Texas students will have to learn cursive again starting this fall

Posted to Facebook on 31/12/2020 at 9:16 AM
Texas students will have to learn cursive again starting this fall
https://www.11alive.com/article/news/education/texas-students-will-have-to-learn-cursive-again-starting-this-fall/269-b243d43a-403b-46eb-b8e4-7bb7b1249a69

Many primary school students can't write the normal style properly - with the correct proportion within two parallel lines.

I make this statement not without evidence - I volunteer in Prep, Year 4 and Year 5 one day every week in 2019.

It is not a matter of learning, but doing it properly from the start! Furthermore, it is important to arouse the interest of the students to learn, because they can't see the value of using cursive writing. No computer, tablet and mobile "write" cursively.

Unfortunately, many teachers have very horrible hand-writing!

In my opinion, cursive writing should be promoted and taught as part of art subject.

PS I was a professional cake decorator, used to "write" stylistically on top of cake surfaces by squeezing icing through a writing tube.

Thank you for reading.

Texas students will have to learn cursive again starting this fall

'Chill Greta, Chill!': Trump mocks Greta Thunberg a day after she is named Time's Person

Posted to Facebook on 13/12/2020 at 4:02 AM
Posted to The Age (13/12/2019) on 13/12/2019 (Not published by the newspaper)
Commenting on "'Chill Greta, Chill!': Trump mocks Greta Thunberg a day after she is named Time's Person"
https://www.theage.com.au/world/north-america/chill-greta-chill-trump-mocks-greta-thunberg-a-day-after-she-is-named-time-s-person-of-the-year-20191213-p53jkm.html

Please explain, Greta. Why did heat wave happen around the world in 1896, including NSW temperature reaching 49 degrees Celsius? Was it a climate change phenomenon caused by carbon emission from coal power stations and burning fossil fuel more than 200 years ago?

Does Greta Thunberg realise many renewable energy generators are difficult to maintain and may even cause further climate change in the long run? To maintain its efficiency, a solar panel surface especially at the dusty outback, needs to be cleaned with clean water, which is a waste of precious resource no matter where.

Wind turbines in large number are more than likely to disrupt normal air flow, thus creating a different kind of climate change, possibly leading to more frequent occurrence of twisters and cyclones.

Greta, many things are easier said than done!

Thank you for reading.

Trump mocks Greta Thunberg a day after she is named Time's Person

Governments, business 'misleading' on climate, teen activist Greta Thunberg said

Posted to Facebook on 12/12/2019 at 2:03 PM
Posted to The Age (11/12/2019) on 12/12/2019 (Not published by newspaper) Commenting on "Governments, business 'misleading' on climate, teen activist Greta Thunberg said"
https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/governments-business-misleading-on-climate-teen-activist-greta-thunberg-said-20191211-p53j5i.html

I shall keep my comment brief, as I am writing an article debunking what many climate scientists and speakers have been claiming that the climate change will cause mass extinction.

Back in 25 January 1896, NSW experienced 10 days of heat wave, with maximum temperature reaching 49 degrees celcius, killing 437 people. In August 1896, North America experienced the same, and 1,500 were killed. Even we add up all the people killed by heat wave, it was nothing compared with the number killed by manmade wars. Resilient human beings survived, otherwise I won't be writing this comment.

What happened after 1896? Mother Earth temperature dropped back, and fluctuated as normal.

Emission control is not the panacea to solve the climate problem. If one searches information about fluctuating weather via Google or similar, one will find there were many recorded history on heat wave.

Was carbon dioxide the culprit, and should be left in the ground? If so, we the human beings should be all buried 6-foot under and leave this planet to anaerobic organisms or anaerobes that do not require oxygen for growth. Human beings consume oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide.

Although the adage says, "prevention is better than cure", I would argue that prevention is just a bandaide approach, while cure puts the end to the problem.

Have scientists, NOT climate scientists, been tackling how to remove existing excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and from any emission in power production?

Vaccine is good for prevention, but we need drugs or medication that boast the immune system and white blood cells to kill the bacteria and germs.

The recent volcanic eruption in White Island releases a lot heat, toxic gases and dust that can distort the atmospheric conditions. This is the effect of one small volcano. What if we take into consideration of all the spectacular volcanic eruptions around the world?

Mother Earth and climatic disruption by the influence forced upon us by other terrestial bodies in the universe cannot be ignored, and the buck should stop there.

Thank you for reading.

Governments, business 'misleading' on climate, teen activist Greta Thunberg said

No difference between public and private schools after accounting for socio-economics

Posted to The Age (5/12/2019) on 8/12/2019 (Not published by the newspaper)
Commenting on “'No difference' between public and private schools after accounting for socio-economics”
https://www.theage.com.au/national/nsw/no-difference-between-public-and-private-schools-after-accounting-for-socio-economics-20191205-p53h5s.html

Our education system has been chopping and changing to the detriment of the students at the receiving end. It seems the system pendulum swings from one extreme to another, but nothing in between the both.

Recently I submitted a comment to an article in The Age but not published. It outlined the problems of our education system and explained why the previous teaching methodologies must be reintroduced in order to build a firm foundation, upon which other “knowledge” can be built.

Pouring money to build facilities and training more teachers with the current ways of delivery will not solve the problems. There are alternatives to achieve outcome with far less outlay. Simply, the system is to teach / coach / train children from young, even from the early learning childhood days the techniques of learning, memorisation and application. Besides all these, the learners must learn and practise discipline and respect.

While this may sound complex, it is far from it. Let’s talk through this logically, since according to some research,  90% of the population have their Logic mind, or left side of thinking brain, turned on.
M
If you learn how to learn, then you can add layers of knowledge in your brain more easily and quickly, just like how to make a snowball. However, this acquired knowledge must be stored, or else you will be like a dementia sufferer who can recall long term memories but not the current ones, because the recent memories are discarded and erased. Without the stored knowledge, it is unlikely that you can do or complete anything constructively with the minimum time.

Before promoting the modern learning techniques, such as meaningful learning, associative learning, and active learning, I am advocating the reintroduction of rote learning as a precedence and foundation building prerequisite.

During one of my primary school years, and another in secondary school years, both in Malaysia, my school converted the bicycle sheds into classrooms. They were no walls, not air-conditioned. It was very hot under the corrugated tin sheet roof. During a rainy day with strong wind, the students had to put on ponchos in order not to get wet from the raindrops carried in the wind. The noise of the falling rain on the roof was very loud, much louder than when it was during a normal day.

Despite all these, my class was the top performing class in the school, and my school was one of the top schools in the country.

Like what Winston Churchill once said, “give us the tools and we will finish the job”, and that I urge our education authority to revamp our system and provide funding to teach the teachers with new teaching techniques. It is all about the techniques, and NOT the name of the school, or whether it has a big field and modern laboratories.

Thank you for reading.

First version not published. The following 2nd version is submitted.

Australian education system has been chopping and changing to the detriment of the students at the receiving end. It seems the system pendulum swings from one extreme to another, but nothing in between the both.

Pouring money into building facilities and training more teachers with the current ways of delivery is unlikely to solve the problems. There are alternatives to achieve outcome with far less outlay. Simply, the system is to teach / coach / train children from young, even from the early learning childhood days the techniques of learning, memorisation and application. Besides all these, the learners must learn and practise discipline and respect.

While this may sound complex, it is far from it. Let’s talk through this logically, since according to some research, 90% of the population have their Logic mind, or left side of thinking brain, turned on.

Learning how to learn enable one adds layers of knowledge in one's brain more easily and quickly, just like how to make a big snowball by rolling a small snowball in the snow. However, this acquired knowledge must be stored, or else it be like a dementia sufferer who can recall long term memories but not the current ones. Without the stored knowledge, it is unlikely that you can do anything constructively with the minimum time, or even complete it all.

Before promoting the modern learning techniques, such as meaningful learning, associative learning, and active learning, would like to see that rote learning be introduced as a precedence and foundation building prerequisite.

Thank you for reading.

No difference between public and private schools after accounting for socio-economics

Australian students 'among the worst in the world' for class discipline

Posted to Facebook 5/12/2019 at 9:05 AM"
Posted to The Age (4/12/2019) on 5/12/2019
Commenting on “Australian students 'among the worst in the world' for class discipline”
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/australian-students-among-the-worst-in-the-world-for-class-discipline-20191204-p53gwk.html

Our education system is out of whack. Although I am supportive of the state government’s decision to abolish the NAPLAN and ACARA, I believe a better and improved alternative should be found or formulated first.

Low PISA is related to the curriculum, abolishment of homework and streamline of students, over emphasis of phonic system in a changing demographic and cultural mix of students, etc. These influencing factors are more than likely cause the lack of student interested in classroom activities, and unfortunately cause disruption during the class session.

In Australia, teachers have been the scapegoat for student poor academic performance, and they do not get the support and respect of parents and public they deserve.

During uncertain economic time, teachers are also concerned about job security. Teachers tend to stay low key to avoid confrontation with parents and school authority. Teachers dare not provide honest assessment of the students’ behaviour and academic performance, so that they will not be subjected to illegal threat from the ‘judge and jury” parents.

The lack of proper reporting and punishment system is like giving a blank cheque to the students to be disrespectful to the teachers, and that explains the lack of discipline!

Thank you for reading.

Australian students 'among the worst in the world' for class discipline

Australian students falling behind in maths, science and reading

Posted to Facebook on 4/12/2019 at 5:15 PM"

If your children and grandchildren are still attending school, you must not miss reading this!

Posted to The Age (3/12/2019) on 4/12/2019 (Not published by The Age)
Commenting on "'Alarm bells': Australian students falling behind in maths, science and reading"
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/alarm-bells-australian-students-falling-behind-in-maths-science-and-reading-20191203-p53gho.html

A Brief Background
I was teaching in the tertiary education sector and adult learning centre for more than a decade. I want to find out why Australia seems to have the proverbial problems in literacy and numeracy

I am very grateful to the Principal and some teachers who accepted and entrusted me as a volunteer in my local primary school. After one and half years volunteering in a primary school, being asked to help students In Prep, Year 3, Year 4 and Year 5, mainly in maths and occasionally in English for the Preppies, I have a fair idea why our students from prep to tertiary education are experiencing degradation in standard and falling in ranking in PISA.

Australian Education System In Crisis
Australian education system is out of whack and needs immediate reform.

One Size Fits All - Wishful Thinking
The system has lost sight of what a school is about. Schools are NOT laboratory for social experiment. Getting rid of streaming is the biggest mistake. Having a mixture of students with vast difference in degree of competence and level of intelligence is hell for teachers trying to teach and monitor the students’ progress effectively. The teacher has to prepare different sets of lessons and exercises for different competence, and it is too laborious, time consuming for a class teacher to deal with.

The current mix of students is a socialistic approach, producing very average students. It unfairly chops down the smart tall poppies, and does not provide sufficient time to help the slow learners.

Teaching Style & Learning Style - Simplistic Ideals
Many training courses preparing future trainers talk about Teaching Style & Learning Style. Unfortunately, this is a very luxurious ideal, unless a teacher is dealing with 1-on-1 basis, or a group of like-minded, comparable competent students. There are about 20 to 25 students in a class, and it is extremely difficult for a teacher to vary the teaching style to satisfy the students' needs.

Instead of doing the rather impossible task, it may be easier to teach the students to learn the Teaching Style of the teacher.

Different subjects may require different learning styles. A teacher can advise the students to apply their learning style so that the students can explore the feasible or the best way to achieve best possible results.

Phonic System - That Does Not Sound Right
There are a lot of papers written and discussions about the pros and cons teaching English language using Phonic System. When I was a child in Malaysia, I learnt three dominant languages - Chinese (Mandarin), English and Malay (Bahasa), plus my mother-tongue Cantonese, and other dialects spoken by my neighbours and friends. Besides, Bahasa, none of the spoken languages and dialects were learnt by phonic system.

English language phonic system has so many rules and exceptions, and it is too much for anyone to master, not to mention the young children. On the contrary, Malay phonic system is so simple; each vowel has one sound except when "a" is at the end of the word, which is pronounced as "é", an additional vowel not found in English.

For example, the word "elephant" - the two e's have different sound, and "ant" of the last syllable "phant" is nothing close to the pronunciation of the insect "ant". I am not surprised that some people may spell it as "air-ly-fernt", while In Bahasa, it is simply spelt as "elifén"

Unlike many countries with high PISA score, Australia claims to be the melting pot of many cultures. I can assure the educationalists and authorities that poor spelling stems from English language spelling being the greatest pain in the universe to master. That may explain why the PISA score in English spelling has deteriorated.

Rote Learning - Remember It
Whether it was English or Mandarin, I had to sit for spelling and dictation tests. That brings me to the topic of Rote Learning, which is a memorization technique.

Students must remember the sequencing of maths operation, given by an acronym BODMAS.

A young child's brain is like a blank sheet of butcher paper. Similarly, when a humanoid robot with Artificial Intelligence (AI) capability is out of a production line, its brain is blank. Both brains need to be fed with knowledge, the foundation of all future well-being and development of respective individuals.

Unfortunately, many gurus just wipe the rote learning methodology slate clean, and swing to meaningful learning, associative learning, and active learning.

My mother-in-law in her early 90's is suffering from severe dementia. She cannot recognise her children and me. She was Chinese and English educated in her young days. Once in a blue moon, she becomes talkative, and can even reads many words in a Chinese book. She reads the book from top to bottom vertically and from left to right, the correct way to read a Chinese article in a book.

Long-tern memory does not fade away or erased easily, and it is important that useful knowledge and information must be read, fed, and stored early for retrieval in future use and undertaking.

If Google does not have a large repository of data and information, how can anyone ask Google for help?

Firm Foundation - Fast Track to a Sound Future
The stability and safety of a house or high-rise skyscraper rely on good and firm foundation. No wonder many people, including politicians, lack such foundation and therefore cannot conduct a decent conversation or debate which involves facts and knowledge. Many people become uptight and aggressive when they cannot understand what is going on or when they cannot express themselves clearly.

I have encountered Year 4 and Year 5 students who cannot "recite" the multiplication table. Worse still, some cannot add and subtract two single digit numbers mentally.

Students needs to read more books. A library is a repository of books, and a book is a repository of words or vocabulary. Only with good command of words, variation of meaningful sentences can be constructed, which will in turn make into phrases, paragraphs and eventually a passage or article.

Practice Makes Perfect - Do It
Many of us have heard about "Practice makes perfect", and yet how many people do not follow this adage, nor instil that into the younger generations. Any successful sports person, musician, race horse, and even investors need to spend hours each day practising repeatedly. Unfortunately, many expect miracles to happen to their children and students who hardly spend enough time practising and revising their school work.

Homework has been abolished because many parents, educationalists and psychologists reckon that school work is giving too much pressure to the students, and should be out of bound after school hours. If a Chinese school student in China spends 20 hours in maths and becomes a top student without mentally and psychologically damaged, I believe it is time to rethink the worth of homework.

I suggest bringing back homework and "drilling" them through repeated exercises in order to set the foundation right again in early childhood and primary education.

Maths - Use Proper Terminologies & Sequencing Mathematics (maths in Australia, math in US), is in fact a language. It has syntax, and rules. It is therefore important to learn it properly from the beginning. Correct standard terminologies must be used and emphasised to avoid confusion. "Going back" to primary school is really a learning and challenging experience. I learn terms that I never heard of or used before.

While lengthy explanations may be skipped, I prefer certain concepts to be expounded in primary school years.

The curriculum is rather inefficient and ineffective. I find that some maths topics are repeated in consecutive years, some should be taught in a different logical sequence or even de-emphasized.

Fun and AIDA - The Key to Marketing Success Whenever one has to deal with people to provide a service or sell a product, one has to learn about marketing. A teacher is a marketer in a class.

Marketing is about selling what the customers / clients want to buy. The students are the customers / clients.

The students may not want to buy the knowledge of a subject, but a good marketer can make them buy something else of their interest which eventually leads them to achieve the desire goal unknowingly. AIDA stands for Awareness or Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. Curiosity kills the cat, and therefore maths tricks or visual demonstrations can be good way to create awareness and grab the students' attention. After all, a bit of fun is always good to please a crowd. Although I am not a teacher-in-charge, I am very well liked by the students of the various classes I volunteered in. I run a quick session of maths tricks whenever possible before the end of the class, and they always enjoy it and want to learn more.

What's Next?
I have discussed with the Principal and suggested that I would like to help motivate and excite some students to get them to achieve better results. The Principal and a couple teachers have invited me back to volunteer next year.

My resolution for 2020 is to help students in science even in higher grades.

After all, there is no point to keep my knowledge and take it with me when I am 6-foot under. I like to share it now!

This blog is first published in my Facebook group SFC Education, Teaching, Learning.

Thank you for reading.

Australian students falling behind in maths, science and reading

Australian teachers work longer hours than those in most OECD countries

Posted to Facebook on 9/11/2020 at 2:29 PM
Commenting on "Australian teachers work longer hours than those in most OECD countries"
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/australian-teachers-work-longer-hours-than-those-in-most-oecd-countries-20190807-p52evu.html

Does a teacher working harder make students smarter? How about if I ask a slightly different question? Does a teacher working smarter make students smarter, or even work harder?

I believe many readers in this group, SFC Education, Teaching, Learning, can recall the days when they attended schooling, say from primary to secondary. Most had preference liking certain subjects, but not the rest. You might even hate them to say the least.

A student dislike or hate a particular subject for many reasons

1. boring and dry content
2. can’t understand the content
3. teacher lacks the knowledge or skill to teach
4. teacher can’t manage the class
5. teacher can’t explain or illustrate using non-verbal method

I am making every effort to develop new ways to get students interested in different subjects. What this also means is that I have to learn to get myself interested to subjects I may not be keen in before.

Thank you for reading.

Australian teachers work longer hours than those in most OECD countries

How to get your resume past the robots

Posted to Facebook on 9/11/2019 at 9:16 AM
How to get your resume past the robots
https://www.seek.com.au/career-advice/how-to-make-sure-a-human-reads-your-resume

Must read article if you are applying for a job.

Yes, I am very very unhappy with many employment consultants and HR who conduct interviews, and their high and mighty attitude sometimes get to my nerves.

I have students asked me to help them after they got a reply to go for an interview. They wanted me to teach or tutor them certain topics or subjects because they bluffed their ways to impress the recepient, or Fake it till you get it.

Using software to do the preliminary scanning is very unfair, and filters out some quality applicants, except those some Street Smart or those who have the gift of the gap, but not much grey matter above. In fact, many of you, the readers, probably have encounterd many of such “colleagues” in your office.

As a mentor to job seekers, I have to help them to ”market” themselves to get the first impression right, or else they can’t even score an interview.

Thank you for reading

How to get your resume past the robots

My Story - Learning new math tricks so that I can pass them on to my students

Posted to Facebook on 9/11/2019 at 1:52 AM
My Story - Learning new math tricks so that I can pass them on to my students

Many “students” look forward to the end of their math class to watch and learn new math tricks from me. I can’t let them down, and I won’t, because this is an ideal way to get them interested in math.

For the last couple of weeks, I have been reading and studying math tricks and speed calculation in bed for at least an hour and a half before I sleep.

To my great delight, I am just like Christopher Columbus when he discovered the new world, or Archimedes who figured out the volume of water displaced in a container was the same as the volume of an object submerged in it.

Oh yes, I realise now that many math tricks and speed calculation are based on application of algebra, approximation and rearrangement of numbers in the operation.

What so big deal about such “discoveries”? Knowing how these are derived, I can create my own tricks to intrigue and excite my ”students” further, and develop new methods to help them to break down some “mental blockage”.

Thank you for reading.

Melbourne school turns its results around by reviving its dying library

Posted to Facebook on 4/11/2019 at 6:29 PM
Posted to The Age (29/10/2019) on 4/11/2019
Commenting on “Melbourne school turns its result around by reviving its dying library”
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/melbourne-school-turns-its-results-around-by-reviving-its-dying-library-20191029-p53585.html

I would prefer to call Mr DiCesare “a man of logic” instead of “a man of vision”. Unlike many modern medical treatments, doctors prescribe drugs to treat the symptom rather than the cause.

Literacy problem does not start with teaching writing. Mr DiCesare realised the root cause was reading. Without reading, students will be poor in vocabulary, and words are the basic building blocks of sentences.

Reading gives students the opportunity to learn the usage of such building blocks to form complete sentences with meaning, and eventually compose full paragraphs to form a story or report.

Library is not just a place where books are kept, but also a meeting place of social interaction. A library is the treasure chest of books, and a book a treasure chest of words, sentences and stories or reports.

Reorganising the library provides a solid foundation which literacy can build upon.

Thank you for reading!

Melbourne school turns its results around by reviving its dying library

Overseas students have delivered a cash bonanza to universities, but at what cost?

Posted to Facebook on 31/10/2019 at 2:30 PM
Overseas students have delivered a cash bonanza to universities, but at what cost?
https://www.theage.com.au/national/overseas-students-have-delivered-a-cash-bonanza-to-universities-but-at-what-cost-20190822-p52jvk.html

After many years teaching International students in TAFEs, private colleges and university, I am appalled that the education system is really up the creek.

My teaching life in university was short, so I can't comment much, but my experience at TAFEs and private colleges teaching the Chinese and other nationals is far from satisfactory.

Plagiarism was rampant, and the finish product of the plagiarised work by some students was utter nonsense.

Some examination papers, including mathematics, was full of Chinese translation. Most electronic or cyber translators were not good in translating complex sentences, especially specialised subjects including maths, resulted in nonsensical context. Sentences formed by simple transliteration of individual words don't normally make sense.

Many students were not just lazy, but extremely lazy. Assignments were submitted at the very last minute, or poor excuses were given to expect me to give them an extension.

One day, I armed with the student's handbook and asked the Director of the school whether what was written about failing students for plagiarism was for real or just to scare the students. The Director was bewildered, and looked at me rather stunned. He replied, "of course it is for real!"

I was not trying to be funny or being cheeky. I thanked for for his words of assurance. I went into my Excel class and failed all the students.

Thank you for reading.

Overseas students have delivered a cash bonanza to universities, but at what cost?

My Story - A day with the Prep, Year 4 and Year 5 students

Posted to Facebook on 31/10/2019 at 2:31 AM
My Story - A day with the Prep, Year 4 and Year 5 students

Never I felt so good before. The teachers were so pleased to see me back to help in their classes.

The Prep students learnt Skip Counting using a calculator. They also learnt grouping.

For the second exercise, a small group of students exhibited much stronger cognitive ability by grouping objects by shapes, sizes, thickness, etc instead of colours. Grouping by colours is the simplest and most obvious method used by the rest of the students.

In Year 5, the students learnt function rule, and algebra. In Year 4, the students learnt multiplication of three digits by two digits, with some exercises involved decimals.

I can see a better way to teach the students more efficiently and effectively, but my hands are tied. I am not a teacher, but just to help out.

Many people, including the students, are not good at identifying their shortcomings, and therefore they have problems identifying problems. Without knowing what the problem is, there is no way to remove the hurdle to have a smooth run in the future.

Thank you for reading.

Would a website by any other name smell as sweet? It cost $48,000 to find out

Posted to Facebook on 31/10/2019 at 12:55 AM
Posted to The Age (28/10/2019) on 29/10/2019 (not published by the newspaper)
Commenting on "Would a website by any other name smell as sweet? It cost $48,000 to find out"
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/would-a-website-by-any-other-name-smell-as-sweet-it-cost-48-000-to-find-out-20191025-p5344c.html

I was wondering this Course Seeker website is for the golfing enthusiast or some punters who can’t be sure Melbourne Cup will be run next year.

Course Seeker? Of course, it takes many idle brains to come out with such unimaginative website name. Such a name is uncool, and untrendy.

No one ever imagined Google could become what it is today. Then there are names like Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube, Wikipedia, etc. which are quite meaningless, but they stick in the mind of millions.

Thank you for reading.

Would a website by any other name smell as sweet? It cost $48,000 to find out

I wouldn't want my child anywhere near the new 'excellence' program

Posted to Facebook 28/10/2019 at 5:25 PM
Posted to The Age (28/10/2019) on 28/10/2019 (not published by newspaper)
Commenting on “I wouldn't want my child anywhere near the new 'excellence' program”
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/i-wouldn-t-want-my-child-anywhere-near-the-new-excellence-program-20191024-p533yy.html

I have been waiting for such a program to surface to help the excellent students who are generally the smart students who have been discriminated and dragged down by the not so smart ones in a class, since streaming of students is no longer existed.

Those object such a program or can’t see value in it are just sour grapes, who just want to chop down the tall poppies. We want this to be a smart country, I believe many Australians do, but we are not fair dinkum in helping those who can excel and take the lead to show that Australia can be even better than the Scandinavian countries in education.

Excellent students are normally not just smart in one subject or discipline. They can interconnect numerous concepts, visualise things in virtual dimension.

In fact, some students who have been diagnosed as autistic or suffered from Asperger’s syndrome could have been helped by such a program. These sfferers are suffering in silence.

What most people, that include students of any age, are been suppressed to developed to full potential because they are labelled by cruel and not-good-enough people time and time as book worm, smart Alec, nerd, and show off. In fact, this is truly unfair and can damage the mental well-beig of these people.

Smart students should not be just referred to those academically smart, but also those who are street smart. In addition, there are those who are different from the norm, ask challenging questions that beyond the textbook material and the repository of Google database.

By the way, Einstein learnt calculus by himself at the age of 12.

Thank you for reading.

I wouldn't want my child anywhere near the new 'excellence' program

Are high achievers the answer to teaching's poor reputation?

Posted to Facebook 21/10/2019 at 12:41 PM
Posted to The Age (21/19/2019 on 21/10/2019 (not published by he newspaper) Commenting on “Are high achievers the answer to teaching's poor reputation?”
https://www.theage.com.au/education/are-high-achievers-the-answer-to-teaching-s-poor-reputation-20190917-p52s4e.html

I walked to the reception of a primary school and asked to see someone who could take me on as a volunteer. I am one now and that story about how I finally get there is history.

It is true that not all teachers are qualified to teach in all subjects, but unfortunately there are too many subjects and there are not enough students of the same competency level in a class to justify employing more teachers. Removing streaming of students is a big problem and a half.

To qualify that, the students’ competency gap is too big within each class, but the teachers are expected to handle them as a counsellor, and child minding carer, besides being a “coach” and ‘trainer”.

I only volunteer a day each week in maths, not of my own choice, but I still enjoy it. During that day, I volunteer in three “grades” or “years”. I have no idea how some students in Year 5 having very much lower competency can be promoted to the grade.

Have you ever tried handling or keeping 20 young people quiet by not raising your voice? If a teacher raises his/her voice, or saying something perceived to damage the children’s psychology, the teacher is likely to get reprimanded or a marching order, because the children’s parents will come down like a ton of bricks. Well, the laws are very skewed.

The teachers allocate me to “teach” or help different groups of students with different problems. So far, the teachers have been very kind to me, probably the students like the way I assist them.

Many students are very eager to be “selected” to join my group. In fact, a teacher commented that the way the students “welcomed” me, I was like a rock star. I am not a high achiever, and definitely do not “teach” the students for the money. My success is attributed to my patience and lots of life experience gained from different discipline. Most importantly, I speak the students’ language; using action heroes, cartoon characters, famous people etc, to illustrate how problems can be solved, and reward them with a Hi 5 for correct answers.

Many people make too much assumption that their audience understand the underlying reasons or theories of a problem. Is it enough to have a right answer if a student cannot explain how it is derived? A student may have solved or seen a similar question or problem before so that they can quote the answers correctly.

Younger students want to know why and then how. Not everyone understands reasoning the same way, because some have better developed logic part of the brain, while others the cognitive part of the brain.

In general, If a picture speaks a thousand words, I shall throw in a line to say that an examples speaks a thousand times more. The best example is one that they can relate too.

Fun grabs students attention, makes them laugh and remember.

That’s my contribution to education, and to the younger generations.

Thank you for reading.

Are high achievers the answer to teaching's poor reputation?

Is it time to ditch the ATAR and even NAPLAN?

Posted to Facebook on 12/10/2019 at 7:36 PM
Is it time to ditch the ATAR and even NAPLAN?
https://www.theage.com.au/national/is-it-time-to-ditch-the-atar-and-even-naplan-20191004-p52xs8.html

I believe ATAR and NPLAN are good assessment tools, and should be retained to gauge the students‘ academic performance so that the education system can be fine tuned.

For quite awhile I hold firm belief that our system is plagued by political correctness policies, under the influence of social reformists and psychologists.

Teachers can no longer be honest and direct to report the actual students‘ performance and behaviour, in fear of breaching the code of conduct or sued by parents for damaging their children’s psychology.

For the perceived benefit of social interaction, students struggling in understanding lessons are mixed with “smart” students who can become very disinterested in the class, be disruptive and feel cheated for being dragged down.

Thank you for reading.

Is it time to ditch the ATAR and even NAPLAN?

Experts say a lack of qualified teachers is turning students off maths

Posted to Facebook on 11/10/2019 at 7:40 AM
Post to The Age (10/10/2019) on 11/10/2019)
Commenting on “Experts say a lack of qualified teachers is turning students off maths”
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/experts-say-a-lack-of-qualified-teachers-is-turning-students-off-maths-20191010-p52zl0.html

The experts study should go beyond or rather before Year 7 in order to find out the root cause of the problem.

During mid-2018, I requested and was granted the opportunity to volunteer in a primary school, and unexpectedly assigned to help students from Prep to Year 5 in maths. I can confirm that the problems lie in the lack of strict discipline in overall class activities, insufficient time dedicated to the subject, largely not due to the fault of teachers but the system.

Maths is more complex than English as a subject, and it is a myth to believe that it easy to learn and teach. In a way maths is a language - it has syntax, semantics, rules, exceptions and variations. Maths includes more than simple arithmetic operations, but also logic of shapes, quantity, and arrangement, using numeral and symbolic representation, in single or multi dimensions.

In general basic maths is logical, but it can get too abstract for many young mind and even adults, too. Given that premise, rote learning should not be considered as outdated method of learning, discouraged or even abolished at schools.

At very young tender school age, students need to accept and memorise certain axioms, assumptions and basic formulae so that these form the foundation for students to leap frog to learning more difficult branches of maths like algebra, geometry, statistics and calculus.

Most students learnt English since the day they learnt to speak, and they continue to use it daily. Unfortunately, the time spent in learning and using maths is far too little in class and afternoon hours.

A music student or an athlete learn or practise a lot more hours daily outside class contact. Unfortunately, the abolishment of homework, including maths, seems totally illogical and debatable, if students are expected to perform well or excel In non-music and sport subjects.

The prolific growth in private tuition schools especially in maths is the result of market demand and symptomatic about the failure of how maths is taught or delivered at school. Many of these tuition schools require students to do maths exercises of specific topics repeatedly so that the students can gain skill and speed.

How can a teacher help students having large competency gap all mixed in a same class? Abolishment of streaming makes life extremely difficult for teachers to give extra attention to students who need more help. If a teacher is to offer more assistance to these students, those more competent students are being “compromised” and they tend to lose interest, resulting in mediocre performance.

A teacher good in maths may not be good in passing on his/her knowledge to the students. A teacher with higher degree in maths cannot be guaranteed to arouse the interest of a student in Prep or Year 11. In the first place, the students are not required to understand, pure maths, higher algebra, imaginary roots or complex series learnt in higher degree.

If good foundation is built in primary school, and students are interested in maths in the early years, quality of maths teachers in secondary school may not be as big a issue as it seems. It is important to recognise that the tallest building in the world has to start from ground up.

Thank you for reading.

This post and many other similar ones can be found in my Facebook group SFC Education, Teaching, Learning.

Experts say a lack of qualified teachers is turning students off maths

My Story - Create a niche, seize the opportunity

Posted to Facebook on 14/9/2019 at 8:37 AM

This post is more relevant than ever in the present climate

While fluency in English is paramount for people residing in Australia and many other English speaking countries, fluency in other languages including their non-English mother tongue should be regarded as a strength. If no one around speaks your language, then create a niche to teach others.

I am so glad that my Dad gave me the opportunity to study Mandarin / Potong Hua instead of English when I was young. Although I only studied Mandarin for six years in primary school, it gave me the foundation to pursue more even after I changed to an English medium school.

I never intended to adopt an Anglicised name, even after I touched down in Melbourne over 45 years ago. I never thought I had the chance to speak Cantonese and Mandarin again, but I continued to practise my Chinese writing, read Chinese books, and conversed whenever possible in both languages.

My persistence and perseverance paid off. Back in the early 90's, not many "Chinese" could speak Cantonese and Mandarin fluently. My Cantonese was so good that I did not have any trace of Malaysian Chinese accent. A lot of Cantonese thought that I was from Hong Kong.

What a strength I possessed! I was in a good position to sell Melbourne real estate properties to Hong Kong people and later to the early batch of mainland Chinese.

I have the best of both worlds - the Chinese and Western. I understood then that knowledge was power, so I read as much and as many subjects as I could. Although I am not Wikipedia, I do know a great deal of Chinese history as well as Chinese mythology.

Instead of keeping my knowledge in my head, I created a FB page on Chinese Customs and Festivities, written in English, for the enjoyment of Chinese and non-Chinese readers.

No matter where I go, I know I am a Chinese - not a Chinese national, but like what the Aussie says, "a true blue Chinese" with an equal touch of Western/Oz. I am an Australian, born in Malaysia of Chinese descent.

Thank you for reading.

Communication and Communication Skill

Posted to Facebook on 9/9/2019 at 11:39 PM
Communication and Communication Skill

I was given 10 minutes only to present to an audience about Communication and Communication Skill.

The audience was a group of job seekers who had just finished a hands-on session in writing a job application conducted by Michelle Yau-James. Due to this reason, I designed the content of my presentation to stay relevant to what they had been doing.

The following is an outline of my presentation:

• Concept of communication
• Relevance of communication in job application
• Different modes of communication
• Two keywords for successful communication
• 1-on-1 communication versus presentation to a group
• Method to overcome stage fright
• Application of communication technique in writing job application and handling interview

Three attendees stayed back and had further discussion with me. They were very pleased with how I used simple examples to explain the concept and application of communication.

I also answered some of their questions not related to the presentation. In addition, I gave them a good lesson on how to obtain information from someone without asking for it directly.

My parting message to them was “Change your mindset!”

Thank you for reading.

My Story - Sharing my life experience so that others can benefit from it

Posted to Facebook on 8/9/2019 at 1:00 PM
Sharing my life experience so that others can benefit from it

Do not keep your valuable life experience to yourself. Share it. Someone out there may benefit from that experience one day.

On 19/8/19, I mentored 2 migrant job seekers and one of them wrote to the project coordinator her feedback. The following is a transcript:

"Yes meeting went really well with Sin Fong. He shared his experience with me. I was really motivated by his tips and experience so, It will definitely help me with my job hunt in future.

Please say big thanks to Sin Fong on behalf of me. And yeah I think we covered most of the things which I wanted to know. So I don’t think I need to meet him for second time.

Appreciated your help too. It’s a wonderful program for migrants who are really struggling here during their job hunt.

Thanks to u for helping.”

Thank you for reading.

A failure is one who is not prepared to fix their problems themselves

Posted to Facebook on 4/9/2019 at 12:25 PM
A failure is one who is not prepared to fix their problems

Each week, the Year 4 class teacher allocates me groups of students who have learning or understanding difficulty in mathematics. I mean I tackle one group at a time.

I explain the question or problem in the simplest possible way and show them examples in order to make them understand or realise their mistakes. They have to fix the mistakes themselves without further clue.

A week ago, I had a student who cried and kept saying she was a failure because she could not do the question correctly. The student cries whenever she is under stress, not only in mathematics class, but also in other subjects too.

After calming her down, helping her understand, and watching her corrected her mistake, I said to her she had to remember for good what I said. I wanted her to repeat exactly what I said:

”Mr Chan says:
I am not going to cry in class again
I am not a failure
I WILL succeed!”

A failure is one who is not prepared to fix their problems themselves or seeks help/advice from others to have the problem solved.

Thank you for reading.

Victoria's TAFE course completion rate the worst in Australia

Posted to Facebook on 3/9/2019 at 10:16 PM
Victoria's TAFE course completion rate the worst in Australia
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/victoria-s-tafe-course-completion-rate-the-worst-in-australia-20190829-p52m5l.html

Numeracy and literacy problems do not start at TAFEs, or tertiary institutions, but at the early days of schooling.

My current voluntary service in a primary school gives me the opportunity to have first hand contact with very young school children, ranging from Prep to Year 5. I am patiently waiting for the right time to get in touch with the education authority to suggest my education reform strategies.

High TAFE student drop out rate is not unexpected. It is not about employability, but the quality of students.

Most of the students join TAFEs after VCE examinations in Year 12. These are normally not the top performers, and many are likely to be at the bottom of the academic ladder. Some students attend TAFE courses under duress; they either take up a course or face their Centrelink money cut off. Students of mature age are better in general. They attend TAFE for retraining or learning a new skill after being retrenched or out of work force for sometime due to personal reasons. TAFEs can to be blamed for offering courses of no real value. Students are at times given high hope of gaining employment after the course, only to find out that the course content bears no relevance to the real world employment.

A course once known as Office Admistration has been renamed and promoted as Business Adminstraion. Unfortunately, this is a con.

Many students attending a Management course have the misconception that after their graduation, they will be able to land themselves in a managerial position. They do not realise these are not available for someone straight out of TAFE or college.

Hospitality courses conducted by TAFEs are better than those offered by private colleges. Many TAFEs have their own kitchens onsite, and food hygiene is monitored with greater stringency.

Thank you for reading.

Victoria's TAFE course completion rate the worst in Australia

After five weeks of helping Chinese classmates I fired off a furious email

PART 1 OF 2
Posted to Facebook on 28/8/2019 at 8:47 AM
Posted to The Age (27/8/2019) on 28/8/2019
Commenting on “After five weeks of helping Chinese classmates I fired off a furious email“
https://www.theage.com.au/national/after-five-weeks-of-helping-chinese-classmates-i-fired-off-a-furious-email-20190827-p52l8f.html

The higher education system catering for the international students is a complete rort, and it has not improved since the large wave of Chinese international students landed in the colleges and universities.

Entry to the institutions requires attainment of certain level of English competency, either assessed in Australia or overseas. Unfortunately, money can buy “good results” illegally overseas, and therefore it is of no surprise that these international students cannot produce any readable or sensible submission.

I am glad that I am no longer teaching in the system. I do not have to subject to pressure to pass the students even though they could hardly get pass the starting line. I had many students complaining about their international student team members hardly contributed towards the project, or just put in a few sloppy paragraphs which made no sense.

What can a team member do to get the others to pull their socks up if they are reluctant or refuse to do so?

PART 2 OF 2
Posted to Facebook on 28/8/2019 at 3:12 PM

It is time to call for a Royal Commission to have a close scrutiny of the tertiary education system.

The scope should cover the funding models, the unethical practices of the institutions and private organisations to pass audit, systematic rorting of the entry requirement, endemic plagiarism, organisations bullying staff to relax pass marks, provision of trial test papers almost identical to actual examinations, ways to reassess failed students to enable them to pass, excessive charging of course materials reproduced from photocopiers, slapdash collection of online reading materials, etc.

Thank you for reading.

After five weeks of helping Chinese classmates I fired off a furious email

Shock of the new - equipped to face the future workplace frontier

Posted to Facebook to 8/8/2019 at 10:39 AM
Commenting on "Shock of the new"
https://brandedcontent.afr.com/uber/shock-new/

I trained, taught and lectured myriads of seemingly unrelated subjects, including software and hardware, accounting, business administration, marketing, and hospitality marketing.

Each jump may appear to be drastic and unrelated, but the underlying skills were transferable. Besides skilset, mindset had to be modified and adapted in order to survive for the long haul.

Please make sure you are equipped to face the future workplace frontier.

Thank you for reading

hock of the new - equipped to face the future workplace frontier

My Story - teach the students some maths tricks or give them some fun maths facts

Posted to Facebook on 1/8/2019 at 12:44 AM
My Story - teach the students some maths tricks or give them some fun maths facts

Somehow the school teachers thought that I am only good in mathematics (maths). The three different teachers ask me to assist the students in maths. Oh well, so be it

I easily get my guernsey from the principal, teachers and most importantly the students. I am given a free hand to guide the students to do the class exercises the way I see fit

I have been given the green light to deal with students with learning or behavioral problems individually within the class. It is important that the students need to understand where their mental road block is, and how to find ways to bypass or fix it.

Depending on how much time is left before the class is dismissed, I request from the class teacher permission to teach the students some maths tricks or give them some fun maths facts. The teachers are pretty good and attentive audience to say the least.

It does not matter whether it is a STEM subject or not, it is important to find ways to make it interesting and fun in order to minimise or even eliminate rejection by the students.

I have proven that my black-and-white hair is NOT a barrier or hindrance to join these young children and have communication at their age levels.

Thank you for reading.

My Story - bring students to the attention of their problems and lead then to work out the answers

Posted to Facebook on 16/7/2019 at 5:49 PM
My Story - bring students to the attention of their problems and lead then to work out the answers

I was asked by the Year 4 class teacher to help 2 students to understand why they made mistakes in the online exercises and how to fix the mistakes.

One at a time the student was with me going through the online exercises on a laptop.

The first student is fairly smart. However, he was too hasty and did not pay attention to accuracy

The second did not pay enough attention to question, nor to me when I was explaining

I brought to the attention of their problems, and led them to work out the correct answers or fix their mistakes made in the online exercises.

Student 1 needs to slow down, and double check his work. He will speed up only after he has proven his can do his exercises accuracy.

Student 2 must learn to read all available information, namely question and diagrams very carefully before giving an answer. She must listen attentively, without interrupting the speaker, teacher or instructor. Otherwise, she will miss the explanation and important information.

The students were asked to repeat what they understood about their problems and they had to tell the class teacher the same

The students and the teacher were happy, and so am I.

Thank you for reading.

My Story - Back to school for Term 3

Posted to Facebook on 16/7/2019 at 3:43 PM
My Story - Back to school for Term 3

Back to school first day of third term. I continue to volunteer in Prep and Year 4, but I also want to extent my service to students in different Years

I managed to have a quick word with the school principal, and he said he had a teacher in mind that might need my service in her class.

Lucky me, I shall be helping out in Year 5 class as well next week. In short, that will keep me occupied full day

Thank you for reading.

Can an education system from a country be transferred and adopted by another country?

Posted to Facebook on 9/7/2019 at 12:32 PM
Can an education system from a country be transferred and adopted by another country?

I read a post about Finland is ready to assist Malaysia with their education system.

What is important is NOT just the education system. The parenting of the children, the societal influence, the cultural acceptance, employment prospect, are important to the definition of success of any education system.

In many Asian societies, parents are Tiger parents or Helicopter parents, and what the children study and how the children behave are dictated by the parents

Then the racial and religious issues create big barrier, whether religious study forms part of curriculum, or students need to attend prayers at certain time on certain day.

The welfare system also entwined in the system. There is a big wealth gap in many Asian societies, and can the government afford to fund childcare, daycare and after school care

The crux of the matter is what factors cause the failure of the current system, and whether there are remedies.

While the article is more about Malaysia, we also need to have a closer look at our (Australian) education system.

There is no one size fits all. Foreign systems bring new problems, especially in a multicultural country.

Thank you for reading.

The quality not the quantity of teachers that counts

Posted to Facebook on 4/7/2019 at 9:18 AM
The quality not the quantity of teachers that counts

The problem is about quality NOT quantity. While good quality teachers is important, the non-academic “quality” of the students plays a more important part in the end result.

The society and parents MUST take responsibility about the behaviour of the school students. Not all students can be dealt with just gentle words of encouragement to fix their problems in the classroom.

In a well disciplined class with students who are more homogeneous in most respect, a teacher is able to manage and conduct a much larger class especially in early school years.

The concept of mixing students with big difference in level of competence in favour of social interaction is a myth. The outcome is producing more half baked performers rather than students of excellence.

Life experience is valuable in dealing with students who are very testng and demanding. Being able to “predict” a student’s next move can put a stop to unnecessary disruption

School curriculum can do with some serious revemping. That is another topic I shall discuss next time.

Thank you for reading.