Is GEP really necessary?
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verykiasu2010:
Can always write papers for publication. There are so many things to do
you be bored stiff without work :rotflmao:
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violin_lover:
Or give tuition, or run GEP prep classes. No work does not mean no money. :moneyflies:
Can always write papers for publication. There are so many things to doverykiasu2010:
you be bored stiff without work :rotflmao: -
2ppaamm:
Or give tuition, or run GEP prep classes. No work does not mean no money. :moneyflies:[/quote] :rotflmao: Your kids will be my pioneer customers.
Can always write papers for publication. There are so many things to doviolin_lover:
[quote=\"verykiasu2010\"]
you be bored stiff without work :rotflmao: -
violin_lover:
:rotflmao: Your kids will be my pioneer customers.[/quote]Hm.. won't be able to afford you... plus the airfare to fly here for every class will make your out of pocket costs too high, too! But seriously, I have also thought about this some times, that I gave up my career and settle for a much simpler job for almost a decade to look into my kids' educational needs. Sometimes I wonder if it is worth the while. Then, I add up the costs that I save (haha) a good 25 years, plus the scholarships they get.
Or give tuition, or run GEP prep classes. No work does not mean no money. :moneyflies:2ppaamm:
[quote=\"violin_lover\"][
Can always write papers for publication. There are so many things to do
25 years with 5 kids, I save let's say $10K per year, that's $250K... hm... plus scholarship of $15K x 4 x 5 = $300K. That's about half a million. Financially not all loss, and haha, good consolation that my 'sacrifice' is not all about losing only, plus the intangible and unmeasurable happiness of bringing up the children on my own and seeing to their education personally, and bonding. Not a bad deal. Haha... you have a thought. But remember I have volume. :boogie: -
2ppaamm:
You gave up your career? I thought you are still teaching at SMU :?
Hm.. won't be able to afford you... plus the airfare to fly here for every class will make your out of pocket costs too high, too! But seriously, I have also thought about this some times, that I gave up my career and settle for a much simpler job for almost a decade to look into my kids' educational needs. Sometimes I wonder if it is worth the while. Then, I add up the costs that I save (haha) a good 25 years, plus the scholarships they get.
25 years with 5 kids, I save let's say $10K per year, that's $250K... hm... plus scholarship of $15K x 4 x 5 = $300K. That's about half a million. Financially not all loss, and haha, good consolation that my 'sacrifice' is not all about losing only, plus the intangible and unmeasurable happiness of bringing up the children on my own and seeing to their education personally, and bonding. Not a bad deal. Haha... you have a thought. But remember I have volume. :boogie:
I can't compare with you lah. You are Prof but I am only Dr :udawoman: -
ForumWriter:
Ok, now that a couple of days have passed, let me have a say in this aspect.
While teachers, as with any other profession, have an innate duty to ensure that their job is well carried out, this does not mean that their responsibility is higher than that of parents. Teaching is only a profession.
Besides, there is also the ratio of Teachers:Students versus Parents:Children. How can we expect teachers to be able to give students more attention than parents give their children?
Kids bear the future hopes of their parents. Naturally, it is the inherent responsibility of parents to nurture their kids well. Parents have the intrinsic authority to determine choices for their kids at each of the many crossroads in life. Whether they succeed or fail in life, parents are the one who are impacted, not the teachers.
There are many consequences when parents get too involved with school (read: SCHOOL) work. Children become excessively dependent on their parents for things like planning their own study time, learning on their own, and keeping track with school progress. These skills are essential when the kids go on to undergrad and graduate schools. Most students will do either degree overseas and lacking of such skills will be detrimental. Many Singaporean children are deprived of learning such skills because the teaching in schools are so lacking, parents have to chip in to help. Without parents' involvement, sometimes it is impossible to cope without the kid getting into trouble once in a while in school, for administrative, academic, behavioral issues. In Singapore, getting trouble is NOT ACCEPTABLE, which is wrong. Kids getting into trouble and then learning from it is VITAL. So, no, I don't agree parents should get excessively involved in school work if the decision is to send the kids to school.
Having said the above, I do not mean that parents are hands off totally. There are times we chip in. Finding out what the kids are doing in school is great, but I don't believe in doing or helping out in homework. I don't mind expanding and enriching the same topics. For example, my 9 year old came home telling me they covered prime numbers and factors. I went on to suggest how all numbers have even factors and how to prove that, and then to perfect squares, and then LCM. If I spend my time with all those schoolwork, then where do I get time to do these things? Another example, my 12 year old came home and asked me what exactly was the meaning of hypothesis. Then, let's give an example of a hypothesis: that all men who cannot wake up by 7 a.m. cannot find a job that pays more than $2000 a month. A hypothesis is something assumed and not proven. I asked him how would he prove his hypothesis etc. He suggested taking 50 men and test that out. There. He learned something interesting, building upon his own previous knowledge. I then pointed out that what he did was something actually mathematical, and then point him to the right resources and covered hypothesis testing in statistics, he was interested and therefore covered that topic in simple statistics in two days. We then went on with Confidence Intervals etc.
Not covering school work with the children does not mean not caring about their education. It is about giving them a chance to work on their independence skills, and letting them learn from someone else - everything - from administrative work, to executive functioning, to social skills. We enhance and enrich them in different ways, and depending on the capacity of the parent, we can teach them different things. It does not have to be academic, learning is about expanding the realm of possibility for each individual, and then to mankind, education is not about becoming a human calculator, or beating your peers to be to the right of the bell curve.
Non academic can be so fun too. My daughters marched me to Spotlight last week and bought a whole bunch of cloth. There were so many pieces, all different colours. They made soft toys and plushies and now these are on their websites for sale. Education is about giving them skills they can use when they grow up - to be able to estimate the costs, price their products correctly, market it to the right people, and also doing customer surveys and research. Again, we will lose all these opportunities if we just cover school work when they reach home.
The consequences? O, maybe they will not score as high in school as another child who is hothoused and their parents do their homework with them. But I really do not care about comparing with another kid. As it turns out, my kids are doing fine, have loads of fun, and still excel academically by world standards. So I don't really care that their teachers think they should attend another 4 hours a week of supplementary classes, I don't care if they fall below the class average a term or two. Ultimately, I only care that they become better people, fun people who have great communication and life skills. Academically? Thankfully, it just falls in place somehow.
Teachers? Their sole job is to teach academically, and they'd better do it well - they should be able to handle the children and get them to do their homework and schoolwork, or they have the right to exercise their rights and punish accordingly. They should not call on parents to ask parents to ensure their work are done. Those are rubbish to me. Teachers should not call parents if the kid behave badly once in a while (unless there is a big problem or injury), they should be able to handle the children and discipline them for daily offenses, since they will occur often. Parents should trust the teachers enough to believe what the teachers do are best for the kids. Therefore, we need good and sensible teachers, and parents who will let them do their jobs effectively. If I cannot trust the teachers, I will take them out of school and homeschool them, and I will not hesitate at all. If things come to point for that decision, that will make life easier for both the school and our family.
So there. Why I do not agree that parents should be involved in school work. It is a waste of my precious time, it robs kids of their learning opportunities, and it cultivates poor organization skills, and they become reliant on parents to plan their educational/career paths. What I have done has worked well for me, and I am a very happy parent of 1 post-grad and 3 undergrads, ALL who went to uni and broke their universities' records being the youngest ever. I am thankful for that even though it was never important to me and humbly pray that I make the right decisions everyday.
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So now, back to the topic, is GEP necessary at all? Not one bit to me or to any gifted child. Look, there is no purpose in GEP except to identify and nurture a few kids who proved themselves at 9 years old MOSTLY (not all) through good families. I have yet found a purpose in GEP that cannot be met in a regular well structured classroom. Not one. What's covered in GEP can easily be handled by MOST of the high ability children within the top 10% or even top 25%. So why just 500 a year? Why all those benefits? Why tell them that they are the smartest when they are not necessarily so? And, when we give benefits to a special group, justified or not, we naturally deprive others, unfortunately resources are always limited. My question is whether this deprivation fair? The DSA places they take up, the scholarships they receive, the teaching resources, the administrative resources etc etc. And even with all these resources poured into this GEP thingy, we still do not have enough local talents. :?
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Wow , Please write more!
When I read from Lim Jeck’s mom blog that he was not in GEP due to his poor English, I started to wonder how many of these real geniuses like Lim Jeck who may really make a difference to mankind we are missing out
In addition, I look at some of our top professionals in our society today , many were not from the most elitist primary/secondary schools. Life is a long race and if one finds his/her passion and works consistently towards it, anyone can be "gifted" .
Talk about true talents, we seem to focuse too much on one narrowly defined "talent" here… -
cherryc:
Can you point me to the blog?Wow , Please write more!
When I read from Lim Jeck's mom blog that he was not in GEP due to his poor English, I started to wonder how many of these real geniuses like Lim Jeck who may really make a difference to mankind we are missing out
In addition, I look at some of our top professionals in our society today , many were not from the most elitist primary/secondary schools. Life is a long race and if one finds his/her passion and works consistently towards it, anyone can be \"gifted\" .
Talk about true talents, we seem to focuse too much on one narrowly defined \"talent\" here.. -
http://wwwdontmesswith6a.blogspot.sg/
On the right message box, u click older messages :
LJ's mum: The GEP English is demanding, he wouldn't be able to survive if he got in. He is good in something (math related) but weak in others (lang, humanities) so life is fair
22 Jul 12, 18:00
parent: That's sad But real talents do not have to care about GEP. Congrats for raising such an high-achieving son!
22 Jul 12, 17:41
LJ's mum: But as his English was rather poor, he obviously flunked the English test. So he failed the GEP
22 Jul 12, 17:40
LJ's mum: Hi parent, hahaha, a few people asked the same qn. Yes he took the test and cleared 1st rd only. He had no problem with Math and GAT.
22 Jul 12, 16:48
parent: Hi LJ's mum, wondering, did Lim Jeck take the GEP screening test? It seems that such a prodigy would surely have gotten in
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