" Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants." (Deuteronomy 32:2)
Yesterday was Teacher’s Day. Under today’s Straits Times Home section, there was this full page publication of selected students’ short appreciation messages to their teachers sponsored by the Ministry of Education. It costs at least $8k to do a full page colour newspaper advertisement. This is an entirely new concept (like what we have for Valentine’s Day) but I think it is a very bold and worthwhile initiative, as dedicated teachers are hard to come by and we must appreciate and recognise their efforts. I am sure our teachers here woke up yesterday morning eagerly combed through the newspaper to find out whether their names were mentioned by their students.
I always have very high regard on teaching as a profession. It is such an honourable job that touches lives of many though it is not easy to be a dedicated teacher. When I graduated, the ministry had very rigid criteria for selecting candidates for interviews. For graduates, you must major in at least 2 teaching subjects. If you are above certain age, don’t even try, and if you already working elsewhere in another government body, also don’t try as your employer would not release you. Private sector experience also would not be taken into account. I failed at 2 of these criteria. If not for that, I might have ended up as a teacher myself.
Our students here are very fortunate to have the best teachers in this region. Yet some of the parents and students are ungrateful. My experience with the education system in Malaysia was disastrous. I could only recalled some of my Chinese primary school teachers who were generally more dedicated than my secondary and pre-u teachers. May be this has to do with the Chinese values as strict disciplines were imposed on both teachers and the students in Chinese-sream schools. My youngest sister in Malaysia told me that nowadays it is harder to get into the Chinese-stream schools than the national schools. Regret to say, I also remember some undedicated teachers especially my pre-U teachers who hardly showed up in the classrooms (busy with other `assignments’ instead of teaching). Precious time was spent on copying notes from the blackboard (by the way these notes were grossly outdated to be relevant). In the end we had to self-study on our own most of the time. It is amazing that somehow I, a kampong girl, still managed to study up to tertiary level.
I always have very high regard on teaching as a profession. It is such an honourable job that touches lives of many though it is not easy to be a dedicated teacher. When I graduated, the ministry had very rigid criteria for selecting candidates for interviews. For graduates, you must major in at least 2 teaching subjects. If you are above certain age, don’t even try, and if you already working elsewhere in another government body, also don’t try as your employer would not release you. Private sector experience also would not be taken into account. I failed at 2 of these criteria. If not for that, I might have ended up as a teacher myself.
Our students here are very fortunate to have the best teachers in this region. Yet some of the parents and students are ungrateful. My experience with the education system in Malaysia was disastrous. I could only recalled some of my Chinese primary school teachers who were generally more dedicated than my secondary and pre-u teachers. May be this has to do with the Chinese values as strict disciplines were imposed on both teachers and the students in Chinese-sream schools. My youngest sister in Malaysia told me that nowadays it is harder to get into the Chinese-stream schools than the national schools. Regret to say, I also remember some undedicated teachers especially my pre-U teachers who hardly showed up in the classrooms (busy with other `assignments’ instead of teaching). Precious time was spent on copying notes from the blackboard (by the way these notes were grossly outdated to be relevant). In the end we had to self-study on our own most of the time. It is amazing that somehow I, a kampong girl, still managed to study up to tertiary level.
It has always been the intention of the Ministry of Education to ensure schools are fully staffed and the effort has not been in vain for the last ten years. As such, there are many teachers in Singapore schools but not all teachers can deliver effective lessons as they may be in it for the pay or security. Faced with such teachers, motivated and bright students have to depend on themselves to self-study and to practice past year exam papers. When this proves to be inadequate, they pay more for expensive tutors. Thus Mooi Lan, the situation today is not very much different from your time in school. We may have many teachers but not all can teach and relate to their pupils though they have the necessary Tertiary paper qualification. Teaching is a demanding task as we need to multi-task and play many roles at one time and not all of us are cut out for this. I think that if you were a student today, you would have to depend on yourself and do a lot of self-study.
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