Real reason behind Singapore’s obsession with tuition
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verykiasu2010:
Agree. On all points too! :celebrate:
:goodpost: :goodpost: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.
save me the trouble of saying the same thing
VERY VERY :goodpost: Funz.
In our case we don't have to even go as far as to narrow it down to two different schools.. Teachers in both my DD's levels are already different. Especially last year. I have both the form teachers' mobile numbers, email address and we also communicate via pupil diary. DD1's teacher can call me anytime to inform or update me any anything and she does so consistently.
DD2's teachers will only do likewise if I were the one who initiated first. However all the teachers reply very promptly and in detail. As to doubts on school assignments or subject concepts, teachers recap all the time every day before any new lessons are taught and yes, they readily repeat previous concepts that some children may need help in or if she receives feedback on parents that the children need certain concepts to be covered again.
This, done with over 40 in both DDs classes.
They have different teachers for every subject. We enjoy good open communication with all of them. They are generous with extra notes they've personally done up & compiled or extras from other resources they own and to date they have never turned down requests from us (parents) or our children anytime we/they require clarifications.
They give exam preps in advance down to even show n tell, listening compre and even compo. Show n tell is practiced by rotation and with different topics for different groups of children each week to expose them to more topics. Listening compre done with teachers reading n personalized wksheets, their listening compre books and agn extras from their own resources. As for compo, teacher will teach children how to edit their writings effectively, give tips on what it takes to score better and children are given a host of creative writing phrases plus individual and group compo practices.
Tuition especially 1-1 sessions are effective for children as the need to focus is there, not many opportunities to daydream. Tuition caters to children of differing needs. There is actually no one-reason for tuition. I've had students who come for individual coaching due to varying needs. From a hyper-active child who has a great teacher but he just has short attention span and really requires repeat telecasts from school.. To children with mild autism and downs syndrome who need help to boost their language skills to help them integrate better with mainstream education and children.. To just the typical kiasu children or parents. Yup, I have kids who just say they wanna be better than so n so or wanna top the class/school so they request for extras from their parents and down also to overly kiasu parents who want their kids to top everything even though they're already doing very well.. in which case every single mark/score matters greatly.
Due to the reality that nothing can be one-way to fix-all, the abolishment of tuition or even proposals to cease it are of short-sighted vision. Cutting the rope entirely will not solve the issue. Whether or not ppl agree to tuition, the obsession or not doesn't just stem from the blanket sweep of under-performing teachers because while there will always be teachers who CMI (cannot make it) there are many dedicated and passionate teachers too; and many/at times their work is under-appreciated.
Please lah.. there are black sheeps everywhere in every other industry. It's not exclusive to the people in the teaching profession. Quality variance is inevitable. But if there are genuine cases of CMI teachers, they should be brought to task... A case by case situation to look into.. ie. the respective teacher ...and not pin the fault entirely to the school in itself or MOE (as a whole). -
Funz:
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.
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.janet_lee88:
[quote=\"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.
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.[/quote]I think Janet held out for very long last year in P5 before giving her son a Tutor this year in P6. He would have had all of P5 to try and connect with his Teacher. -
buds:
I would beg to differ. I think there can be systemic solutions to shore up overall quality in every school.
Please lah.. there are black sheeps everywhere in every other industry. It's not exclusive to the people in the teaching profession. Quality variance is inevitable. But if there are genuine cases of CMI teachers, they should be brought to task... A case by case situation to look into.. ie. the respective teacher ...and not pin the fault entirely to the school in itself or MOE (as a whole).
Better textbooks are one way to decrease variance in quality across schools. It isn't the only way though. This is a systemic solution that can decrease variance in education delivered. A central online repository of Teaching materials too can help bring down variance.
Right now... everything needs to come THROUGH Teachers. The system has no redundancy. It gives full play to human inconsistency by depending entirely on Teachers to teach because textbooks aren't enough to learn with... and notes are again Teacher dependent. The moment you have a poor Teacher (who isn't able or willing to write notes) or you have a school (which does not have the habit of gathering Teachers together to produce materials for all Teachers to use)... too bad for you. You can't even study from textbooks to make up for Teacher incompetence... or poor school management. Can only switch schools. So no wonder people queue up and volunteer at supposedly good schools (and yes... some branded schools are very bad indeed).
And what about learning styles then? Some children learn well through their eyes. Teacher delivery goes through the auditory channel mostly. Kids who learn best through reading can miss a lot... Better textbooks can help many kids already without parents having to complain about Teachers (and notwithstanding the fact that comprehensive textbooks aren't enough... Teachers are necessary because yet other kids learn through their ears). Teachers themselves also will be helped by better textbooks.
I still think that every human-driven industry from restaurants to hotels to fast foods... is subject to variance. However, many organisations make it a priority to try can temper that variance in other ways. Specific to MOE, a good way to temper variance is to have better textbooks.
I think it's not all about bad Teachers. Good organisations can get good performance out of average and poor Teachers. Good textbooks can help bad Teachers teach... and allow good students to learn independently. -
J and J:
My DS' school also has Teachers teaching 2 or 3 subjects to the same class. Again, variance in delivery of education. What's wrong with setting policy stating that in view of the more challenging syllabus, Teachers should be subject specific across all schools.
Wonder if you can share which school your DD is studying and which level that her class has differenct teacher for each different subject?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.
I did propose to my child's school to have different teacher for each different subject. As his form teacher always absent from school with various reasons like training, MC, CCA competition, CCL... During his form teacher's absence, the class was given worksheets to do in the class by the relief teacher. No teaching at all for all subjects except the mother tongue. That's why I proposed different teacher for each different subject to the school so that the impact on the class can be minimised, not for all subjects, but the prinicpal told me that no school can afford to do this in sg. If your DD school can do that, why they can't....
Ah yes... constraints. -
tutormum:
Yes... I agree. A class of 20 and a class of 40 are different beings. A consistent policy for smaller classes... is another systemic solution to help Teachers teach. Smaller classes make it possible for Teachers to really help students (with the skills heavy syllabus) and then Teachers feel the joy in actually succeeding. This starts a virtuous cycle where poor and demoralized Teachers can feel good about what they're doing... and from there feel motivated to put in effort... and perform better.
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.
So why not smaller classes... ah yes again, constraints. -
It disturbs me to lay all the blame on the shoulders of individual Teachers… or to judge this Teacher good and the other bad… There are poor performers in every organisation. Some organisations sack them. Other organisations help them by tightening other mechanisms (think textbooks, Teacher sharing database, subject specific teaching and smaller classes).
My DS’ has an awful English Teacher but when I came to know her personal story… I pity her more than I blame her.
Also with new technology, classes can be recorded. At the university, some of my classes are recorded for audit purposes. People are creating bite-sized video lectures for student reference. If I wanted to (and the university encourages it), I can actually start a blog and upload videoclips explaining such and such a concept. When students don’t understand what I have explained, I can flick them the link to the blogpost with password. If MOE did an exercise where they delegated to each Teacher in the nation to generate one clip each… and someone categorised and made these resources easy to search, then it would make life a bit easier for every Teacher in the nation because the students will already have a wealth of resources to learn independently from. When you have other channels to help kids learn that automatically lightens the load off Teachers.
This isn’t difficult to do. Children nowadays can make youtube videos.
All this will even out variance and take the pressure of individual Teachers. Of course, some will say that the really lousy Teachers should be dealt with. Nonetheless, before we come in and judge Teachers (as a group or as individuals), it may be good to look at what OTHER mechanisms can be put in place to help them teach better and faster and more effectively. -
Please don’t get me wrong. I am not down to pinpointing at individual teachers. I put my 2 cents worth here cos I feel that the tone has been one that screams all teachers don’t teach hence we need tuition. And all the good results are a result of tuition not schools.
Chen brought up many very very valid points like a need for better text, for some semblance of uniformity in some areas across all schools, testing within standard, etc. But these get drowned out by TEACHERS DON’T TEACH, TUTORS DO. SO TUITION IS THE ANSWER!
Constraints, definitely there are. There are real constraints and perceived constraints. We need to knock down perceived constraints, recognise the real constraints and work around them.
MOE made some changes to the way things are taught. On paper, it looks wonderful. But execution is a b!tch. Take STELLAR. I love it coming from DD’s school, I worry about it coming from DS’s school. The materials are all the same, the delivery is very very different.
The teach less learn more initiative is good. But in my myopic view only 1/2 a plan was executed that is why it is falling flat. They want to get children to observe, discover, predict, infer, reflect, deduce as such the knowledge acquired will be more in depth. But they forget that ultimately, the kids are sitting for an exam that is designed based on drilling and rote learning, even the open ended questions are answered via a very rote method. How to balance the 2? If they dare, bite the bullet and do away with PSLE?
Darn lost my train of thoughts. Kids hounding me. -
jedamum:
My friend's kid from a SAP school asked his teacher whenever he can't understand,the teacher asked him to ask his parents or tutors :slapshead:
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?SAHM_TAN:
The teachers don't need to be depressed.
I will ask dd1 to ask in such cases to ask the teacher again and to tell her she didn't understand the explanation, could she explain it in another way.
I don't know if dd1 will have a chance to ask a 2nd time, I will have to wait and see. -
Funz:
Thank you my love... :snuggles: ... for writing a post to integrate differences.Please don't get me wrong. I am not down to pinpointing at individual teachers. I put my 2 cents worth here cos I feel that the tone has been one that screams all teachers don't teach hence we need tuition. And all the good results are a result of tuition not schools.
Chen brought up many very very valid points like a need for better text, for some semblance of uniformity in some areas across all schools, testing within standard, etc. But these get drowned out by TEACHERS DON'T TEACH, TUTORS DO. SO TUITION IS THE ANSWER!
Constraints, definitely there are. There are real constraints and perceived constraints. We need to knock down perceived constraints, recognise the real constraints and work around them.
MOE made some changes to the way things are taught. On paper, it looks wonderful. But execution is a b!tch. Take STELLAR. I love it coming from DD's school, I worry about it coming from DS's school. The materials are all the same, the delivery is very very different.
The teach less learn more initiative is good. But in my myopic view only 1/2 a plan was executed that is why it is falling flat. They want to get children to observe, discover, predict, infer, reflect, deduce as such the knowledge acquired will be more in depth. But they forget that ultimately, the kids are sitting for an exam that is designed based on drilling and rote learning, even the open ended questions are answered via a very rote method. How to balance the 2? If they dare, bite the bullet and do away with PSLE?
Darn lost my train of thoughts. Kids hounding me. -
Hubby and I held out for 5 years before giving son tuition for Math last year. He has CL tuition since P1. This year, we went ALL THE WAY…thank goodness we did bcos I don’t have a good feel that school can prepare my son adequately for PSLE.
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