My daughter did not 'qualify'

Image via Wikipedia

Today, I have come to realize that being a foreigner still has its disadvantages...

My eldest daughter, who is presently in her secondary 1 level, is a participant in what the school calls as 'Math Olympiad' event - a handful of students who qualify in the school level are selected and trained - to compete with other students from other schools.

We've paid the fee for their training sessions, and she is religiously attending her sessions, and religiously studying her lessons - only for her to be not taken as a contestant.

But I am glad that she knows why.

She isn't a citizen.

And why would she be selected to represent the school?

In case, just in case, she wins, and it is found that she isn't a citizen, but a class lower, being a permanent resident, then it is a shame to all the citizens!

I mean, that is the gross and grave impact of taking in an 'import' to be your representative.

Anyway, life has its good and bad turns. We'll have our way someday. We'll keep on trying, and keep on believing, and the break will come.

Till then...

Related articles by Zemanta

• Beyond The Classroom: Educating Children Is Not Just A Teacher's Job (urbanbellemag.com)
• Pupils ‘give feedback on iphones’ (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Princeton Public High School Offers Gardening For Gym Class Credit (huffingtonpost.com)
• When Do Students Say Thank You (haroldshawjr.com)
• Best chat log in a while (mgccl.com)
• All educators fired at underperforming RI school (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Lawton math night (magnoliavoice.com)
• Winners in 2010 NACLO competition (languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu)
• John Hay & Coe to compete at 5 Spot fundraiser (queenanneview.com)
• West Seattle school news: Holy Rosary adding preschool (westseattleblog.com)
• Is Schooling Interfering with Education (Videos) (converstations.com)
• Math Zoom Academy Offers Residential Summer Camps For Gifted Math Learners (prweb.com)
• Schoolspedia - Search and Compare Best Schools in your Neighborhood (gajeebo.com)
• Four-Day School Weeks On The Way? (chicagoist.com)
• AnnounceSchool.com - Announcing School Events (killerstartups.com)
• Blue Highway Games gives to Lawton math night (queenanneview.com)
• School Teachers With Tongue Rings? (lockergnome.com)
• Vancouver School Board prepares $18M cut (cbc.ca)

The woes of studying? How about the woes of NOT studying?

Image via Wikipedia

FEES TO GO UP

-------------

SINGAPORE - Tuition fees for polytechnics and the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) will go up in the new academic year - with a sharper distinction to be made between what Singaporean students and permanent residents/foreigners pay.

Where the polytechnics are concerned, their tuition fees for diploma courses will increase by $50 for Singapore citizens to $2,150 per year.

Singapore Polytechnic, Ngee Ann Polytechnic and Nanyang Polytechnic will also increase the fees for their existing Polytechnic-Foreign Specialised Institution (Poly-FSI) degree courses by 3 per cent in Academic Year 2010.

Singaporean citizens pursuing Poly-FSI degree courses will pay fees ranging between $4,830 and $8,040 per year.

The new fees will apply to new and existing students.

Fees for new PR students will increase by between $480 and $800, while those for new International Students will increase by between $480 and $1,070.

Existing PRs and international students admitted prior to this academic year will also pay higher fees, but computed using the existing fee framework.

For the ITEs, tuition fees for Nitec and Higher Nitec courses will go up by $10 for Singapore citizens from April.

ITE will also increase the tuition fees for its Technical Engineer Diploma courses by $50 per year, to $2,150.

The new fees will be applied to new and existing ITE students who are Singapore citizens.

Fees for new PR students will increase by between $600 and $1,130 per year. Those for new international students will increase by between $1,450 and $3,180 per year.

The revised fee differentiation will also apply to PRs and international students pursuing new modules under the subsidised part-time ITE courses from April onwards.

Existing PRs and international students admitted prior to the upcoming academic year will also pay higher fees, but computed based on the existing fee framework.

There is no word yet, though, on whether the three local universities - National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technical University and Singapore Management University - will increase their fees. They say changes in fees, if any, will be announced in due course.

From TODAY, Friday, 19-Feb-2010

----------

Related articles by Zemanta

• No time for thought (telegraph.co.uk)
• What Lies Ahead (slobokan.com)
• Making the middle classes pay more is a poor way to save our education system (telegraph.co.uk)
• Singapore Says Economy May Expand 4.5% to 6.5% in 2010 (businessweek.com)
• First Annual Independent Games Festival China Announces Finalists (newswire.ca)
• First Annual Independent Games Festival China Announces Finalists (games.ign.com)
• Singapore Economic Outlook Improves (online.wsj.com)
• Singapore, February 19-20: Computational Topics in Finance (revolution-computing.com)
• Foundation degrees soar in number (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Technology centres unite! (marsdd.com)

I was relieved, and I was relieved!

Image via Wikipedia

The last year marked a turning event, albeit minor, in my life - as a father.

I will be direct to the point: my girls have grown. My eldest graduated from primary school, with the other 2 going P5 and P3. Not to mention a newborn baby last September (and that was 09-09-09).

When we bought the books for their 2010 curriculum, I didn't do anymore a lot of things that I usually do in the previous years:
1. stick their name tags on their school materials (books, pencils, paints, etc., etc.)
2. cover with plastic sheet their books and notebooks to protect them from the daily handling.

And if to say it that this chore actually takes up a lot of time, I didn't worry about that this year, and perhaps I will not worry about it in the next years to come.

I was relieved of that chore, and boy, was I relieved!

Principal has done the right thing

IN SCHOOLS

Letter from Ong San San

I REFER to "Let teachers motivate ..." (Aug 31). I have three children and empathise with Mr Roland Ang. Yet, I think the school his daughter attends has done right in engaging neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) practitioners to motivate its students.

In this challenging society, we must improve at the speed of light if we want to see or improve on results. Motivational speakers will help students to stay positive, think through what they want to do in the future and give them confidence and courage to work towards their goals.

My child tells me her co-curricular activity teacher talks to her about her future and shares his experiences in life with her. This motivates to do better in her studies.

NLP programmes are costly and not all are fortunate enough to be able to attend them. They are not a substitute for a teacher but will enhance a student's learning process.

From TODAY, Voices – Tuesday, 01-Sep-2009

Related articles by Zemanta

• Let teachers motivate ... (myfatherlylife.blogspot.com)
• Meeting New Minds (actionbites.blogspot.com)
• Fullness Of A Person (eveningwalk.blogspot.com)
• Progressing the right way (digital-teacher.co.uk)
• Should teaching assistants be allowed to teach? (telegraph.co.uk)
• After Three Weeks, Thousands Of CPS Students Still Without Teachers (huffingtonpost.com)
• The one where I'm all maternal. (momblognetwork.com)
• Early bad behaviour sees children branded troublemakers report warns (telegraph.co.uk)

NLP has issues, problems

Image via Wikipedia

IN SCHOOLS

Letter from S Ganesamoorthy

I REFER to "Let teachers motivate ..." (Aug 31). Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) as a methodology has lots of hidden issues and problems.

As principals are increasingly inviting these speakers to talk to their students, there is a need to be circumspect and look at the issue of NLP from the broad perspective of its use in education.

NLP practitioners receive their so-called master's certification by attending a short course or via online master's certification.

NLP is also not accepted into the fold of psychiatry, psychology or even sociology or social work, and does not contain the academic rigour of being accepted as a field of discipline in its own right.

The originators of NLP are themselves not agreed on the objectives and targets that must bind the NLP process.

There is certainly an obligation on the part of the Ministry of Education to ensure that the methodologies adopted to instruct our students pass the acid test of evaluating NLP as a subject in its own right.

Besides, there is an urgent need for our educational/para educational, counselling, psychological and medical agencies to evaluate and validate the methodologies adopted by NLP practitioners and hold them accountable.

It is also worrying that these training providers, who are invited to train students at an enormous investment of time and money, also conduct courses and seminars on "short circuits" to becoming millionaires.

As we celebrate Teacher's Day, let us pay tribute to the many who have mastered their skills to make a difference in their students' lives and reassert their pre-eminence in the lives of all students today and in the future.

Let us empower our teachers so that they will empower our students.

As stated so succinctly by Haim Ginott, the teacher, child psychologist and psychotherapist who pioneered techniques for conversing with children that are still taught today:

"I've come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It's my personal approach that creates the climate. It's my daily mood that makes the weather.

"As a teacher, I possess tremendous power to make a student's life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humour, hurt or heal. In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a student humanised or de-humanised".

From TODAY, Voices – Tuesday, 01-Sep-2009

Related articles by Zemanta

• Let teachers motivate ... (myfatherlylife.blogspot.com)
• On psychotherapy and the potential and limits of personal power (isiria.wordpress.com)
• Introducing Healing Together for Couples Blog (psychcentral.com)
• Meeting New Minds (actionbites.blogspot.com)
• Bounce: 6 Steps to Become More Resilient (psychcentral.com)
• Welcome Our Latest Advertiser: Hypno-Coach Patricia Eslava Vessey! (b-townblog.com)
• Awakening the Heart by John Welwood (slideshare.net)

Let teachers motivate ...

Image via Wikipedia

AT SCHOOL

But principal uses motivational speakers to boost school's results

Letter from Roland Ang

RECENTLY, I received an SMS from my daughter's school asking me to sign up for a paid workshop to help parents understand their children - to be conducted by some neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) practitioners.

My daughter told me that the school had also engaged the same people to counsel and motivate them as her school principal was not happy with the overall mid-year result.

The purpose of the NLP-trained motivational speaker, they were told, was to help them achieve better results.

Private organisations use NLP-trained motivational speakers to enhance sales targets and customer service, notably in the insurance and time-share industries. Their relationships are purely commercial. However, that cannot be said between schools and motivational speakers as the latter have no stake and vested interest in any school.

Schools should leave the teaching, inspiring and motivating of children to parents and school teachers rather than relying on external trainers to enhance their overall school results just to maintain their school ranking. Is education all about results and nothing else?

Miss Ho Peng, the director-general of Education at the Ministry of Education, said in a speech recently at the Teachers' Mass Lecture as well as the formation of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), which are powerful platforms for teachers to learn from one another, that it gives her great fulfilment when teachers move on to greater responsibilities and, in turn, help to develop others.

I think this is a move in the right direction for teachers.

There are many advertisements in from NLP entrepreneurs. Their punchlines are about helping those who sign up for their courses to attain financial success, or to "get rich fast".

Legally, this is not wrong, but morally these people are capitalising on the weaknesses of people with a desire to get rich fast without the need to work hard.

Such courses may lead to an erosion of the work ethic in the gullible young, especially during this economic downturn when many are unemployed or desperate to recover losses from bad investments.

If parents want to send their children to accelerated learning programmes, they do so at their own prerogative. But I hope schools will avoid engaging NLP practitioners merely to enhance their students' results. Rather, they should keep faith and trust in their teachers to inspire and motivate their students.

Our children are human beings and not commodities.

From TODAY, Voices – Monday, 31-Aug-2009

Related articles by Zemanta

• Meeting New Minds (actionbites.blogspot.com)
• Mental Training for Performance: Your Secret Weapon is your Mind (ameliaburton.com.au)
• Take Back Your Personal Power (Part 2) (lifehack.org)
• Net worth increases for first time in two years (americablog.com)
• Golden Goose Marketing Presentation­ Automatic (slideshare.net)
• Media Campaign for health promotion (slideshare.net)
• Wow! 29% paper towel use reduction at Hunt Valley Elementary School! (thesecomefromtrees.blogspot.com)
• On psychotherapy and the potential and limits of personal power (isiria.wordpress.com)
• Career Crevasse (timesunion.com)

Don't read this while driving

Image via Wikipedia

I've heard it said before: we are now able to multitask, but not fully concentrate. We know a mile wide, but we understand an inch deep. This is the paradox of our time.

----------

WASHINGTON - The people who multi-task the most are the ones who are worst at it.

That is the surprising conclusion of researchers at Stanford University, who found multi-taskers are more easily distracted and less able to ignore irrelevant information than people who do less multi-tasking.

"The huge finding is, the more media people use the worse they are at using any media. We were totally shocked," said Professor Clifford Nass of Stanford's communications department.

The researchers studied 262 college undergraduates, dividing them into high and low multi-tasking groups and comparing such things as memory, ability to switch from one task to another and being able to focus on a task.

Their findings are reported in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

When it came to such essential abilities, people who did a lot of multi-tasking didn't score as well as others, Prof Nass said.

"Is multi-tasking causing them to be lousy at multi-tasking, or is their lousiness at multi-tasking causing them to be multi-taskers?" Prof Nass wondered. "Is it born or learned?"

In a society that seems to encourage more and more multi-tasking, the findings have social implications, Prof Nass observed. Multi-tasking is already blamed for car crashes as several states restrict the use of cell phones while driving. Lawyers or advertisers can try to use irrelevant information to distract and refocus people to influence their decisions.

In the study, the ability to ignore irrelevant information was tested by showing participants a group of red and blue rectangles, blanking them out, and then showing them again and asking if any of the red ones had moved.

The test required ignoring the blue rectangles. The researchers thought people who do a lot of multi-tasking would be better at it.

"But they're not. They're worse. They're much worse," said Prof Nass.

The high media multi-taskers could not ignore the blue rectangles. "They couldn't ignore stuff that doesn't matter. They love stuff that doesn't matter," he said. AP

----------

From TODAY, World – Wednesday, 26-Aug-2009

Related articles by Zemanta

• People who multitask are often bad at it: study (ctv.ca)
• Study finds people who multitask often bad at it (huffingtonpost.com)
• Multi-taskers of media 'lousy' at everything (canada.com)
• Hey Multitasker, you're lousy at everything.. (danputt.com)
• Showerheads May Contain Harmful Bacteria (inquisitr.com)
• To Multitask Effectively, Focus on Value, Not Volume (blogs.harvardbusiness.org)
• Why Multitaskers Stink at Multitasking (blogs.wsj.com)
• Multitasking Muddles Brains, Even When the Computer Is Off (wired.com)
• Electronic multitasking is a brain drain (seattlepi.com)
• The Mediocre Multitasker (nytimes.com)

How to rip off students

PARENTS BEWARE!

Another one of those 'fake' or 'bogus' agencies… and also again involving Australia?

----------

TV show exposes exploitation of Indian students

MELBOURNE - Australia yesterday vowed to crack down on migration scams targeting Indian students and condemned a "cowardly" attack on a female reporter who blew the lid on the shady practices.

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Australia was tightening regulations on migration agents after a television current affairs show exposed rip-offs exploiting students who have fuelled the country's booming international education sector.

The revelations are the latest to damage the US$12.7 billion ($18.3 billion) a year industry - Australia's third-largest export earner - after a series of violent attacks on Indian students living in Melbourne and Sydney.

Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard slammed the attack on the female Indian journalist, who was physically assaulted in a Sydney street over the weekend while working undercover for the ABC programme.

"Any attack like that which has been reported is cowardly and completely abhorrent," Ms Gillard said. "The Australian government is absolutely committed to providing quality education for all students, and we have taken steps to improve the experience for overseas students," she added.

The expose, screened on Monday, reported that some Indian families had been left broke after sending children to Australia for courses that failed to deliver any educational value.

It said hundreds of private colleges offering courses such as hairdressing, cooking and accounting had sprung up that lured students with false promises of gaining permanent residency in Australia.

The TV programme said migration agents told its undercover reporter she could pay between A$3,000 and A$5,000 ($3,590 and $5,980) for a fake English-language certificate needed to gain residency.

"Australia's education exports face much deeper problems than safety issues. There's now a rising clamour over dodgy courses, student rip-offs and an education system that's turned into a visa factory," the report said.

The Australian Council for Private Education and Training has said it plans to launch a register of education agents to help students find honest providers.

Indian students protested in Melbourne and Sydney last month, following a series of attacks and muggings which strained diplomatic ties and prompted negative headlines in their home country.

Some 95,000 Indians are studying in Australia following a publicity blitz targeting the huge country's growing middle class. AFP

From TODAY, World – Wednesday, 29-Jul-2009

Related articles by Zemanta

• Australian jobless rate rises (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Australian unemployment rate up (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Australia: Tougher Laws Against Hate Crimes (themoderatevoice.com)
• Aussie net filtering trial deemed a success despite problems (arstechnica.com)

CPI falls 0.7% in April

This is a related news to the 'Mum's cooking, and everyone's eating home' news, which is causing lower sales at eateries but more at groceries – a higher bill at home…

----------

Singapore is beginning to experience deflationary pressures, as consumer prices fell last month due to lower housing and transportation costs.

Data released yesterday by the Department of Statistics showed that the consumer price index (CPI) last month fell 0.7 per cent from April 2008, the first decline since June 2005. Analysts had expected it to rise 0.4 per cent.

April's CPI reversed the 1.6-per-cent increase in March. The fall was due mainly to a decline in housing, transport and communication, as well as recreation costs. Lower electricity and conservancy charges helped push the housing component of the CPI down. Transport and communication costs slid more than 6 per cent as a result of cheaper petrol and lower car prices.

The April CPI was 1.5 per cent down from the previous month after adjusting for seasonal factors, the biggest decline since records began in 1974, Reuters reported. The central bank is forecasting that this year's overall inflation rate will be between -1 and 0 per cent.

But Mr David Cohen, a director at Action Economics, doesn't think the latest data heralds the start of a deflationary spiral: "I think this is going to be temporary — several months below zero; it does reflect the easing of inflation pressure for sure. The energy prices globally have already started to steady. And maybe we will see softness on the housing side for a while yet." Channel NewsAsia

From TODAYOnline.com, Top News – Tuesday, 26-May-2009; see the source article here.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Lowest inflation since 1955 in April (dailyfinance.com)
• Inflation falls to 2.3% as food and energy costs drop (guardian.co.uk)
• A Failure of Capitalism (IX): More on Inflation (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
• Inflation eases despite push from food and shelter (financialpost.com)
• US inflation unchanged in April (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Home energy costs in steepest fall since 1996 (lansner.freedomblogging.com)
• U.S. Fed sharply cuts economic forecast (financialpost.com)
• Threat of deflation easing in U.S., say economists (financialpost.com)
• March CPI shows inflation remains tame (dailyfinance.com)
• Chinese deflation picks up speed (telegraph.co.uk)

Ohio teen expects to be suspended for trip to prom

It may sound too conservative, but taking this news verbatim, the boy is aware, but “didn’t think” that what he did was wrong; that means he is aware of the rule and the consequences. So even if the stepfather files a lawsuit, this may be where his case will fail. What do you think?

-----

AP - Monday, May 11

FINDLAY, Ohio - An Ohio teenager says he expects to be suspended from a Christian school for attending a public school prom with his girlfriend.

Officials at Heritage Christian School in Findlay had warned 17-year-old Tyler Frost that he would be suspended and prohibited from attending graduation if he went to the Saturday dance. The fundamentalist Baptist school in northwest Ohio forbids dancing, rock music and hand holding.

Frost says he went to the dance because he wanted to experience the prom and didn't think it was wrong.

School officials say he could complete his final exams separately to receive a diploma.

Frost's stepfather says the rules shouldn't apply outside of school and he may take legal action if Frost is suspended.

From Yahoo! News; see the source article here.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Ohio teen expects to be suspended for trip to public school prom (thenewstribune.com)

Exams aren’t everything

PRIMARY EDUCATION

Govt accepts recommendations to gradually introduce other forms of assessment

Lin Yanqin, yanqin@mediacorp.com.sg

 

 

Education Minister Ng Eng Hen observing a class at Greenridge Primary. Ernest Chua

 

IT HAS been a proposal some parents have welcomed, and others worried about.

Having alternative modes of assessments in Primary 1 and 2 to the traditional twice-a-year examinations were among recommended changes to primary school education the Government accepted yesterday.

But it will not be a dramatic change overnight, said Education Minister Ng Eng Hen.

As the work of the committee reviewing primary education now enters into the implementation stage, Dr Ng signalled that it would be a long-term work in progress.

The timeframe, he told reporters during a visit to Greenridge Primary, is more of a “10-year plan”, as the Ministry of Education (MOE) starts to build more schools and train more teachers, while schools prepare to introduce bite-sized forms of holistic assessment. “As in most educational ventures, you have to train thousands of teachers, you have to make sure parents understand, you have to teach down to the very last child in the primary schools,” said Dr Ng.

He revealed that the ministry will spend about $4.8 billion to implement the recommendations, which include schools going single session by 2016 and introducing a Programme for Active Learning in areas such as sports and the arts.

The MOE also aims to lower the pupil-teacher ratio from the current 21:1 to 16:1 by 2015, build 18 new schools and upgrade 80 existing schools.

In the case of Greenridge Primary, although it introduced topical assessments — which test individual components such as reading skills — four years ago, these form only part of the pupils’ grades, as the school has continued with traditional exams.

This year, it will do away with mid-year exams, but may retain the year-end one.

“Parents still want some form of assessment to know that their child is ready for Primary 2,” said vice-principal Liza Rahmat. “We have to do this gradually.”

But the new system has notably taken the stress off pupils, she noted, as each assessment focuses on one area rather than the entire syllabus.

“Also, assessments are done in a classroom environment, such as through Show and Tell, so it’s not stressful like a traditional sit-down test or exam,” said Ms Liza.

That is not the only drawback of relying on exams at such a young age.

Dr Ng said: “If you give a mark, say 60. What does that mean? It doesn’t give feedback. The proper feedback to the pupil or to the parent is to say what (the pupil) was weak in and what (the pupil) was strong in.”

Parents at Greenridge yesterday were happy with the results so far.

Mdm Wendy Low, 32, said that compared with her older child who went through the previous exam-oriented system from the start, her younger child was better able to absorb what he was taught.

“He’s more confident because everything is broken into small components and he understands each topic better,” said Mdm Low.

From TODAY, News – Wednesday, 15-April-2009