Watch Bridging Minds on Arts Central on Monday 10 pm

Bridging Minds is an English debate for pre-university students and is jointly produced by MediaCorp TV12 and Radio Television Brunei. It was first held in Brunei in 1997 as part of a Memorandum of Understanding between the governments of Singapore and Brunei Darussalam concerning cooperation in the field of broadcasting.

Bridging Minds 2007 was held in Brunei between the 16th and 24th of Aug. 5 students from AJC, ACJC, MJC, RJC, and VJC represented Singapore. Mr Masagos Zulkifli, Senior Parliamentary Secretary (MOE) was the GOH from Singapore. The motion was "The Price of Envy Is Destruction".
The winner of the debate was the opposition team under teacher advisor Ms Jessie Lina Bte Hj Haliluddin from Brunei and theatrical coach Vadi Pvss, an Economics tutor from Raffles Junior College.

Please catch the telecast on 24th September, 10 pm, on Arts Central.

Floorball 2007

Informal 1

My first home class

ICT survey

There will be a survey on use of ICT for teaching and learning. MOE has identified two students per class to participate in this on-line survey.
Students are expected to complete the survey within 30 minutes.
Thank you for your assistance.

Date / Time : Wed 12 Sep 2007 at 1.30pm

Venue : I-Hub for 07A1 to 07A7

13	07A7	CHING SUET YENG MICHELLE
14	07A7	HENG SI HAN HILDA

Things We Steal From Children

Mrs Meya sent this little story about teaching. Remember the IT presentations that you had to do? They are to give you some control over what you and your classmates learn. I hoped you had put in effort to do them. Similarly, the group work, presenting answers on the whiteboard are not to give headaches or embarrass you but to help you learn. Instead of me droning on and on and on, I truly hope that you will learn to take charge of your own learning. 2 more weeks to go. Gambate~~

Things We Steal From Children

One evening on returning from lecturing to my students, my wife asked me:

“And what did you steal from your students today?”

The question rocked me, and as I examined my practice under her skilful questioning, I

Realized how much of the processes I kept for myself.

So we sat down and together we wrote the following:

If I am always the one to think where to go next,

If where we go is always the decision of the curriculum or my curiosity and not theirs.

If motivation is mine,

If I always decide on the topic to be studied, the title of the story, the problem to be worked on

If I am always the one who has reviewed their work and decided what they need,

How will they ever know how to begin?

If I am the one who is always monitoring progress.

If I set the pace of all working discussions.

If I always look ahead, foresee problems and endeavour to eliminate them.

If I swoop in and save them from cognitive conflict.

If I never allow them to feel and use the energy from confusion and frustration.

If things are always broken into short working periods.

If myself and others are allowed to break into their concentration.

If bells and I are always in control of the pace and flow of work

How will they learn to continue their own work?

If all the marking and editing is done by me.

If the selection of which work is to be published or evaluated is made by me.

If what is valued and valuable is always decided by external sources or by me.

If there is no forum to discuss what delights them in their task, what is working, what is not working, what they plan to do about it.

If they have not learned a language to discuss their work in ways that are intrinsically growth enhancing.

If they do not have language of self-assessment

If ways of communicating their work are always controlled by me.

If our assessments are mainly summative rather than formative,

If they do not plan their way forward to further action

How will they find ownership , direction and delight in what they do?

If I speak of individuals but present learning as if they are all the same.

If I am never seen to reflect and reflecting time is never provided.

If we never speak together about reflection and thinking and never develop a vocabulary for such discussion.

If we do not take opportunities to think about our thinking.

If I constantly set them exercises that do not intellectually challenge them

If I set up learning environments that interfere with their learning from their own actions.

If I give them recipes to follow.

If I only expect the one right conclusion.

If I signify that there are always right and wrong answers.

If I never openly respect their thoughts.

If I never let them persevere with something really difficult which they cannot master.

If I make all work serious work and discourage playfulness.

If there is no time to explore.

If I lock them into adult time constraints too early.

How with they get to know themselves as a thinker?

If we force them to always work and play with children of the same age.

If I do not teach them the skills of working co-operatively.

If collaboration can be seen as cheating

If all classroom activities are based in competitiveness.

If everything is seen to be for marks.

How will they learn to work with others?

For if they

have never experienced being challenged in a safe environment.

have had all of their creative thoughts explained away.

are unaware what catches their interest and how then to have confidence in that interest

have never followed something they are passionate about to a satisfying conclusion

have not clarified the way they sabotage their own learning

are afraid to seek help and do not know who or how to ask

have not experienced overcoming their own inertia

are paralyzed by the need to know everything before writing or acting

have never got bogged down

have never failed

have always played it safe.

How will they ever know who they are?

What comprises teaching?

In the second year of celebrating Teacher's Day and the first time in MI, I want to give thanks to
1) my colleagues, especially
Miss Jam for being such a joy to work with,
Miss Catherine Ang who is the most accommodating level coordinator,
Mdm Shamala who is the most experienced and big-hearted GP tutor I have ever met,
Mrs Meya who constantly keeps me on my toes and
everyone in MI who guided and supported me

2) my students who endured my lessons and lame jokes

3) Mdm Ong Chai Hong, my dearest co-home tutor

4) my family and friends who listened to my rants and forgave me for breaking promises last minute due to work commitment

5) God who blessed me for taking on this challenging job

Teaching was the first dream job that I wrote about in my Primary One composition because my mom was a kindergarten teacher. Along the way, I met some great teachers and many lousy ones. One of them, Mr Yip inspired me to write. He wrote in one of my Chinese compositions, "You will be a great writer one day." Hence, I aspired to be in media and learn how to write well.

Never would I imagined myself teaching General Paper as this is one subject which most Singapore students hated. "Think in-depth? I dig show biz and soccer. Hopefully there is an essay question on either beauty or sports in the twelve options." Yes, two came out in 1999 'A' levels ^_^
I was a major annoyance to my GP tutor - interrupting her while she was talking and asking her difficult questions which she needs to reply, "I'll get back to you." The worst I guess was being good friends with her favourite GP student as "I'm a corrupting influence". No idea who is corrupting who but I am going to marry this "corrupted" guy soon.
My fiance said that me being a GP tutor is karma so this reminds me and hopefully, you to start being nice to your GP tutor. Pay attention in class, do your homework diligently and don't irritate her or you might end up being a teacher. Haha... Happy holidays~

What do Teachers Make?

The dinner guests were sitting around the table discussing life. One man, a CEO, decided to explain the problem with education. He argued, "What's a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?"

He reminded the other dinner guests that it's true what they say about teachers, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."

To corroborate, he said to another guest, "You're a teacher, Susan," he said.
"Be honest. What do you make?"

Susan, who had a reputation of honesty and frankness replied, "You want to know what I make?"

"I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could. I can make a C+ feel like a Congressional Medal of Honor and an A- feel like a C+ slap in the face if the student did not do his or her very best."
"I can make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall in absolute silence."
"I can make parents tremble in fear when I call home."

"You want to know what I make?"

"I make kids wonder." "I make them question."
"I make them criticize." "I make them apologize and mean it."
"I make them write." "I make them read, read, read."
"I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful, and definitely beautiful over and over and over again, until they will never misspell either one of those words again."
"I make them show all their work in math and hide it all on their final drafts in English."
"I make them understand that if you have the brains, then follow your heart
... and if someone ever tries to judge you by what you make,
you pay them no attention."

"You want to know what I make?"

"I make a difference."
"What about you?"

(Source: http://www.bpsd.org/williampenn/room103/whyteach.htm)