rains:

I'm not sure if I want my kid to be put thro so much hardship just so that she'll be a history maker. I just want her to have a cushy job and be happy all her life. I don't want her to be humiliated as being 'too stupid for schools' or sleep 4 hours a day, conduct 1000 experiments before she invented a lamp.


No need. No need. I just want her to lead a simple life and be a happy person.

What is a happy life, in your opinion? To my family, we tell the kids a person can never be happy if his heart is not quiet. I teach my children to meditate for mental relaxation. They sit with me for 15 mins twice a day to just be still, quiet and pay attention to their breathe. It calms their mind. Even though they find it hard to sit down for 15 mins, they do feel much better after being able to catch their wondering thoughts and go back to the breathe. For that 15 mins, they do not need to respond to any demands of anything or anyone or any thoughts but just be with themselves lovingly. Very often it's all these wondering thoughts that make people unhappy. We can be quite ill-discipline at times and not practise for days but we do return to practice.

Perhaps we should teach our children how to RELAX in other ways too. Take a walk in the park, do a sport, do art and craft, play an instrument. It has to start with the family culture and that means making time to do these things with them. I feel teaching them how to relax doing wholesome activities is very important as their school lives and adult lives later will be quite stressful.

My dd said the math was difficult but the GA I and II was fun. In the GA I and II, they are given an ‘example test’. I don’t know why it’s called that but my dd said they give you some questions with answers to sort of help you get the drift of how to do your process thinking. No wonder some of them find it easy. She has a very good memory and told me some of the questions. I think for GA, even if the kid can get their answer, they may be wrong sometime because, the right answer is not so obvious. The math was tough but I believe for those who had spent alot of $$$ for prep lesson, they would have been trained for those tough questions. Also, for those whose are already practising upper primary math non-routine problems, it’d be easy for them too. My dd said that a boy in her class is already doing p6 math. He’s bored in class, poor fella. His mom is a teacher. Anyway, I believe my dd will lose out in math because of no training.

concern:

Hi,


My girl starts her 1-1 piano lesson when she is 5. Can someone tell me normally how long it takes before she can sit for her grade 1 exam?

Thanks.

How long it takes will depend on her progress. Let the teacher decides. I personally believe in going the through train approach if the teacher think it's suitable for the child - meaning skip some grades. Exam is very stressful for the kid, she practices the same 3 pieces for many months until she gets so sick of it. It's not necessary to take every single exam.

Some kids do even grades, 2,4,6,8 and some do odd, 1,3,5,7,8 . Do start on theory early. Grade 1 can skip, very easy. If kid is P2 and know some fraction, can do grade 2 theory straight away. The problem with theory is that there are alot of musical terms to memorise and she must have good memory. You need grade5 theory in order to do grade 6 practical. So coordinate with teacher, school work stress level and ability.

Skipping grade allow her to have time to do repertoire and fun pieces for her enjoyment. She can also have time to learn all kinds of musical styles. It's the same reason why secondary school kids take Integrated Program to skip 'o' levels so that they have more time to do enrichment activities.

Hope this helps

I agree it is unfair to say that the Education here only focuses on the academic. There’s now SOTA, Sports School, etc for kids with talents to pursue their interest at greater depth. Sadly, many parents are too afraid to let their children go to these schools even when they qualify. Most of the time against their kids’ will. Most of the time, they’ll listen to rumours from the grapevine without even thinking about the kids needs and what the school is all about. Kids who are talented in an area wants to be with their kind. It does not mean that they don’t like the academics. It’s just that they want to pursue the activity they like even more than what a mainstream school can offer. These specialised schools are the best places for them as they can take care of their needs in balancing their interest and studies. Besides, 99% of parents misunderstand that going to sports school=becoming a sport person and going to SOTA=becoming a pianist/artist/dancer etc. The kids from these schools eventually have choices to go to polys, JCs and Unis just like any mainstream kids. In fact, they have such a holistic education they are usually welcomed in higher institutions which they wish to go later.


Basically, what I’m trying to say is that as parents, we need to be insightful and not just follow people blindly. We listen to our children’s needs and help them to choose and not just choose for them. Let them decide if they want tuition. Let them take some ownership of what’s being done to their lives.

My friend’s relative move to Australia complaining that the education system here is too stressful for his daughter but once migrated. his daughter is attending lots of tuition and enrichment classes there. So, it’s not the country. It’s the culture of the people that makes the system. Once, an IBM educator said the government can spend millions of dollars on technology, education methods to improve the the system but one thing that it will have a lot of difficulty changing is the culture, ‘kiasu, kiasi’, cannot let go. ‘FEAR’ is a 4-letter word. To overcome this, we need another 4-letter word ‘LOVE’. Let whatever we decide for our kids be based on love and not our fear of the future because the future is certainly uncertain.

Ranking is good or bad depending on which side the kid is in. If the kid is bright, ranking is good as he gets a challenging environment. If he’s weak academically, then it’s bad. For teachers as well as the bright kids, being in a homogenous class is great for learning and teaching. At the end of the day, the conclusion is that the top is always better taken care of. Having a mix-ability class will make the bright ones elitist as they are always the top in class.

I agree that mini-tests are much better than exams. More time should be spend on exploring the subjects in relation to real life problems than just doing worksheets and assessment books.