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

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NLP has issues, problems

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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

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Let teachers motivate ...

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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

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