and studying in top universities. Well, different strokes for different folks.
For Chenonceau and other parents, my suggestion is to write to the PM since he was the one who first talked about TLLM. He should hear from the affected parents how their children are coping. It’s going to be more productive and something can be done to help your children before their PSLE. Something is definitely not right if a child results slip from the 90s to a fail. I’ve a nephew in P5 this year. His grades for Maths had also dropped from the 90s. But he is scoring in the 80s. The difference, however, is that this time, there are questions he didn’t know how to do, not like previously where marks lost was due to carelessness. There is definitely a gap between what is taught and what is tested. He had no time to go for tuition because school activities last till the late afternoons on most days and has lots of homework to be done after he gets home.
Having said that, I’m not sure if this is something new. This had happened during my daughter’s time (which is around the time of insider’s children and Chenonceau’s daughter). Textbooks weren’t exactly useful at that time too. Even before TLLM, 1 of my friends was telling me how her daughter’s kindergarten teacher told them off for not teaching their girl how to read. And they thought they sent her to school to learn that.
There’s definitely a point to be made for children whose parents are unable to help and cannot afford to pay for tuition. Even for those who can, the amount of activities after school is making it impossible to schedule any. Even with TLLM at its best, the children just don’t have the time and space to explore what is taught in order to learn more on their own. -
insider:
Sigh! You really dun seem very hahaha to me despite your saying that about your life philosophy. Alright then... the \"again\" is deleted. The IEP (whatever that is) is a silly idea.
You have switched focus again? Were you not talking about demanding A and A* from our kids - and therein lies our difference? Now, you are talking about our demands of teachers?
It is not the same thing, you know.
I don't mind ceding these points at all. Is that alright for you? -
insider:
MummythreeStreams appear to me as a relatively new comer in this forum. She seems to be quite a 'relaxing' person seeking response from this thread 'innocently'.
This was your reply to her. You may mean well but may also unnecessary anxiety / fear into parents like her; something which I am thinking of 'moderating':Chenonceau:
Oh sigh! If you really want, I can apologise to MummyThreeStreams. And I also apologise for causing fear to other clueless parents. It was not my intention.If your kid can master P1, dun hesitate to push ahead. I learnt my hard lesson this year. Pre-teaching is necessary if you dun want a demoralized little boy who cries into his pillow.
We were just a bunch of stressed out people venting and hoping that others dun have to go through our stress. -
Shall we get back to the discussion?
I was looking forward to return to this thread after being so bz the whole day! :celebrate:
Some thoughts that r swimming in my head (oh, how stimulating 4 me! :love:
Using a framework, I'm looking at this issue from 3 broad levels & would like to throw these up for discussions:
1) Macro Policy:
a) Why TLLM in the 1st place? What is it trying to address?
b) Anything really went \"wrong\" w TLLM? Have we given it enough time to take effect? Is there any execution error?
c) How can the policy b refined?
d) Should we bother to refine it in the 1st place?
2) Socio-psychology impact on society:
a) Reactions of various stakeholders (schools, teachers, students, parents, external educators etc).
3) Possible stratagies & approaches to address gaps of TMLL (how to cope, not mutually exclusive - pick & match 2 suit kids & parents):
These r some preliminaries, off my head. Feel free to add/subtract & discuss!
Now, let me rest & gather my exhausted thoughts 1st....
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Chenonceau:
Oh sigh! If you really want, I can apologise to MummyThreeStreams. And I also apologise for causing fear to other clueless parents. It was not my intention.
MummythreeStreams appear to me as a relatively new comer in this forum. She seems to be quite a 'relaxing' person seeking response from this thread 'innocently'.insider:
[quote=\"Chenonceau\"]
I don't need to know each parent's situation to share that I intend to pre-teach. Parents can choose, no? See below, what I actually wrote.
This was your reply to her. You may mean well but may also unnecessary anxiety / fear into parents like her; something which I am thinking of 'moderating':Chenonceau:
If your kid can master P1, dun hesitate to push ahead. I learnt my hard lesson this year. Pre-teaching is necessary if you dun want a demoralized little boy who cries into his pillow.
We were just a bunch of stressed out people venting and hoping that others dun have to go through our stress.[/quote]oh, come now. There is really no need to apologise for airing your views. This forum exists purely for parents to share their personal views. Your views could be a shared sentiment of the majority of the parents here or it could be a minority view. It doesn't matter.
The point is to share it and if it resonates with another parent, and if that parent decides to try out your suggestions, well and good, but that parent is fully responsible for acting on your views.
People are mature enough to filter through the information and evaluate for themselves if it is appropriate for them, given their unique environment and personal beliefs.
For what's it's worth, I do resonate with your views. I pre teach my child as well. I do it during the holidays as during term time, there is just not enough time to focus on his weak areas. What with homework, CCA activities, reading, play, etc.. there is insufficient time to give due diligence to the child's weaker areas. Pre teaching gives the child a longer time to assimilate a difficult topic, and thus gives the brain a better chance to get the concepts into the long term memory.
Do continue to give your views and express them freely. If one were to consider the myraid implications of one's views before writing a post, this forum would not be as rich and lively as it is today.
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