My Story - A day helping at a primary school

Posted to Facebook on 23/2/2020 at 3:24 AM
My Story - A day helping at a primary school

Written on 23 February 2020

On Monday, 17 February 2020, I dropped by at the primary school I volunteered in last year to check with the teachers when I should resume my service this term.

Two out of three teachers I helped are using different classrooms, except the Prep class teacher. The former Year 5 teacher is teaching Year 1 this term.

Only the Year 4 teacher was ready, while the other two asked me to delay for another week or two when they get things sorted out.

Tuesday, 18 February, the rain bucketed down as I was about to walk to the school. I had no choice but to drive for just half a kilometer in order not get myself drenched. This was the first day I sat behind the steering wheel after my surgery.

I met the Year 4 students. They were doing maths on number value and position. My role in the class is to help a designated group of students when necessary, otherwise I just help whoever require my attention or assistance.

I am a very strict teacher, and when I see a student makes a mistake, I want it fixed without delay. However, I make sure the student understands why the mistake was made, and how it can be fixed. I do not like to see a straight line crooked, not drawn with a ruler, or a mistake not rubbed off properly, before new information is written over it.

The class teacher pointed out to me two students who were rather difficult to manage, because they seldom followed instructions or paid attention. I did have a chance to deal with one of them, and I put him "straight" by doing it my "proper" way.

Children do need to learn to behave, especially in a group environment, and do things properly in order to build a firm foundation for future undertaking.

There were two girls reading with their books held at very close distance. Both were not wearing glasses. I asked them to mention to their parents that they needed to have their eyes check out.

For about half an hour, the class was switched from maths to English. I then supervised the students doing some English activities.

The class teacher asked a girl who just joined the school this year to read me a story from some printed sheets. She had a soft voice, and a problem with her diction. Many people, not students only, speak with monotone.

I stopped her after she finished the first page. I just wanted her to relax and had a casual chat with her. I asked whether she liked acting, or made a speech on stage in front of an audience. She had a smile on her face, and replied she liked acting. I told her she could make it if she listened to my advice.

I never mentioned the word confidence to her; I did not tell her about her "negatives", but I advised her not to bend her neck, look at the sentence first before reading it aloud; and raise or drop her tone according to the punctuation.

With my guidance, she no longer read the story; she was telling the story confidently with expression and proper tonation. Most importantly, she enjoyed my lesson!

Thank you for reading.

Like being thrown off a bus': Mentor program to ease load on teachers

Posted to Facebook on 29/2/2020 2:44 PM
Posted to The Age (18/2/2020) on 19/2/2020 (Not published by the newspaper)
Commenting on "'Like being thrown off a bus': Mentor program to ease load on teachers"
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/like-being-thrown-off-a-bus-mentor-program-to-ease-load-on-teachers-20200218-p541zo.html

There is a Chinese saying, "It takes 10 years to grow a tree, but takes 100 years to grow a person".

Although all of us live on the same planet, many young people segmented themselves in their world of instant result and glorification, and therefore teaching is not really suited for them, even if teaching was their ideal and ambition when they were children.

There is a misconception and misuse of the words teacher and educator, and therefore the any articles referring teachers as educators could be wrong.

While an educator is a skilled teacher, not all teachers are educators. An educator does not focus on curriculum and syllabus like a teacher, but on development and progress.

I was a lecturer and teacher in the tertiary sector for over 2 decades. For the last two years, I have been a volunteer working hands-on in classrooms with prep and primary students. The Principal and those teachers I have helped appreciated the way I "coached" the students, and invited me back again this year.

During my time in class, I have met several young upcoming teachers in internship or workplacement. I can visualise the tough journey ahead of them. They may have the formal qualifications, but lack the life experience to deal with rather unpredictable behaviour of young children and explosive behaviour of teenagers.

How can a young teacher, unlikely to possess the knack to pacify a child like a parent or handle a teenager even bigger in size? (I had a student at a college who failed in his assignment wanted to punch me because he could not accept the verdict!)

The big competence gap of students within a class is a complete nightmare for many experienced teachers, let alone the inexperienced young ones. The education system decides that streaming is bad for social interaction, and allows the very smart students to be among the very average and slow learners in a class.

Who should the teacher give more attention to? When attention is paid to one group, the others are left out and feel frustrated. The overall performance is just average, and that is not what a young teacher, or in fact for the experienced ones as well, aimed to achieve. The teachers might think that they fail to be good teachers!

Being passionate in teaching is not good enough. What they received in their formal training may not be adequate. They need to learn to be smart to deal with many different situations using "Sun Zi Bing Fa" - Sun Zi Military Strategies or Sun Tze - The Art of War (incorrect translation of the book title); they need to learn marketing to promote their presence in the class, develop techniques for the current teaching style and help the students to recognise their learning styles.

Many people get turned off by the word "marketing". The normal off-the-shelf marketing course will not suit the classroom environment. It has to be modified, like many TAFE courses, to target specifically at education.

While mentoring may help young graduates and teachers to overcome some of the pressures anxiety, I believe they need a very patient inspirational motivator too boost their confidence level and improve their grit mindset.

Thank you for reading. 

Like being thrown off a bus': Mentor program to ease load on teachers

I quit: why do so many young teachers abandon the profession?

Posted to Facebook on 16/2/2020 on 1:04 PM
Commenting on "I quit: why do so many young teachers abandon the profession?"
https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/i-quit-why-do-so-many-young-teachers-abandon-the-profession-20160126-gmebbu.html

Written on 16 February 2020

There is a Chinese saying, "It takes 10 years to grow a tree, but takes 100 years to grow a person".

Although all of us live on the same planet, many young people segmented themselves in their world of instant result and glorification, and therefore teaching is not really suited for them, even if teaching was their ideal and ambition when they were children.

There is a misconception and misuse of the words teacher and educator, and therefore the any articles referring teachers as educators are wrong.

While an educator is a skilled teacher, but not all teachers are educators. An educator does not focus on curriculum and syllabus like a teacher, but on development and progress.

During my time as a volunteer working handson in classrooms with prep and primary students, I met several young upcoming teachers in internship or workplacement. I can visualise the tough journey ahead of them. They may have the formal qualification, but lack the life experience to deal with rather unpredictable behaviour of young children and explosive behaviour of teenagers.

How can a young teacher, unlikely to possess the knack to pacify a child like a parent or handle a teenager even bigger in size? I had a student in a college who failed in his assignment wanted to punch me because he did not accept the verdict!

The big competence gap of students within a class is a complete nightmare for many experienced teachers, let alone the young ones. The education system decides that straming is bad for social interaction, and allows the very smart students to be among the very average and slow learners in a class.

Who should the teacher give more attention to? When attention is paid to one group, the others are left out and feel frustrated. The overall performance is just average, and that is not what a young teacher, or in fact for the experienced ones as well, aimed to achieve. The teachers might think that they fail to be good teachers!

Being passionate in teaching is not good enough. What they received in their formal training may not be adequate. They need to learn to be smart to deal with many different situations using "Sun Zi Bing Fa" - Sun Zi Strategies of War; they need to learn marketing to promote their presence in the class, develop techniques for the corrent teaching style and help the students to recogniose their learning styles.


Thank you for reading.

I quit: why do so many young teachers abandon the profession?

An art lesson in Primary 1 that triggered my right hemisphere to like arts

Posted to Facebook on 10/2/2020 at 2:03 AM
An art lesson in Primary 1 that triggered my right hemisphere to like arts

Written on 9 February 2020

An art lesson in Primary 1 that triggered my right hemisphere to like arts I was in Primary 1. The classroom was at the far end of the school; in fact it was the very last one in the school building which was in the shape of the Chinese characterd for mountain 山. I never complained about the location, because it was closest to the toilet block, and that came in handy. It saved me a lot of time and energy to walk there. Can't you remember what I just told you that I was in Primary 1? My legs were much shorter then.

My class teacher was a lady, slightly plumpish, and wore a pair of glasses. The students including me addressed her as Teacher Liang. She was approachable, and carried a smile on her face most of the time. Besides teaching us reading and writing in Mandarin, she also taught us singing, and drawing / painting. She played the piano.

Despite having a memory like an elephant, I could only remember one or two things about Teacher Liang and her teaching. I remember I visited her at the end of the year with Mum to thank her for being a good teacher.

During those days, there was a big "dark green board" mounted on the wall in front of the classroom. I was not a tall boy, and therefore, lucky me, I sat in the front row just facing the board. I could see the board without straining my eyes, and hear clearly what the teachers delivered. I did not care about other students making noise in the class.

White chalk was used to write on the board, except when the teacher wanted to highlight something, then colour chalks were used.

Besides that, colour chalks were used for drawing. On this particular day, Teacher Liaung drew something that changed part of my life, not the whole life, but only the development of the artistic part of my brain. Teacher Liang drew a lot things on the board before, but this gigantic drawing filled in purple and green was something unusual about it. It was a vegetable, not the usual one I was familiar with.
It was a Brinjal. Oops, the brinjal I knew was not a big fat one like that. It should be like the size of a cucumber instead. I should know this, because Dad had a market store in the Central Market in Kuala Lumpur, selling all sorts of fresh vegetables.

When I arrived in Australia years after, I learnt that Australians had no idea what a brinjal was. The big big fat "brinjal" Teacher Leung drew was known as an Egg Plant.

Purple was not a common colour that I encountered in daily life, and the shape of the brinjal drawn by Teacher Liang was similar to a baby's milk bottle. Was there a correlation between the two features? I could not figure out even until now. Strangely, I can still recall that image just like when I first saw it drawn on the dark green board.

This experience convinces me that what children learn in early childhood and in primary schooling will have an impact in their future development and undertakings. However, most people do not realise, because they never think those early days matter.

I shall write more about my "artistic skill" development in my future blogs yet to be written and published in my special interest group.

Thank you for reading.

My Story - My first degree

Posted to Facebook 4/2/2020 10:59 PM
My Story - My first degree

Written on 4 February 2020

The basic degree is just the beginning, and that applies to Malaysia and all other countries, including Australia, that‘s where I am.

In the early days, many male Malaysians came to Australia to study Engineering, economics or accounting. The number of females could be counted just with my fingers.

My HSC results were good enough even for medicine, but I chose science, a course which required much lower score. Many friends were puzzled!

There were two good reasons for my choice:

1. Hardly anyone knew about computers, what they could do and whether there was a future in this unknown field.

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology RMIT offered computer science course which covered a bit more on hardware then software. However, I chose Melbourne University for a degree course in Information Science which had a few subjects that involved computer logic and programming, plus mathematics. I knew I wanted to study something that would be in great demand in the coming years. I was spot on.

2. I wanted to study a course that required the least time and easier to complete. The sooner I got out of the University, the sooner I could join the workforce “to bring home the bacon”.

I neither studied for my interest, nor for prestige for example to be a doctor. I study for my first employment.

Choosing an easier course meant that I did not impose too much stress on myself, and I could achieve my first major “success” in life with a piece of paper to prove. Like the adage goes, “Success breeds success”!

I shot bulleyes on both.

Thank you for reading.

More and more graduates are facing unemployment in Malaysia

Posted to Facebook om 4/2/2000 at 8:06 PM
Commenting on "More and more graduates are facing unemployment in Malaysia"
https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2020/02/562309/more-and-more-graduates-are-facing-unemployment-malaysia

Written on 4 February 2020

With a brain that enables them to gain entrance to university and become graduated, but do not use it to find out the usefulness of the course to enable them to gain employment, that is the true failure.

Do not blame the system. It’s your own life. Find out the supply and demand before enrolling in a course. Many students study for their interests at that time, but they do not realise that piece of framed degree paper can’t feed empty stomachs.

A lot of people spend more time in researching for a pair of brand name shoes, gadgets, household appliances, cars, but do not do the same for big ticket items like a house or a degree course. Ironic indeed.

Thank you for reading.

More and more graduates are facing unemployment in Malaysia

Appetite for this style of education is growing': Victoria's newest schools

Posted to Facebook on 2/2/2020 at 5:28 PM
Posted to The Age (2/2/2020) on 2/2/2020 (not published by the newspaper)
Commenting on "Appetite for this style of education is growing': Victoria's newest schools" https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/appetite-for-this-style-of-education-is-growing-victoria-s-newest-schools-20191203-p53gf6.html

A school is just a building. With technology, virtual school does not rely or mega million dollars up market swish building.

The ultimate goal of a school is to "produce" the right sort of the students or graduates who can serve the community, and that requires the right sort of teachers.

I sincerely hope the school funding is used for raising the quality of teaching rather than cosmetically beautifying the facet of the brick-and-mortar.

Thank you for reading.

Appetite for this style of education is growing': Victoria's newest schools

Coding to be mandatory in primary, early high school

Posted to Facebook on 2/2/2020 at 3:28 AM
Commenting on "Coding to be mandatory in primary, early high school"
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/coding-to-be-mandatory-in-primary-early-high-school-20180817-p4zy5d.html

I wonder how many students will turn out to be good coders. During my early days, I was known as a programmer. Don’t get me wrong, I still like to be known as a computer programmer.

This is another burden to the young students, and almost all the primary school teachers are not trained to teach or guide the students.

Many people don’t understand what a computer bug can do a programmer. A computer bug is not something that spread disease like flu and cold, but it can cause undue stress to many young mind.

A bug is something coded incorrectly that causes the program to perform errornuosly, including terminating abruptly, doing things repeatedly that could not be stopped normally, or producing disastrous outcome.

A seemingly easy to fix bug is never easy to fix. Once a bug is removed, it may cause another to surface, and sometimes the so called simple bug can take days or even longer to fix.

The process of fixing the problem is known as debugging the program. There are tools available to debug the most obviously ones, but “life is not meant to be easy” especially for a programmer. Big programs can contain many thousands or more lines of instructions, and finding the culprit is like “finding a needle in a hay stack”.

Unfortunately, this is a drain to valuable resource for the schools, and a teacher cannot waste too much time helping the very frustrated students to debug the program.

Some schools are introducing 3D printing, and the equipment and materials used are very expensive. It is bad enough that some schools are forcing the students to buy computer in early primary years, and expenses just piling up after that. What if 3D becomes mandatory, and the students pester the parents to buy the equipment?

After helping students up to Year 5 last year, I know coding is definitely not for these students or under. It is not just my opinion, but my professional opinion with the backing of 50 years of hands-on programming experience.

Thank you for reading.

Coding to be mandatory in primary, early high school