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Friday, July 28, 2006

<<<Networking to Inspire Teachers>>>

10th July to 28th July
(Revisitng school grounds many yrs later,but no longer as student)

The letter below was actually adapted from our personal email correspondences. It summarises my reflections for my 3wks attachment at HUA YI SEC SCH. 3wks may not be long enough to absorb all that need of tchers' attn but certainly, this attachment experience did knock some reality into the I-want-to-be-a-good-teacher me.
Teaching is NOT going to be easy.It has never been, and probably will get more challenging in years to come.

To all future colleagues/teachers-to-be,

First of all, a word of thanks for stepping into the unknown together. It is an important first step, nonetheless, and I hope, for the benefit of all teachers-to-be that we can do something good collectively.

While I maintain that it was a moment of madness that made me do what I did, I think many of you here, would have done the same thing in my shoes. Because I believe that we all share the same passion, for wanting to change things/policies for the better . Many issues struck me as we sat through the entire feedback session, and I will like to share these with all of you.

The level of passion or wanting to change things for the better, and the equally high level of angst of discovering the ground difficulties experienced in schools was very apparent when we broke up into groups for discussion. Unfortunately, the discussion was cut short,just when we were starting to iron about some serious issues. At the same time, I realised that many members in the group were not as involved as they would like to be, perhaps from the simple reason that not everyone feels as strongly about the same issues.

The different schools produced very different experiences. For example, for myself, who was posted to Hua Yi Sec Sch, i discovered that the primary challenge at Hua Yi was to teach students to speak English.There,i guess the English teachers' concern wld be 'Speak Proper English Moevement' instead of 'Speak Good English Movement'.
As for AES, the group brought up a pertinent issue of low staff morale.How can teachers motivate students, if they themselves are not getting a sense of drive or believe in what they do?

We must realise that time is short, and we can't go through all of these experiences first-hand; what will be a waste though, is if we don't share these experiences, at a time when all of these are still very close to our hearts. We are fortunate to have heard from QTSS and BPGHS, but there are many more schools out there.

During the dialogue session, as well as our respective school attachment experiences, we realise there are many constraints faced on the ground. I think all Principals, Administrators and especially Teachers are awaiting the day when the teacher-to-student ratio is 1:1, but we all know that realistically this is not going to happen; this and many other real physical, resource or time constraints. However, forgive all of us for our idealism, because we are still young. Which is precisely why we cannot afford to, at this age, accept things for the way. The dialogue session, for example, is often a case where we bring up a pertinent issue or suggestion, and the management replies that it is a good and valid suggestion, but due to this and that it can't be done. The point is, if we see areas where change for the better is required, we need to come up with ways to exact these changes despite the constraints we face.

Hence, I see this network (no matter how big or small it becomes), as gearing towards three objectives:

Provide support for one another - this can be the exchange of curriculum or materials, or on a more emotional level (think Aunt Agony).

Provide a platform for discussion / sharing / peer-teaching - this can be a crucible for new ideas, old ideas, or the brain-storming prcoess for ideas.

Provide a platform to effect positive changes - we don't want all talk and no action, so if something good comes up, we will try to effect change, no matter how big or small it may be.

But even having said all that, whatever I've said merely represents one opinion - mine. I think all of us will very much like to hear from one another, whether it is about the source of our inspiration / passion, or about how we can better structure this in order to achieve something constructive. The reason why I've decided to send an email to all, instead of forming a yahoogroup, is because I don't want the group to die an early death. The least, bare minimum, that I hope this can do, is to serve as an effective communication channel between like-minded people. But let's aim for the sky anyway.

What we face now is the product of past policies derived from past considerations; what we do now will be reflected in the future, our future.

It doesn't matter how long we intend to stay in the service (if at all for those who are starting to have 2nd thoughts of teaching ), but no matter how long our respective bond periods are, let's make our time spent in the service fruitful and really satisfying, without regrets.

Let us work together to make a difference in the lives of the students that we have the fortune to teach, as well as those that we do not have the fortune of teaching.

First Time Felt On|10:28 PM|

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