Your kid must have tuition... OR ELSE...
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Hi
I feel that it is okay for parents to sent the kids for tuition. Not all kids are able to absorb what has been taught in school. If the parents are able to help out their child, so much the better. But some parents might not have the skills, the time or the patience, should rather resort to tuition or enrichment centre.
Primary school syllabus back in the 80s are not as tough as what our children are going through now. Nothing is more frustrating for a child who is eager to learn but are handicap as there is not enough help or guidance for them to fall on.
I did not attend tuition when I was growing up but I remember when I need help, I call up friends to walk through me how to solve a math problem. For a child who is weak in a certain subject and has no where to turn to, they will end up afraid of going to school & hating the subject.
What I dont support is sending kids to tuition or enrichment centre when their kids are already doing okay in the subject. -
EN:
...What I dont support is sending kids to tuition or enrichment centre when their kids are already doing okay in the subject.
Ditto EN. But in http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/content/what-your-main-reason-sending-your-children-academic-enrichment-classes, it seems like a number of parents send their kids to enrichment classes to prepare students ahead of time before the actual lessons. Does that not mean their children were already doing okay before the enrichment? -
ChiefKiasu:
EN said he/she doesn't support the idea of sending kids to tuition or enrichment when the kid is doing ok, while the poll stated above reflects what kiasu parents has been doing, ie to P1 preparatory. Conclusion, EN is not kiasu.
Ditto EN. But in http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/content/what-your-main-reason-sending-your-children-academic-enrichment-classes, it seems like a number of parents send their kids to enrichment classes to prepare students ahead of time before the actual lessons. Does that not mean their children were already doing okay before the enrichment?
But seriously, I think many parents choose to prepare kid ahead of time is cos of the fear of unknown...especially for those parents with first time P1 goers. Other than that, some may feel that it helps to let the kid know stuff earlier so that when it is been taught in class, they can treat that as a revision....at least that is what i am thinking.
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ChiefKiasu wrote:
[quote]Ditto EN. But in an earlier poll, it seems like a number of parents send their kids to enrichment classes to prepare students ahead of time before the actual lessons. Does that not mean their children were already doing okay before the enrichment?[/quote]I think majority of the parents are anxious to ensure that their child is able to settle nicely in P1 thus creating a positive attitude in the child liking to go to school. Nothing feels worst if the kids are belittled by friends and nit pick by teacher.
However, as the child grows older & the number of subjects increases from two to 10/12 (not sure what is the max number of subjects in secondary school), I don't think enrichment & tuition is feasible (due to time & $) unless the parents just address those subjects that their children are weak at. In the long run, kids heavily dependent on tuition & enrichment will lose out as they are not geared towards motivated learning.
What we need to ensure is to make our kids a motivated learner, who when faced with adversity in life, will still be able to continue and find ways and means to help themselves. -
Jedamum, I’m a mummy so you can use the word "she".
I’m not kiasu just very sensitive to my kids need. Just bought my son science kit for 50 experiments. He is in P1 & I am not preparing him for P3 and beyond. No tuition but parental advisory is needed. -
ChiefKiasu:
Hi ChiefKiasu, I personally feel that, the responsibility of the school teachers is to teach our children and the responisbility of our children is to pay attention and learn. If the children do not understand, it is both the responsibilites of the teachers and children to co-ordinate and come out a plan to make sure the children understand. I don't want my child to think that with a tuition teacher, she can rely on him/her to help her solve the problem, which I feel most children would have that thinking because no matter how, they are still children. I don't want her to start developing this type of attituite from young. We could spend 1 hour on a P5 Math question, some people might think its not productive, wasting the precious time but to me, the process of learning, making mistakes, knowing the mistakes are more important.
However, may I ask why you feel so strongly against tuition? In several cases, parents may not be best equipped with the know-how to teach their children certain subjects eg. I teach my son math and science while my wife takes the languages. We engage a Chinese tutor for him because both of us are rather weak in that area. And when I teach math, I find the syllabus has changed so much that I find myself struggling to explain concepts and at times I'm not even sure if I'm teaching the correct technique. The good thing is, of course, we get to understand how difficult it all is for our children first hand.
I also faced the same problem you have on Math. However I realised that as we go through the problems together, most of the time, she was the one who get to figure out the solution, not me. Of course, in the beginning, we had gone through a hard time. Finally she got to understand, the most rewarding part was she got to figure out the methods of solving and getting the answer herself.
In P6, the teacher would arrange their group by mixing weak students with the good ones to help each other. Fortunately, they have good team work and she improves a lot with help of those Math wizard and vice versus. Once the teacher spotted her improvement, she would rotate the children again. Not only the children results improved, their bonding becomes very strong and all the classmates get along with each other very well.
In the adult world, I have seen peoples that can pick up a book and learn the skill themselves, there are also many peoples that need to sign up courses for even some very simple topics. There are peoples who even you sit down beside them to coach them, they also won't understand. I prefer my child to grow up to be the type whom can learn a skill by picking up a book, google through internet, from newspapers, thru conversation with friends and not spoon feeding. I hope I can achieve that by starting her young. -
ChiefKiasu:
Ditto EN. But in http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/content/what-your-main-reason-sending-your-children-academic-enrichment-classes, it seems like a number of parents send their kids to enrichment classes to prepare students ahead of time before the actual lessons. Does that not mean their children were already doing okay before the enrichment?
If the children have been prepared ahead of time, when they attend the actual lessons in school, they would feel very bored of learning the same thing again. At least for adults, we would tell ourselves to treat it as revision but children won't think that way. -
I fully agree with mumwgal about soft/life skills and do research from reading. These are the skills our children need and not just academic results.
Ocassionally, I would have cascual debates with my child on certain life issue, eg. buying sportsmen, Singaporean and Singapore Citizen … When I saw interesting newspaper articles, I would tell her to read and discuss.
In school, I see they are having many presentations and acting out. Eg. Acting out the Mas Selmat escape scene in a fun way, presentation on certain Science topics. During the last week, before Prelim, the teachers played many games with them in class and I think the objective was to let them relax. -
Hi I am envious of all you out there who have kids who can research on their own . If my kids are independant learners or become one eventually, I will take away all their tution and save lots of money but sadly, my 2 boys are not mature. Getting them to read newspaper means I have to assigned articles to read. Otherwise it is still "boooorrring"
At their age Pokemaon, Monster buster club, Ben Ten are subjects they can score A+++.
Even when they attend enrichment for Chinese and English, my hubby and I are still very much hands on in their learning process but hey in the process, I am learning too cos the standard now is High! -
KSmama,
You are not the only one with this - I’m finding it so with my boy as well. You know, my fren would tell me "This is a BOY thing…they are not so matured now, but they will outgrow that when they are older". I’ve been waiting for that maturity for sooooooo…lonnnnng…
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