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