home to a blogger formerly known as lost
Ponderings
Fodder analysis
Jan 18th
Showed my sec1 classes the trailer for Mad About English. Most of them found it amusing, but somehow the GE classes laughed the hardest. Like exaggeratedly so. I wonder if this is just a sign that they’re less inhibited and restrained, or if they are really less able to empathise with slow learners…
(Is it true? Are GEPpers really socially retarded?)
Ponderings
Dec 31st
As MMIX slowly grinds to a halt, I return to this recurring stocktake of mine, taking the time to think back on the year’s happenings and reflect upon them.
It’s been another (rather) eventful year, with the second half of NIE rolling by – I didn’t do that well overall, probably should have put in more effort into it, but it was often really difficult getting motivated considering the nature of the course. Still, I managed to survive, and the second half of the year heralded the beginning of my teaching job proper. I’ve been studying for so long (with a 2.5-year period of army stagnation thrown in somewhere), starting work has actually been a breath of fresh air for me. I might not be making as much money as some of my peers, but it’s enough (for now), and I do enjoy my work, which is apparently relatively rare among working folk.
I’ve tried to try more new things this year – one example being my brief foray into DSLR photography. Although I gave it up in the end (thankfully with practically no monetary loss incurred), I did end up with a functional knowledge of how SLR cameras work, and the current GF1 is hardly a pushover in terms of optical capability, either.
Then there’s the engagement, of course, along with the purchase of the flat and the beginning of wedding preparations – but that’s an ongoing story, after all.
All in all, it seems to have been a pretty good year, perhaps the most fulfilling one I’ve had in quite some time. There are more challenges yet to come in the year ahead, but with God’s grace I’m pretty sure I’ll get by. It seems almost unfashionable to feel contented on this island nation of ours, but I think I really am!
Complacency in Modernity
Nov 20th
I’ve just read Five Things the U.S. Can Learn from China (TIME article) and although it talks about America in particular, I suspect that much of it applies to many other developed countries, including Singapore.
(Whether or not Singapore qualifies as a developed country is another topic altogether, but suffice to say that it possesses many of the characteristics of one.)
The article seemed to attribute much of the differences in attitudes to the different Eastern/Western mentalities and cultures, and I do find Singapore to be an interesting case study to determine the veracity of this hypothesis. With a predominantly Chinese population, would the average Singaporean mentality not reflect that of China’s, with its can-do attitude? Unfortunately, I think that would have been accurate a generation or two ago, but no longer.
Some would accuse our youth of being poisoned by Western media and culture, of watching too much Friends and assimilating the idea that young adults need their independence from their parents, that we should enjoy our childhoods rather than study all day, that we should enjoy our lives rather than work all day. Some of these attitudes probably hold some merit to them, but the fact remains that our society has changed and that it has probably made us less competitive as compared to rising nations today.
Personally, I think it’s all to do with complacency, rather than any cultural differences. Our youth (my generation included) are growing up in an increasingly comfortable and protected environment, and much of the motivation to improve their own lives seems to have vanished across the years. People are quite content to merely maintain their current standards of living, and at the same time seem less willing to put in the effort required to do so.
Assuming this is the case, will China eventually fall victim to the same phenomenon? Time will tell, but I’m guessing it’s a cycle all rising nations will go through. Only in this case, with a population of 1 billion to satisfy, it might take some time for the effect to start surfacing.
Facebook spying
Oct 22nd
I had some Facebook friend requests from students as early as during my practicum, and I’d deliberated for some time before deciding to accept those requests. The basic idea was that hey, I don’t really have much that I’m hiding anyway, plus it seemed like a way to get to know the kids better. I don’t actively stalk their profiles (who has the time?), but occasionally some really funny gems end up on my main page anyway.
Essentially, the head prefect had failed to write his name on his examination script, and when the discipline master (who was invigilating) made a fuss about it, he’d sheepishly owned up – much to his classmates’ amusement. I wish I’d been there! =P
This one was rather sad really. Here we see ‘elite school’ kids bragging to each other about… how little they study. Which is totally funny (painfully funny? funnily painful?), because of course I wasn’t doing anything of the kind a decade ago!
(…or was I? I can’t really remember. But I suspect it’s possible. How very depressing!)
A little work pride
Oct 22nd
This will sound a little pathetic, but I’m actually taking great pride in a detailed answer scheme for the end-of-year examinations that I helped to kick-start. The previous one was alright, but this one has made marking so much easier!
(How exciting a teacher’s life is.)
Approval ratings
Oct 7th
So the elective modules have come to an end. I’ve had my fair share of students sleeping in class, but I wasn’t particularly strict on them since it’s, after all, meant to be for enrichment. Hearteningly enough, I also had a fair share of students listening rather raptly. Even more encouraging was another bunch of feedback I’ve managed to dig out from alternative sources =P
I know that these represent a very small sample of students (who bothered to blog about their experiences in a Google-able manner), which is possibly self-selecting in the sense that those who hated the module chose not to discuss it at all. However, it’s still good to know that there’re at least a few students who’d enjoyed themselves, and I hope I’ve given some of them at least a greater understanding of what Psychology really is, and who knows? Perhaps some of them will even go on to read it at university.
Feedback
Sep 21st
So I’ve been running two elective modules for the past week now, and though one of them’s off on a rather rocky start, I’m rather glad about how the other one’s shaping up. I’m never be too sure about how my students are feeling about the lesson, though, so I’ve turned to Google Blog Search for a little extra information. One reviewer in particular seems to have really taken to the sessions so far – hopefully I’ve managed to successfully give them a taste of what Psychology is about!
Other reviews are less obviously approving (like, is ‘the teacher is quite lol’ supposed to be good or bad?), but overall it seems like this one module’s been received quite well thus far. Of course, this sample represents the population that has expressed their thoughts on an easily-found blog, but it’s rather heartening nonetheless!
Singapore story
Aug 10th
It’s the day after National Day, and though I hadn’t noticed it earlier, I decided to read Janadas Devan’s The real Aug 9 – and the one we celebrate (from yesterday’s paper) after seeing it specifically mentioned in a blog I follow. It offers an interesting perspective – that we lack identity because we did not really striven for independence as a lone island nation, because we are very much an accidental baby, the unwanted cast-off from a federation of former British colonies.
I wonder what my nation would be like today, if history had taken a different path? What if Lim Chin Siong, for example, had indeed gone on to become Prime Minister? What if the Chinese-educated, presumably pro-Communist, wing of the early PAP had not been removed from power, and had instead a major part to play in the development of Singapore over the past half-century (perhaps at the helm, even)? Would English be my primary language today? Would I have a concrete roof over my head and be happily enjoying a broadband internet connection? Would we have become a Chinese colony instead?
Don’t get me wrong – I do think there is plenty that can be improved with the current administration, but I do think that all things considered, they’ve done pretty well thus far. And while I suspect that we might not be quite as developed if we had gone down this alternative path, I wonder if as a people we might have a stronger identity, and perhaps even simply be… happier?
(Somehow, this feels like the concept of a Singaporean Elseworlds-style comic waiting to happen.)
An atheist's prayer
Jul 30th
laptop is saved! praise be to the flying spaghetti monster! may his noodliness bless this lowly hard drive that it might lose no data during recovery tonight. ramen.
Is it normal to be simultaneously offended and amused by this? On the one hand, it is clearly condescending towards theism with the invocation of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but on the other, you’ve got to hand it to the author for the clever play on words…
Tweet-bate Step #1
Jul 28th
I’ve come up with a WordPress site that I’m planning to use for the first phase of my unit on debates (yes, we’re teaching that at my school, which is simultaneously cool and scary, considering that I actually know very little about them). The plan is to tap on their existing expository-writing skills and their love for things web-related to bring them through topical discussions, culminating in a mini-debate held conducted via Twitter.
I’ve no idea how successful this will be – in my head it could turn out awesomely well, or turn into an awesome failure.
p.s. Any ideas about the title for the site? I started with ‘Talking Point’ and that seemed somewhat blah. ‘In Focus’ isn’t much better, really.
