Less Teaching, More Learning?
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Yes, I’m currently teaching in a secondary school.
Honestly, Primary school teachers are more stretched than us.
Most of them have to teach at least 3 subjects (English, Maths, Science, Social Studies, PE)!
In Secondary school, we mostly focus on 1 or 2 subjects. If manpower permits, schools always try to give teachers their core subject, which means they only teach 1 subject, and maybe CME too.
Education is part of growing up. As parents, we expect the teachers to settle all the academic parts of education. However, we need to be realistic if our children need more individual attention which is hardly achievable in a school setting.
As a parent, I won’t be surprise if my boy can’t thrive in school. Yes, he learns fast, but he is distracted and may not pay attention in class. Even if the teacher can teach very well, my son is not listening in class, do you think he will learn alot from the teacher?
When we plan to have my boy, we already know that we need to put in effort to spend time revising with him. Our parents may not have done that because they did not have the knowledge or were too busy struggling to make ends meet. However, my dad gave me moral support by staying up with me when I’m doing my revision (I prefer to study at night when everyone is asleep because it’s quiet).
At the end of the day, which is more important? Your child hearing about your grumbling about his school/teachers or your child feeling your support in his/her studies?
I think parents need to take a breather and think through carefully too.
How you react to the large volume of homework and the difficulty level of the work given will affect your child’s mentality towards schoolwork.
When my mum tried to help me with my Maths problems, she was also stuck. What did she do? She looked through my textbook for explanations, relearn the model method and taught me. Once, she was really stuck and couldn’t solve the question. What did she do? She went to call her friends, she went to ask neighbours, she went all out to search for the answer. This is the attitude I learnt from my mum. Never give up, never be afraid to ask, never be shy to say that you have problems as long as you find as solution.
Teachers are humans too. We try our best, but it may not seem like it to parents. Think about it, if you are in the teachers’ shoes, will you be able to do a better job than them? -
mrswongtuition:
How you react to the large volume of homework and the difficulty level of the work given will affect your child's mentality towards schoolwork.
When my mum tried to help me with my Maths problems, she was also stuck. What did she do? She looked through my textbook for explanations, relearn the model method and taught me. Once, she was really stuck and couldn't solve the question. What did she do? She went to call her friends, she went to ask neighbours, she went all out to search for the answer. This is the attitude I learnt from my mum. Never give up, never be afraid to ask, never be shy to say that you have problems as long as you find as solution.
Thanks! I like what you said in bold and I hope to learn from your mum to impart the \"never give up trying\" attitude to my son in due time!
:celebrate: -
DesertWind:
Thanksmrswongtuition:
How you react to the large volume of homework and the difficulty level of the work given will affect your child's mentality towards schoolwork.
When my mum tried to help me with my Maths problems, she was also stuck. What did she do? She looked through my textbook for explanations, relearn the model method and taught me. Once, she was really stuck and couldn't solve the question. What did she do? She went to call her friends, she went to ask neighbours, she went all out to search for the answer. This is the attitude I learnt from my mum. Never give up, never be afraid to ask, never be shy to say that you have problems as long as you find as solution.
Thanks! I like what you said in bold and I hope to learn from your mum to impart the \"never give up trying\" attitude to my son in due time!
:celebrate:
Kids mirror our actions and learn from our opinions.
Hope our kids will mirror the right actions and learn from the good opinions! -
mrswongtuition:
:celebrate:Yes, I'm currently teaching in a secondary school.
Honestly, Primary school teachers are more stretched than us.
Most of them have to teach at least 3 subjects (English, Maths, Science, Social Studies, PE)!
In Secondary school, we mostly focus on 1 or 2 subjects. If manpower permits, schools always try to give teachers their core subject, which means they only teach 1 subject, and maybe CME too.
Education is part of growing up. As parents, we expect the teachers to settle all the academic parts of education. However, we need to be realistic if our children need more individual attention which is hardly achievable in a school setting.
As a parent, I won't be surprise if my boy can't thrive in school. Yes, he learns fast, but he is distracted and may not pay attention in class. Even if the teacher can teach very well, my son is not listening in class, do you think he will learn alot from the teacher?
...
At the end of the day, which is more important? Your child hearing about your grumbling about his school/teachers or your child feeling your support in his/her studies?
I think parents need to take a breather and think through carefully too.
How you react to the large volume of homework and the difficulty level of the work given will affect your child's mentality towards schoolwork.
When my mum tried to help me with my Maths problems, she was also stuck. What did she do? She looked through my textbook for explanations, relearn the model method and taught me. Once, she was really stuck and couldn't solve the question. What did she do? She went to call her friends, she went to ask neighbours, she went all out to search for the answer. This is the attitude I learnt from my mum. Never give up, never be afraid to ask, never be shy to say that you have problems as long as you find as solution.
Teachers are humans too. We try our best, but it may not seem like it to parents. Think about it, if you are in the teachers' shoes, will you be able to do a better job than them?
I think that adequately sums a lot of things up for teachers (I think you might have forgotten to mention the admin work that needs to be completed and CCAs, workshops and LJs to run!)
I think we also need to keep in mind that there are different sorts of people, with different characters and different levels of commitment and communication. As much as we would like to pretend teachers are the people whom we can rely on and impart everything our kids should know, let's be realistic and acknowledge that the world is no where near that. And this includes everything from our own workplaces, families, government and in any place where humans exist.
It's up to us if we want the best for our children, to guide and provide the advice that they need to make the right decisions. The faster we can teach our kids that life isn't fair and how to overcome it, the better people they will be. It was mentioned on this forum before, but many of the younger generation (Especially locals) tend to have a very heck-care attitude because everything is too cushy and things are taken for granted. The same reason why people who have inadequacies (wealth etc) will work their damn hardest to improve and achieve. -
mrswongtuition:
Teachers are humans too.
Exactly! That's why I can't understand why the can't admit their mistake :x
Citing an example of misplaced files or worksheets..teacher insist that they do not have it with them and make the poor child searching high & low!! Our house is so small, the school is so big, when THEY misplace they insist the child go home and find :? :stupid: -
nani:
I've encountered this before & even resorted to viewing the school's CCTV, only to find that the child himself misplaced it in another part of school.mrswongtuition:
Teachers are humans too.
Exactly! That's why I can't understand why the can't admit their mistake :x
Citing an example of misplaced files or worksheets..teacher insist that they do not have it with them and make the poor child searching high & low!! Our house is so small, the school is so big, when THEY misplace they insist the child go home and find :? :stupid:
The parents actually complained to the principal, that's why we took out CCTV tapes to view.
Another incident, I invited the parent to my table in staffroom to check. My table is very neat & I do no bring work home.
If it's genuinely my mistake, I will call parents to apologise, but parents also need to take a step back to think objectively before they put all the blame on teachers. -
Me too have encountered before and querie with the teacher, in the end have to go to the classroom and search and found it in the cupboard where teacher placed and locked.
Am not trying to fuss about it, but would appreciate if teachers can admit their mistakes too as how we accept them as humans
. What happen is, as children (maybe not all) they tends to fear and not dare to argue/reason even they truly know that they have submitted. -
sunflower:
Take the words right out of my mouth... the intention is good... but... come to implementation.. it can be a different story. I don't deny the move is in the right direction. However, it may not be appropriate to start from too young the age at least given the reason stated above and the readiness of a child. Just my gut feeling.It's actually very easy to say teach less, learn more, but to truly implement it takes up a lot of time in the classroom. The whole education system would have to be revamped: the syllabus, class size, teacher training, school set-up and resources etc etc. We may even have to do away with the PSLE and implement a whole new and different set of system for assessment.
Under the current immense pressure of students having to take the PSLE and the syllabus requirements, teach less, learn more is easier said than done. Many interpreted it the wrong way and I would say it's not quite suitable for our current system.
I do see some positive changes recently in the teaching at the lower primary level. But reality sets in in the upper primary level and most teachers are compelled to just throw idealism out of the window. -
Visited kid school the other day. Noticed the teachers like to make them shift tables/chairs often to form groups to discuss. :shock: After that, they will have to shift them back to the original positions.
Now I know roughly \"teach less learn more\" means. They expect the kids to discuss among themselves to come out with some answers or solutions for the problems. Encourage them to talk a lot in class. :lol:
I feel this system is good for higher level and those schools with longer contact hours.
Teachers will have to spend a lot of time collecting answers (i.e. waiting for shy students to response, some jokes crack, etc.), supervising the shifting of furnitures, etc. :?
I guess they do not learn as much in school as we did in the old days.
given the limited half day sessions. :?
What is your view? :celebrate: -
Donkey Kong:
There are many ways to implement teach less, learn more, and what you've just described is but only one of them, and is more suitable for mid to upper primary level onwards.Visited kid school the other day. Noticed the teachers like to make them shift tables/chairs often to form groups to discuss. :shock: After that, they will have to shift them back to the original positions.
Now I know roughly \"teach less learn more\" means. They expect the kids to discuss among themselves to come out with some answers or solutions for the problems. Encourage them to talk a lot in class. :lol:
I feel this system is good for higher level and those schools with longer contact hours. Teachers will have to spend a lot of time collecting answers (i.e. waiting for shy students to response, some jokes crack, etc.), supervising the shifting of furnitures, etc. :?
I guess they do not learn as much in school as we did in the old days. given the limited half day sessions. :?
What is your view? :celebrate:
There are other ways of doing the teach less, learn more methodology in the lower primary level, which I shall not elaborate here. That's why I say teacher training is important for this methodology to be effective, and the need to overhaul the whole educational landscape if we're really serious about getting the students to learn more, not just for exam purposes.
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