May 10, 2005

Introducing... Peter Procedure, Smart Siti and Trouble Teri!

Staff training today. Maths seminar. We've been undergoing this Maths seminar since last year. It's a long, long module.

Dr. Yeap has, on many occasions, introduced us to the 3 kinds of students that exist in the local education system. They are Peter Procedure (who makes up the bulk of the cohort), Smart Siti (the talent pool, under-taught within the system) and Trouble Teri (well, name says it all).

Today, he explained that the kind of students that has the most potential to be successful is Smart Siti. Smart Siti is the most enjoyable to teach because she can pick up almost anything that's been taught and she is capable of doing almost everything. However, in our system (until the change completes, at least), Smart Siti is short-changed. We are not teaching her enough. He quoted some findings that Singapore students are among the top 25% of academic abilities and capabilities worldwide. However, we never managed to have a nobel prize winner. That is because our system has failed to further nurture and teach the Smart Siti within the cohort. We left the teaching to chance. And in a country as small as Singapore, leaving things to chance would only generate the result of an egg.

So, what exactly are we neglecting to teach all the Smart Sitis in our pea-sized country with such big agenda? According to Dr. Yeap, 'Habits of mind'. That include flexibility in thinking, making sense of context, figuring out a situation... to sum it up in my own words, we neglect to teach thinking, perspective and perception.

We end up with a lot of Peter Procedures. Many scholars were lauded with first class honours but ended up being, at best, inane executives (the kind of bosses we tend to avoid but somehow, always end up with). Peter Procedure is good for doing, well, procedural work. Like? Camouflaging themselves alongside the conveyor belts in a factory until of course, the conveyor belts totally replace them. Because Peter Procedure memorises how to do things and does things in that rigid way because he knew no other ways (or 'my teacher neber teech mee'). If you change something in a problem or present a new situation, you can be sure he would be lost. Best part? Peter Procedure doesn't ask questions. There was never a need to ask 'cos where they studied, teachers already didn't have enough time to finish doing the practice SA papers from other top schools.

Oh. And then, we have Trouble Teri. Name says it all. Basically, our system tries to forget this group of people who not only can't ask smart questions, they can't answer procedural questions too.

So, what have we got now? Tools of the capitalist economy, puppets of the state.

But, according to Dr. Yeap, the syllabus is changing, for the better. The call is to teach all students. Teach Smart Siti habits of mind, teach Peter Procedure to start asking and questioning, teach Trouble Teri to progress to er, Peter Procedure?

I'm part of this. I'm teaching Maths. To a group of Pr 2 kids. At Pri 2, they don't have to know number sense yet. But, yes, number facts. My challenge is... how does teaching number facts not become a process of simply memorising, especially when strong memory power is a strength of my kids?

I'd write again if I can. One thing at a time. hee...

For my dear colleagues who fell asleep somewhere this afternoon, now you know what Dr. Yeap was talking about. *wink*

Posted by 杏 cy （Jancy） at 22:35