Saturday, 28 September 2013
Tuesday, 24 September 2013
Quotes
“The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours”
― Alan Bennett, The History Boys
“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
― George Orwell
“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.”
― Aldous Huxley, Collected Essays
And now here we are with a bill that would create a 200% fee increase on some students
When school gets crazy, there’s always someone who will take a shift for you
Monday, 23 September 2013
Saturday, 21 September 2013
news
I refer to article: http://therealsingapore.com/content/tuition-woe-or-tuition-blur
This is what is happening in secondary schools:
Majority of students in the Express Stream have tuition.
Minority of the students in the Normal Academic have tuition. Those who have tuition usually have better results than those who don’t.
Vast majority of students in the Normal Tech stream have no tuition. Most of them don’t possess basic skills in literacy and Math. They do well or do badly, it doesn’t matter to the schools since their results don’t influence the school’s annual ranking. All your elite schools also don’t have Normal Technical streams. They see themselves too good for such students. So, what message are you sending to the students? You decide.
Simple conclusion: Most students need tuition in order to do well in school work.
Most school teachers don’t spend quality time to prepare lessons. Why should they? They have NO incentives to do so. Schools want their teachers to spend the bulk of their time on their CCA and committee work and community project work. I have ex-colleagues who swim against the tide and focus on teaching well. They are usually given poor annual work reviews, because MOE expects teachers to do more than teach. So, the natural thing is to cut quality on teaching and focus on non-teaching aspects of the job.
Most teachers have little time for remedial or consultation. They have a lot more time when it comes to doing CCA or committee work or admin work or rehearsals, because these add value to their portfolio and annual work review. Giving extra remedials adds little or close to no value for their annual performance review.
Tutors, on the other hand, have lots of incentives to teach well. So naturally, the quality of teaching goes down in schools while it goes up for tuition.
Most good schools aren’t really good. They focus on recruiting good students with high T-scores, who will most likely do well in national exams years later. The basic teaching is done in school, and the real teaching is left to the tutors, who have far greater incentives than your average, tired out school teacher to teach well.
Your tutors focus on teaching well, while your school teacher focus on lots other things, especially on CCA and non-teaching areas, since the performance review pays them well to behave in such a way.
Naturally, majority of students will need tuition in order to do well.
Friday, 20 September 2013
Tuesday, 17 September 2013
Saturday, 14 September 2013
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning.”
― Albert Einstein, Relativity: The Special and the General Theory
“Nothing happens until something moves.”
― Albert Einstein
“No, this trick won't work... How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? ”
― Albert Einstein
“Physicists like to think that all you have to do is say, these are the conditions, now what happens next?”
― Richard P. Feynman
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