Student's potential are being limited.

[LamKY]

Being a Maths and Science tutor for primary and Secondary for 6 years, I realised that students perform better if they discover answers by themselves, instead of being spoon fed with answers.

They are more self motivated to score well in exams if they know the purpose behind their hard work in school.

I realised, most students nowadays, are not groomed to their fullest potential. They study for the sake of studying, and they take the easy way out without understanding their home assignments.

I hope to improve the current education situation.

What are your views pls?

Lin


Lin, please advertise in the classified section of this website.

thanks,
sms

[briceloh]

You aren't the 1st to notice. The government have long tried to curb this problem and those that regards to limitations in developing creativity. Sadly, what parents still wants from their child is to be able to compete in the labour market when they grow up. Mind you, i'm not saying that the parents are wrong. But with the clash of interest, how are things going to get changed?

[Miss Swan]

It's simple, really.

All you have to do is change the education syllabus. Do'nt make the lessons answer-centred...
But rather create a lesson through fun and games which will encourage the children to embrace learning.

It's the freakin' education syllabus that's killing everyone. I've seen my poor school-going cousins get thrown with different topics every week and struggling to finish the pile of worksheets just so to hand it up to the teacher when they haven't even got the concept right yet.

Sad...

SMS, why does Lin have to advertise? She's not advertising for anything, is she?

[LamKY]

Worse still, I have a pri 5 student, whose mum gave him extra home assignment so as to keep him busy while she is away to work...

The kid lost interest totally in his studies and felt tied down with too much work. The kid complete his work for the sake of doing so.

Maybe the education system should also cater to the mum and dad to really help the child don't you agree?

Regards
Lin


Ps: Hmm i think "sms" is refering to my email? Actually whats wrong with it?

You are obviously advertising with the .biz url and you have already stated you are a tutor. This will be the last warning. If you post it anywhere besides in your profile I will lock the account. Please use the classified section for advertising your tutoring services.

sms

[Miss Swan]

I certainly agree. Look at North Americas and Europe. Yes the students might not be as intellectually-trained as Singaporeans, but I really admire the spontaneity and creativity as well as passion and enthusiasm they have for their lessons.

Ok maybe I've painted too rosy a picture, but I'm sure the situation there is much better than here.

Our education system is too focused on producing the cream of the crop and trying to emerge tops in whatever Olympiad competitions.

The poor kids I see today, have no idea what they're learning or why they're learning it. Before they grasp the basics of one chapter, they're swept along to the next, all within a very short span of time.

I do suggest that that the education system undergo a change. Not through silly computer lessons, but through ungraded projects, fun class quizzes, telling stories, and field trips. I hate to see education become a chore to students.

[LamKY]

Yup! especially now as the governement here in Singapore is promoting entreperneurship, creativity and spontaneity is certainly important.

Having many computer-based lessons do help to pull interest into learning and may adds creativity, but there is no human touch! I grew up in a very computer based environment, a trained programmer myself, and i realised my level of confidence towards meeting people and PR was pretty low, which i guess is important for entreperneurship too.

Becasue of this, when i meet students in the past, i too became very systematic and boring. Basically i just teach the exact same way i was being taught.

Hard to blame the teachers here in Singapore because they were the products of the education system itself!

In order to improve it, I think it might take 3 generations to do so. So i guess i got to work hard now to benefit my grand children =P

Regards
Lin

PS no email address this time! =P

[MK]

Oh! let me share my issue here on my P3 son.

When he was in P1 he did quite well in school. When come P2 he has been telling me school are boring and nothing new as the topics are the same from P1. That result in a tremendous dropped in his school work.

He was then recommended to go to a psychologist for an IQ Test. The IQ test result showed that he obtained a high score in Performance IQ in the 92th percentile rank compared to other childre his age. So we are advised to surpress in this area and to cultivate him more into reading.
Frankly we are not sure whether is this the right thing to do?

This has lead him into showing attitude of "don't bother" towards his paper work. According his teacher is that he know his syllabus very well & by his finger tips but he just could't perform in paper.
In fact we do are aware of this from the beginning and have been talking to him a lot, trying to make known to him that it is also equally important to perform in papers but to no avail. But we kept trying.... hopefully he will be aware of it soon too.

Sometimes really don't know what to do?

[LamKY]

Hello mk,

May i find out from you, in a typical conversation between your child and yourself, with regards to school work, how many percent of the time do you ask your chilld question and how many percent of the time do you give your child instruction?

Regards
Lin

[MK]

Well, it depends on what topic we are talking about.
If its about what's happening in school, I would normally start by asking him a question and he will continue to tell me what's happening the half day in school and of course in between I will also answer other question.

If its normal conversation between us, normally...oh...its difficult to say as our conversation always involve two way.... i mean both asking and more of discussing.

Instruction is only given to him when I need him to do certain things....

[LamKY]

Its good that there is constant two-way communication between you and your children.

Sometimes it is not easy to teach our own kids because the role of parents is actually not to teach or coach, but to take care and love our children. Most parents whom i know, who took up 2 roles at the same time, one being a parent, and another being a teacher, will have difficulty in the long run communicating with their children and eventually, the children starts to keep secrets from parents and starts to seek love and care from their friends.

That is why, it is always advisable to engage a third party to teach. This third party can be a relative, a friend, a tutor or even school teachers (if they have the time).

To help you child to start to focus on school work, try to get help from a relative to instruct your child. It might work =P

Lin

[MK]

Thanks lin for your advise.

Sometimes u just couldn't help it to be angry as when u see him doing his homework back home. He just dont bother and for the sake of doing he just give rubbish & when u lecture and asked him to erased and go through again. This time he give u all correct.

Really in dilemma as don't know what to do.

[LamKY]

I believe all man (regardless of age) are driven by purpose.

We get more self motivated to do things properly when we understand the importance and purpose behind it. And in brief, we can classify purpose into 2 categories, pursue pleasure and evade pain.

For example, in the normal working environment, a typical worker becomes more self motivated to do his work properly if:

1) He knows that after the project he will get a promotion and pay rise (pursue happiness)

or

2) He knows if he don't finish it on time, he may loose his job. (evade pain)

These 2 forms the purpose of getting his work done properly. Well its obvious which scenario will keep the worker happy and works long term and which will keep him work properly only for short term.

Let apply it in children education.

From my understanding of your child's situation, he gets the question done correctly after a lecture from you. That forms a short term purpose for him to work. But will this method last long? I doubt so. That is why after prolong lecture (which they will term it "nagging" after they grew up), this method stops working.

I suggest that in a typical 2 way commmunication between you and your child, by using the technique of questioning, let your child starts to discover for himself the purpose of doing well in school and how that will impact his life and others.

If you can achieve this, your child will become more self motivated.

Actually a good age to develope such thought is from age 2 - 9. Because this is the period of time when they typically like to ask "Why"...

Regards
Lin

[MK]

Yes Lin, you are right.... that is why I said its really stressful because the lecture method couldn't last long. Everytime when you lecture he give u excellent work.

We are trying different technics to make known to him the purpose of doing well in school & how that will impact his life in future but it were quite tough explaining to him and of course will continue to talk to him...

Thank u so much.

Oh yes, have u heard of the I am Gifted, So Are You! by Adam Khoo? Just got one and was reading it..... going to read some of the content to my son too.... really hope that it can helps a little too.

[pettycash]

yah, i heard abt adam khoo too.. In fact I was thinking if I shld send my son to one of his camp. But still considerating. Anybody has children who have gone through it?

[LamKY]

The book "I am gifted so are you" is good. The content helps.

As for their bootcamp, I have friends who are trainers there and has several friends who went through their training. In fact I have a friend who is a mentor for some of Adam Khoo's trainers.

After knowing more about them, my personal opinion is that I personally will not send my kid to them.

It is not nice to comment further about them here. Maybe over tea or coffee we can gossip more =P

Lin