Real reason behind Singapore’s obsession with tuition

[verykiasu2010]

jedamum:

kids who pay attention do not mean they understand what is taught or how to apply what is taught. Kids who know their work do not mean they pay attention in class too. Week after week, we have list of inquiries on stuff we revised through the week n who do we approach if we do not have tutor? Yes, we can approach teachers but after a few times n especially if teacher is busy, won't the teacher feel a bit irritated? It is not easy to catch a teacher's free time to go thru the doubts we need to clarify.

Luckily this day n age, can rely on helpful souls here at KSP.

my ds2 is like your dd! Feedback
from his teachers. then he said he is monitor n they not paying attention so he must report! N he insisted he knew what teacher was teaching.

why should the teacher feel irritated ? if the teacher does not want to feel irritated, then be easily available ..... there are ways / 'tricks' to manage such kind of teachers

[verykiasu2010]

limlim:

jedamum:

We have always impressed upon my boy to approach the teacher to clarify his doubts. Then feedback we get from teacher is he should have been more attentive. So now kids r judged when they asked questions in class when they not sure huh?

my experience is a little different..

Sometimes, my kid may not catch what the teacher is saying due to weak foundation in English. So I told them to just raise hand to ask the teacher to repeat, or spell it out so that she can copy it down.

But the teacher sometimes just ignore their request.

So I told her, after class end, go and ask the teacher again. Just to take down what she said earlier. But she told me that once the bell ring the teacher run off very fast, that she didn't even get a chance to ask...............

follow all the way to staff room, or go with a few friends to ask questions during recess ....

[verykiasu2010]

janet_lee88:

BeContented:

Dunno never mind. Go home ask your tutor explain again. So cannot say teacher never teach, sometimes students also never bother to ask them to explain again.

My son tells me, 'When I do not understand what the teacher teaches, I ask my tutor.' he said the tutor gives a better explanation. I am worried when I hear that.

then you must tell your son to ask the teacher and not rely on tutor and you are going to stop paying the tutor

if you have given the undertaking to your son that the tutor is the fall back, he will jolly well play with his friends and don't pay attention ..... after all there is always the tutor to explain ..... teacher no good ....

you may have unintentionally reinforced the tuition-dependent mentality in your son

[BeContented]

verykiasu2010:

BeContented:

DD is 'chairman' of class .....so often like to 'report' to me who & who & who & who & who & who is talking, giggling, not paying attention, reading storybooks under table while teacher teaching, drawing, doing other work etc etc etc etc....until I she would stop. Then I realised.....what the heck is she doing while Teacher is teaching???

I think your DD got it wrong. When teacher is in class, it is teacher's responsibility to control the class, not her duty to note who is talking etc etc ... her duty is to pay attention to what the teacher is teaching.

Sorry.....think I'm not clear enough.
DD not required to perform her 'chairman' role when teachers are around.....I'm just saying that she is soooooo kapo that instead of paying attention to the teacher in class, she watch her classmates skive...... :slapshead:
That's why she always kena from me instead when she dare complain too much :rotflmao:

[Funz]

There are all kinds of teachers out there. We just have to remember that their role is to teach, so there is nothing wrong with our kids asking them to explain and explain again. Sometimes we project our own reservations on them. The teachers do not find it irritating nor do they judge that easily. We think that they do and as such we do not press on with our questions.


There are all sorts of teachers. Those who are ever ready to answer the kids questions and those who think that their 45mins in class is all they need to give the kids.

DD and DS are in different schools. I can see the difference in the culture of communication in their schools. In DD’s school, communication is open. Teachers email us constantly of the things done in school. I have even received smses from DD’s teachers. Her Higher Chinese teacher even called me personally as she was concerned about DD’s reaction when she got her results for a test. When I had problems trying to get DD to understand certain concepts covered in school, I emailed her math teacher and the teacher went through the concepts again in class the following day and reverted with an email with pointers on how to guide dd on such questions. I did not feel any need to go for any PTCs with DD as information was prompt and we were kept up to date about stuff happening in school. With DS however, I felt the need to meet his teachers just to know how he is faring.

With DS’s teachers, the communication is usually initiated by me. And email no use, I gotta keep calling the school to try to get hold of his teacher. But are his teachers teaching? So far, yes. Does DS say stuff like teacher never teach? Yes also. But when I go through the stuff with him again, he will suddenly go oh yah, teacher did cover this. I forgot or I did not realise this was what was taught the other day.

Oh, another difference, DD has a different teacher for each different subject. Whereas DS form teacher, bao gao liao, English, Math, Art, Music and Misc.

So needless to say, if I were to benchmark DS’s teachers with DD’s teachers, DS’s teachers will fall short.

[LOLMum]

BeContented:

verykiasu2010:

I think your DD got it wrong. When teacher is in class, it is teacher's responsibility to control the class, not her duty to note who is talking etc etc ... her duty is to pay attention to what the teacher is teaching.

Sorry.....think I'm not clear enough.
DD not required to perform her 'chairman' role when teachers are around.....I'm just saying that she is soooooo kapo that instead of paying attention to the teacher in class, she watch her classmates skive...... :slapshead:
That's why she always kena from me instead when she dare complain too much :rotflmao:

your dd need this periscope ... :rotflmao:

http://i49.tinypic.com/v82z9c.jpg\">

[verykiasu2010]

Funz:

There are all kinds of teachers out there. We just have to remember that their role is to teach, so there is nothing wrong with our kids asking them to explain and explain again. Sometimes we project our own reservations on them. The teachers do not find it irritating nor do they judge that easily. We think that they do and as such we do not press on with our questions.


There are all sorts of teachers. Those who are ever ready to answer the kids questions and those who think that their 45mins in class is all they need to give the kids.

DD and DS are in different schools. I can see the difference in the culture of communication in their schools. In DD's school, communication is open. Teachers email us constantly of the things done in school. I have even received smses from DD's teachers. Her Higher Chinese teacher even called me personally as she was concerned about DD's reaction when she got her results for a test. When I had problems trying to get DD to understand certain concepts covered in school, I emailed her math teacher and the teacher went through the concepts again in class the following day and reverted with an email with pointers on how to guide dd on such questions. I did not feel any need to go for any PTCs with DD as information was prompt and we were kept up to date about stuff happening in school. With DS however, I felt the need to meet his teachers just to know how he is faring.

With DS's teachers, the communication is usually initiated by me. And email no use, I gotta keep calling the school to try to get hold of his teacher. But are his teachers teaching? So far, yes. Does DS say stuff like teacher never teach? Yes also. But when I go through the stuff with him again, he will suddenly go oh yah, teacher did cover this. I forgot or I did not realise this was what was taught the other day.

Oh, another difference, DD has a different teacher for each different subject. Whereas DS form teacher, bao gao liao, English, Math, Art, Music and Misc.

So needless to say, if I were to benchmark DS's teachers with DD's teachers, DS's teachers will fall short.

:goodpost: :goodpost:

save me the trouble of saying the same thing

[Funz]

janet_lee88:

BeContented:

Dunno never mind. Go home ask your tutor explain again. So cannot say teacher never teach, sometimes students also never bother to ask them to explain again.

My son tells me, 'When I do not understand what the teacher teaches, I ask my tutor.' he said the tutor gives a better explanation. I am worried when I hear that.

When he said that, has he given the teacher a chance to find a better way to explain to him? His tutor is coaching him 1-1 thus the tutor has the advantage of being able to guage your son's understanding and adjust his explanation accordingly.

And because your son knows he has this avenue, he may tune out the moment he is unable to grasp what the teacher is teaching.

I am sayin MAY hor, not that he definitely did.

[janet88]

Hi Funz,

When he asked for further explanation, teacher felt he didn’t listen and as such teacher had to repeat. My guess is, he had depended on tutor to pass his exams last year and up till now, his tutors are the still ones bringing him up to mark. So he is confident…but dependent on them. Again, I am not blaming his teachers but guess they are stressed and pressurized by other non-teaching. Come secondary school, he doesn’t have luxury of tutors. So I hope he will get teachers whom he can depend on.

[tutormum]

janet_lee88:

Hi Funz,

When he asked for further explanation, teacher felt he didn't listen and as such teacher had to repeat. My guess is, he had depended on tutor to pass his exams last year and up till now, his tutors are the still ones bringing him up to mark. So he is confident...but dependent on them. Again, I am not blaming his teachers but guess they are stressed and pressurized by other non-teaching. Come secondary school, he doesn't have luxury of tutors. So I hope he will get teachers whom he can depend on.

I've taught 1 to 1 and different class sizes up to <20 so far and to be fair to the teachers, there is a huge difference and it's near impossible to teach in a large class let alone ensure every student understands. For 1 to 1 tuition, the child has no choice but to pay full attention cos the tutor's eyes are fixed on him. Tutor caters the lessons to his ability and understanding having the leisure to enable that concepts are well taught. For students in a huge class, they know that they can :siam: teacher's eyes. The moment I turn my back, all except a few guai guai ones, will be up to their nonsense. Try getting the attention of a class of 40 while 35 of them are talking among themselves. :stupid: :slapshead: Usually I will be very exhausted after taking 2 noisy classes in a row. Half the time you have to maintain class discipline while the other half try to teach and ensure that they are able to hear you. I have many instances where a student sitting at the back of the class answering a question and the peer sitting in front of him claimed that he didn't hear it while the one sitting in front of class did -obvious case of not paying attention. Of course a teacher has to conjure various methods to engage the students and teach effectively. Having said that, it is also not good for a class to be too quiet. I've a class of students who don't even respond at all. They just guai guai listen and seem to agree 100% to what you say. Don't know whether they understand or not. :slapshead: Their results are fantastic which means they are actually very attentive and a dream class to teach. Their English teacher :frustrated: cos it's not good for them to be too quiet esp when learning languages. For the past 3 years, I've been trying to pry open their mouths to find out what's going on in their heads. :faint: