Your kid must have tuition... OR ELSE...
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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… -
Pen88n:
I don't believe in the \"maturity\" thing. I think it is a question of finding the right lever, and this can be done at any time. Everyone has a lever, which, when activated, will make us do wonderful things out of our own volition.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.......
My P3 boy hates Chinese. But he has suddenly gotten an interest in the 3 Kingdoms through some old xbox games. I bought him a comic book with both Chinese and English translation and that quickly became his favorite book, torn and tattered and usual, but this time really well thumbed as would happen to the books he love. He knows the whole history and the main characters during the period much better than me now. He uses Wikipedia to find out more by himself. He was also able to relate the various idioms and sayings related to the period with ease, IN CHINESE, like Cao Cao's audacious 宁教我負天下人，休教天下人負我. Nobody told him to read or memorize anything.
I wrongly called Zhao Zi Long as \"Zhou Yu\" and he corrected me that it should be Zhao Yun. To capitalize on this, I'm going to start looking for more materials, this time in Chinese only, relating to the 3 Kingdoms in the hope that he will pick them up to read by himself out of interest. Hopefully this could be the start of the self-learning process.
Fingers crossed.
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daisyt:
I totally agree. I don't understand why teachers can ask the parents to look for tuition teachers. If I were the teacher, I would feel bad about it, because that shows that I am not doing a good job.
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 am not against tuition. I used to work as a tuition teacher and made a lot of money hahaha But I feel that it should be solely the parents' decision on whether to get a tuition teacher for the child or not. The teacher should not give any comments on whether tuition teacher is needed.
A good school should have remedial lessons to help the weaker students catch up. A good school teacher should even give one to one coaching if a student is really very weak.daisyt:
In my previous job as a software engineer, the company expect me to learn a whole new programming language on my own, no courses given. There are also no one I can refer to, because no one else knows that language. I manage to learn not through books, but simply through Google. There is an immense amount of knowledge in the internet. If we expect our children to become professionals, they will also need to know how to learn on their own. Not unless they become production operators where step by step training are given.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.
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ChiefKiasu:
Yes...my husband's O-level results for Chinese is unmentionable and he even skipped his literature paper. He doesn't like to read at all and yet will willing chew down a thick volume of San Guo (in 'fan ti zhi' somemore) and spout 'chem' chinese idioms (or whatever you call it) like above. :roll:
IN CHINESE, like Cao Cao's audacious 宁教我負天下人，休教天下人負我. Nobody told him to read or memorize anything.
The beauty of computer games.... :lol: -
That is why I will end up in the bookshops and going through different genre of books to hopefully hit the jackpot and get my kids interested. We provide the exposure and hope to stimulate some spark of interest.
Kids go through phases of interest. They will research on things they are interested in on the net but in my case it is Pokemon etc... they know all the intricacies of each character....and their evolution :roll:
As for excessive tuition, our education system and pressure... Well I have told some friends before, we live in a society with pressure, of different kinds in each stage of our lives. What is important is how to impart my kids with the ability to deal with pressure and minimize its impact. They have to know how to play hard( which they are very good at) and work hard( which I am trying to make them be good at). All these hopefully in a supportive environment at home. There will be challenges but they should know that there are mummy and daddy to fall back on to refill their emotional tanks. My hub and I, of course, have to make sure we are up to mark ourselves and I have to admit can be soooo... difficult with our own work and obligations and feeling tired at the end of the day. But it helps to mirror each other and remind each other. -
ChiefKiasu wrote[quote] don't believe in the \"maturity\" thing. I think it is a question of finding the right lever, and this can be done at any time. Everyone has a lever, which, when activated, will make us do wonderful things out of our own volition.[/quote]
I agree. However, the next question is, how do we sustain that level of motivation.
I've been spending my nights after work (Aussie hour which ends at 3.30 pm) teaching my kids since they are young. I've then change my job which involved taking night teleconference which disrupt my kids study time with me. Since it has been a habit that come 8 pm is studying time, they automatically sit at the dining table & go through their work. Any questions that they can't attempt, they will wait until I finish my calls.
Do they have tuition teacher or enrichment classes? My daughter does. She has not reached the stage of self study yet but there is some feeble attempt. My son, at the moment don't need one. Maybe he will need one when he is in upper primary. Only time will tell.
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