GCE debate rages as study shows UK kid's maths woes

[oxyleo]

optimistforum:

BeContented:

I have 2 kids & I try to feed them equal amount of food daily. Each has 30 mins of meal time & 30 mins of playtime.


The boy eats well & fast, finish his food in 15mins & has extra playtime & in between ask for more food.

The gal has difficulty eating fast, nibbles at her food & often unable to finish in 30mins time, feels full too. What would u do?
- give her extra time to eat by taking away playtime?
- reduce her food portion?
- force-feed her & make her dread mealtime?

Options 1 and 3 work for me.

Yup, 1 and 3 sound extremely logical. Definitely not reducing her food portion.

I am fortunate to not experience this because my son happens to be a foodie, and I have in fact quite the opposite situation. I need to tell him not to eat so much.

Rest assured that I do not disbelieve your experience just because I do not have a child that has a difficulty at eating time.

[BeContented]

3Boys:

oxyleo:

I understand that it is exasperating to not be able to convince people to hold the same view as you, but as someone corresponding with you on this a forum, I do think it necessary to convey to you that your judgement on my friends' stories as exaggerated are exceedingly audacious. Even my own mother stopped doing so when I celebrated adulthood, and my husband knows better than to pronounce judgment on my friends' credibility. Thank you very much. That is a basic respect that individuals accord to each other. It is more serious than you know if you are not even aware of what you are doing.

Back to your other points. Regardless of what sorts of parents we have in the system, logical or otherwise, too proud or otherwise, too kiasu or otherwise, we need to encourage that our ministries do the right thing. And I would give our ministries more credit than that. What we think is not solvable, may actually be possible. They are the experts, right? Are we being audacious here again to presume they cannot fix things?

Yes, you have gathered correctly that I support streaming and high standards, but I do not support boxing children in. No, I do not mean equal access to information and material means i expect it produces equal outcomes, I think it is only fair to allow children access to what's out there, what they will be judged on in their educational journey. Having less material for children who seem to not catch up from p1 or p2 is an assumption in itself that they cannot ever catch up. And that cannot be right for any child.

Take dyslexia. Dyslexic children have difficulty reading, we all know that. But can dyslexic children read? Of course they can. A mother of 2 dyslexic children told me the only solution to help them get up to speed is to make them read 20-30 times more than a normal kid with no difficulties. They do read eventually. I volunteer with the Reading Program in my son's school, and we have seen a few dyslexic children blossom. Do we let them read even less because they can't. To the contrary, no. We make them read even more.
Does the dyslexic child's mother ever expect her child to read as well as other normal children? No. But is she going to deny him the opportunity to read more? No. In that same token, should we be teaching children streamed into the last classes less, or should we make them practice more, drill more? Ad once they are up to speed, move on to the next thing. It is difficult, but I think we owe it to the children.

Well, if you had not experienced the situation yourself, then it qualifies as hearsay, and when hearsay is sensationalist (like, \"we only teach 30% of the syllabus\"), then it needs to be challenged. Sorry if this is upsetting to you, I am merely doing the diligence, as we all must if we are stating something that is detrimental to the reputation of an individual or organisation. It is not audacity by any means. Suffice to say, I choose to be sceptical about your friend's assertion that the teacher or principal would TELL her that only 30% of the syllabus would be covered. At best, that would be career suicide for that educator. Its not to say I disbelieve your re-telling of it, just to make the distinction.

So you support streaming, but you support equal amount of content and pace of instruction, despite streaming. How on earth does that gel?

Streaming is in fact putting people in 'streams', or channels, or classifications.......or......boxes. It is a recognition that a different approach, or pace, or content need be applied. If we do not differentiate on those grounds, then why bother streaming? Lets just mash them together (which is ok with me, really).

Lets take the example of dyslexia. There are educationally subnormal children in Singapore, due to organic reasons, genetic abnormalities, birth trauma or just plain low intellect. That is the reality of life. These are the bottom 5% on the IQ tests. These are still precious children to us, we love them, groom them, put them in situations where they can best manage. They are not in the mainstream schools, they are in MINDS, or Chaoyang special school or some other. No one would ever argue that they should be given the full weight of the P-school syllabus. They receive special coaching, but they will be very hard pressed to pass P-school exams. The material they use will necessarily be restricted. The better ones will get stretched a little further if they can manage.

The cut-off for special schools is an assessed IQ of around 70.

Lets take a student with an IQ of 80. He CAN be found in a mainstream school. He may or may not have an organic illness or hereditary condition. Point is, he represents a normal variation of the human condition. IQ 80 is not abnormal, anymore than being 1.5 meters in height is abnormal, BUT functionally, he is NOT the same as someone who is IQ 130. Before I go on, let me just say IQ tests are subjective, and they test reasoning, so lets not try and attach more to them than they deserve, but they are reasonably predictive of certain academic abilities. So these children are functionally better off than those at IQ 70, but not by a whole lot. They are marginal in managing P-school syllabus. If tested harder, they will fail, if pushed harder, they will start exhibiting stress and behavioural issues, much like a very bright student placed in GEP who can't manage the work. Actually GEP is a very good example, we know hot-housing only works to some extent, i.e. at some point your natural ability will show (or not). The same principle applies to lower ability students. So why is it then that there is an expectation for them to be given the same amount of content as the higher ability kids? If they are indeed late developers, their natural progression will be obvious. There is an example in my DS1's class, a boy who was slow in class without foundation initially, given lower content to begin with, but showed steady progress and the teacher steadily upped his difficulty level progressively until he did quite well at the end of P2.

So, as much as we love these children (and because we love them), can we reasonably expect them to cover the same amount of material in the same time frame as higher ability kids? Its like asking 40 y.o. slightly overweight me to chase a Nigerian at the Singapore marathon, \"C'mon, you can do it, we coach you.\" You may say, it doesn't matter how long you take to finish, but who's to say I can cover the 42km, or that I even want to do it?

Lets not confuse or kid ourselves here. We can titrate or jiggle along a few dimensions, time, content, testing, delivery. For any particular child, they all involve tradeoffs, for a higher ability child, the envelope is larger, for a lower ability child, the envelope is smaller, but we love all envelopes, no matter big or small.

If a child has been mis-classified, lets have some faith in the system that the teachers will monitor progress and increase amount and difficulty of content for that child. I have seen it happen.

I LIKE :rahrah:
:goodpost: :goodpost:

[oxyleo]

I know this is off topic, but since I had brought up dyslexia and 3boys also discussed it along the same vein as other educationally subnormal children forming the bottom 5% of IQ tests, I do need to offer some clarification on dyslexia, to do justice to dyslexics. Dyslexics do not have low IQ. Guess who's on the dyslexic list?


http://www.famousdyslexicpeople.com/tag/singapore/

http://www.dyslexia.com/famous.htm

A man we all owe a great heap of gratitude to, and many others who made it as Nobel prize winners, scientists, writers, journalists etc.

I'm happy for them that in their time, they were not labelled slow learners or low achievers and then were given a whole lot less cos they couldn't catch up, and made to believe that, well, that's life.

[oxyleo]

optimistforum:

I only wish that education aroused the same passions, with parents, here in England. Kiasu parents here are a fanstatstic credit to their children.

optimistforum,

Thank you for sharing your observation. It is true that parental involvement and the choices they make, right or wrong, for their children in education, have a huge impact on the child's future.

[verykiasu2010]

oxyleo:

optimistforum:

I only wish that education aroused the same passions, with parents, here in England. Kiasu parents here are a fanstatstic credit to their children.

optimistforum,

Thank you for sharing your observation. It is true that parental involvement and the choices they make, rightly or wrongly, for their children in education, have a huge impact on the child's future.

perhaps parents in England need to attend course on Kiasuism 101 ?

CKS will conduct a 5 day seminar at S$5000. Early bird discount of 20% is available. While slots last !

[optimistforum]

verykiasu2010:

oxyleo:

[quote=\"optimistforum\"]I only wish that education aroused the same passions, with parents, here in England. Kiasu parents here are a fanstatstic credit to their children.

optimistforum,

Thank you for sharing your observation. It is true that parental involvement and the choices they make, rightly or wrongly, for their children in education, have a huge impact on the child's future.

perhaps parents in England need to attend course on Kiasuism 101 ?

CKS will conduct a 5 day seminar at S$5000. Early bird discount of 20% is available. While slots last ![/quote]I guess I am your designated English Kiasu Champion :imcool: .

[oxyleo]

optimistforum:

I guess I am your designated English Kiasu Champion :imcool: .

Haha! :congrats: Honourable Sir!

[optimistforum]

I am attending a Secondary School open evening today, for my son to enter in Sept 2014. For me it is crucial to see a school embracing good ol’ fashion O’Levels (or even its poor cousin, the IGCSE!).

[oxyleo]

optimistforum:

I am attending a Secondary School open evening today, for my son to enter in Sept 2014. For me it is crucial to see a school embracing good ol' fashion O'Levels (or even its poor cousin, the IGCSE!).

Good to hear that. Indeed, it is crucial that you are involved and can offer your guidance where necessary. Your child will thank you for it!

[optimistforum]

oxyleo:

optimistforum:

I am attending a Secondary School open evening today, for my son to enter in Sept 2014. For me it is crucial to see a school embracing good ol' fashion O'Levels (or even its poor cousin, the IGCSE!).

Good to hear that. Indeed, it is crucial that you are involved and can offer your guidance where necessary. Your child will thank you for it!

Had a run-in with the headmaster. The school was amongst the top in the country at GCSE (because starting them a year early, sheer volume of GCSEs and lots of resits). I asked if they would do IGCSEs and why their A' Level results do not mirror the GCSEs - to which he replied \"I am sure there are many other schools you could choose from\"...... :censored: