November 27, 2004
From the papers...23
A town in East Germany has new traffic lights - blinking woman, rather than blinking jolly man. Equality of the sexes in traffic systems. Why not? Good shot.
xxx
Volunteer groups have difficulty finding restaurants that will take in leprosy patients as diners. A survey conducted reveals only 2 out of 10 restaurants in Suntec City is willing to admit leprosy patients as diners.
When the leprosy home was at the old buangkok place, where the temple that I went to was, my parents and I would go to the home and give rice, condiments and some angbaos to the patients during Chinese New Year. It's the least to do, wasn't it? I don't know a lot about leprosy but I went to find out a bit from the net after reading the article.
Leprosy is caused by a strain of bacillus, causing deformations of the limbs, skin lesions and possible paralysis. When treated under control, it's not infectious. And most of us have a natural immunity to it. So, like you are less likely to get leprosy through contact with a patient than you are to die from contact with someone having fever and flu (specifically, SARS).
Still, some restaurant owners (ok, just one, from this House of Peranakan Cuisine - real mean boss!) refuse business AND charity cos they either are not informed about the disease or are just afraid that other customers get turned away by these leprosy patients eating at the next table. Which brings me to my next point.
We really need to open our eyes and ears to people who have different needs from us and are different from us. And, then, open our hearts to them (sorry if this sounds like cliche, and isn't it sad that this sounds cliche?). A lot of ostracizing and demeaning behaviour is due to a lack of knowledge and (worse) a lack of motivation to find out about things that we are not comfortable with.
The owner said that they are running a business, and not charity. So, even if he gets paid for bringing them in to dine, he would not accept the deal cos that would affect other diners. My first response was 'What an idiot'.
Just when you think Singapore is such a warm and loving society cos we always managed to hit a new high in those TV charity programmes, think again. If this is the mentality towards people who are different or more needy than us, Singapore sure has a long long long way to go before we even come close to being a gracious society.
xxx
Ever since Singapore had a little plunge in ranking in a recent study of service standard worldwide, service standard here has been the talk on TV, radio and papers. My take?
Action and reaction goes hand in hand. Sure! We get lukewarm, if not cold service in most restaurants here. Some service staff don't even know what they are talking about when you ask them about the menu. On the other hand, we don't seem to appreciate other people a lot too. We complain more than we say 'thank you's. I also learnt from my own work that it's really the minimum to say 'thank you'. It would be much more rewarding to not only give praise but positive feedback. Like, 'Thank you. That was excellent service/help'.
I'm trying to practise it wherever and whenever possible. Give the staff some motivation to put on that smile. It's always the first step that's the hardest to take. But, it's time we surprise ourselves and one another what we can achieve beyond that first step. As for thoroughly bad service, I retain my right to be a bitch. *wink*
xxx
(I purposely left this the last cos as you guys already know, it's my pet subject.)
1. Make Chinese a relevant language. It not only speeds up learning, makes it fun and reduce teacher's workload too. Take an example, many chinese idioms that the current syllabus include are so 'off' that I admit I sometimes tell my tutees to skip learning that simply cos they probably won't get to use that in real life. Ok, maybe they will. But, not at this stage of their life when they are already struggling with simpler words.
2. But relevance is really not just about textbooks. Because relevance constitute of knowing and applying in daily life. What takes up more time in a typical student's life than TV and interactive media? The media has a big part to play because the media forms a large part of the aspect of society where language is utilised. Not me, but most people hear more words out of Zoe Tay's script or news reports than we hear out of our parents' mouth. Yet, the medium that ought to have the best and most vetted form of the language seems to be the bane of most students - the newspaper. Again, I draw from what I learnt from work - Draw big, write small. All the more possible for Chinese language cos it's a iconic/pictorial language. Students freak out when they have to do newspaper cutting. Simply cos the mass of words intimidate them. Worse if they have to explain in their own words what the news is about. The common feeling would be 'but, they already used all the words I know and don't know. How to write in my own words?' It would help so much if they see more big pictures that can tell a story rather than many small pictures that only illustrate one point in the story. There is a reason why children connect so well to Disney cartoons that have lotsa actions and very little dialogue.
3. At the same time, they are encouraged to develop their own thinking skills, imagination and creativity, isn't it? The same picture can be interpreted entirely different between two persons. Language is infused with life. You can't teach language in a monotonous and top-down way.
4. Yes, history and culture is important in teaching and learning a language. But, in Singapore where every group is trying to hold true to their own roots as we adopt more and more of the western ways, it can be a real challenge to make kids understand why it's important to appreciate any particular culture or history. I draw from my own experience. My tutees know roughly how the mid-autumn fsetival came about. But, it's less important to them than say, Chinese New Year. Cos hey, Chinese New Year is public holidays, 2 days somemore! Pragmatic lot, all of them. That is why we have failed in tying history and culture to teaching a language. Children have to understand the purpose of what you are going to teach them before you can begin teaching them.
5. The one problem I always have with regards to education in Singapore is that we always give extrinsic and pragmatic reasons in teaching something. And because it's so pragmatic, it has to be a 'given' rather than 'sharing'. Students have to learn something because of all the pragmatic reasons that are stated by the state. It's like telling a teenager to work hard in Chinese if he is interested in this Taiwanese exchange girl. It's not wrong, I guess. Just that I'm really uncomfortable that education is more and more for the sake of economical value.
Well, the white paper (why white?) is out. We'll see where we go from there.
Posted by 杏 cy （Jancy） at 13:07