Comments on: The Fear Factor

By: sammicheng

sammicheng — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:18:13 +0000

And Gabriel Ching (whose essay u put up) was homeschooled until he went to pri school!

By: jseng

jseng — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 07:30:00 +0000

That’s why go home school. Lets kids be kids. Let them learn on their own pace. Equip them with the right attitude to learn, they will do fine later.

By: Mel

Mel — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 07:30:00 +0000

My P1 girl’s English homework for the weekend is to write 5 sentences about a given topic (like: about yourself, first day in school, Chinese New Year, etc) and this started on the 2nd week since she began P1. I don’t know about others, but I have to spend a fair bit of time coaching her. I agree with you, since when did schools start setting such high expection in English? On the other hand, her Chinese lessons till now still at hanyu pinying and strokes (笔划) stage, things that she and most of her classmates already learnt in kindergarten. I just find that this extreme imbalance of emphasis is all wrong.

By: hait

hait — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 07:30:00 +0000

The hanyu pinyin issue is something which will make me grumble and complain non-stop for three days. I am totally against this new pinyin first, hanzi later and recognition first write later method here for our primary school kids. Using China as a refereral guide to embrace this method is simply *!&$%&.

By: cookiedough

cookiedough — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 07:30:00 +0000

I’m a Pri 1teacher actually. My sch uses the “My Pals Are Here” series of English textbooks and workbooks, and for the 1st unit, kids are taught to read words like shirt, blouse, pencil, eraser, ruler, and names of the different body parts (eyes, ears, face, knee, foot, etc).

Having taught 3 batches of pri 1 kids… I know that in almost every class of my neighbourhood sch, there are at least 1 or 2 kids who cannot read or count properly and who need more personal coaching from teachers. E.g. there is one boy in my class who can’t even write his name properly. Cannot copy words well also. I also have one girl who doesn’t even know she has ten fingers when I told her to count them today. These are basic skills that children should have mastered in kindergarten. We teachers always wonder how come their parents aren’t that concerned that their own kids can’t even do basic stuff like that. Some parents just shrug it off and say “I don’t know what to do with him”. Win already. We teachers also donno what to do lor.

And yes, composition writing starts in Term 1. Just 5 short sentences. Even journal writing. Don’t ask me how or why. Most Pri 1 kids can’t even read or write a decent sentence by themselves, unless they come from families who are English-speaking.

I don’t like the system. Pri 1 kids are pushed very hard to catch up and meet the high expectations. Higher order thinking maths questions are found in pri 1 exam papers. Maths papers are full of English words. If English fail, of cos Maths sure fail. You set difficult exam paper, of cos the kids cannot do it. They are just not ready. And yet our bosses blame us for not preparing them well. Sigh.

I’m quitting teaching very soon actually. Wanna spend more time at home with my little one, and also becos I’ve had enuf nonsense from the system. I worry for my little one… next time when she has to go thru the nonsense as a student. Scary.

By: hait

hait — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 07:30:00 +0000

cookiedough, thank you for providing us an insight into primary 1 English. As a teacher, it must be tough to handle students with a very huge gap in their language competency. While trying to teach and engage those English savvy ones, I hope most teachers will be more accomodating to those kids who come from non-english speaking background and help them catch up with the rest. But from what you have mentioned, the system doesn’t seems to provide any time frame to facilitate this catching up process.

I am not sure if people will label us as quitters, but I have seen so many disillusioned teachers who used to have such passion in teaching leaving the service. Some of them might not be those who can produce straight As students, but many of them are the kind that are able to inspire and instill the right attitude in learning or living a worthwhile life. They probably had enough nonsense, like you.

By: Hsin

Hsin — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 07:30:00 +0000

This is depressing. I’m not sure about home schooling, but definitely, the system sounds ridiculous. Children should be allowed to be kids. We had our childhood, surely our kids should have theirs too.

By: huileng's sketches of happenings

huileng's sketches of happenings — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 07:30:00 +0000

TrackBack from huileng's sketches of happenings:

My two boxes of Cheerios should be awaiting for me under lock and high security now. Little Ryan, the big size heavy weight boxing champion, shall be the bouncer and send suspicious character to Pluto if any ever tries to get near them. The...