Teach Less Learn More
This is in response to the proponents of the strategy that the MOE has thought of. This strangely reminded me of my sec 3 and sec 4 (how unfortunate) chinese teacher. Most of the time when she entered the classroom, she'd say that the government suggests teaching less and learning more, AND THUS SHE IS GOING TO TEACH LESS. As a result, she gave each group a piece of mahjong paper and told us to read the passage of the new topic ourselves and then do a summary/mind map/whatever on the mahjong paper. After completing our task, we would then proceed to sticking our mahjong paper on the wall and then.......okay that's basically the end. While we are busy doing our stuff (drawing our concept maps with utmost unwillingness), she's SLEEPING. So much for teach less learn more.
I don't believe that allowing teachers to slack is part of the whole education policy and I think that the MOE would probably be displeased about this thing on teachers slacking and everything. The true thing they are advocating is a shift from "quantity" to "quality". They wish to see the increase in classroom interaction, learning of life-long skills, character building using EFFECTIVE teaching approaches. They also want to get rid of rote learning, prescribed structure and formulae. Rote learning is learning without understanding, you can also see it as memorising everything. That may be effective to some extent in passing your exams, but it really serves no other benefit. The prescribed structure reminds me of SS. The SS department used to force us to write in a particular format and if we don't follow, we don't get marks. Thus we all have to write in the same way, until one day, the SS teachers received the O Levels SS report from Cambridge and Cambridge complained that we were too structured and wished we were more freestyle. Then, the SS teachers are desperately trying to make us not think about the orderly structure they used to fix into our minds but most people ended u writing in that format anyway, as they're too used to it already. I think I wrote in that format too, but who cares I still got my A1 for combined humanities, and I bet many others did too.
Another way to see teach less learn more is teaching less topics but these topics are being focused to a deeper extent. Maybe, the teachers can teach the fundamentals of a subject, and students and pursue their own area of interest. Let's take chemistry as an example. A teacher can teach the basics of chemistry, and students can then do their own self research on sub topics that interest them. Or maybe people like Yee Wei would just....drop chemistry altogether! Lol I'm assuming that she hates chem. =/ So after rudimentary chemistry have been thought, students can self research on topics like, biochemistry, organic chemistry, nuclear chemistry, etc. That sounds quite good....but WILL IT WORK? With a specific syllabus, everyone would probably have to learn everything that is specified under the Core Syllabus and Learning Outcomes specified by Cambridge. So, even if this student who loves neurochemistry starts learning a lot about it by himself/herself, it's not going to help with grades. It may help with his/her future neurochemistry career but without a good chemistry grade for A levels he/she's not going anywhere. With the examinations unchanged, why talk about changing policies?
For cases like PW, I feel that the teachers should help more. Look at TJC. The teachers help them a lot more than the teachers do in VJC. Guess what, their distinction rates are owning us! Their distinction rates are 87.6% if I remember correctly and ours is like.....okay it's looking miserable. Everyone's 10 points to university admission are not to be gambled with! I'd rather my teacher help me a lot and AT LEAST I can get my A for the suckiest subject ever. I'm sure many peoploe do agree that PW sucks.
Now for GP. In my previous post, I was suggesting that my GP teacher should actually teach. HE IS NOT EVEN TEACHING. He is merely giving us notes, making us do stupid projects and listening him spout rubbish. Everyone can do that! If I am giving you a stack of notes on Zimbabwe's hyperinflation of 11000000% annually, I am just.....GIVING NOTES. Okay, so teach less learn more. In GP, any topic, any question can be asked. The teachers probably have to go in depth with every topic, as well as go through a wide range of topics. For compostition, it's easier as we can choose to do a question out of 12. BUT FOR AQ, THERE IS ONLY ONE AND ONLY. YOU EITHER DO IT, OR LOSE 8 MARKS. People can tell us to research ourselves! So if we really do our own studying, what are GP teachers for?
Let's compare two scenarios, assuming the students are of comparable diligence and ability.
First
A GP teacher who actually teaches. She/He discusses social, global issues with the class. Students, after attending class, go home and read up on relevant articles relating to the issues being analysed in class. With class discussions, there are quite a number of different views being expressed, and hence the discussion would be rather two sided. It would be easier for students to sort out the different opinions and think of the pros and cons of certain issues. Like the drilling for oil in the Artic National Wildlife Reserve.
Second
A GP teacher who doesn't teach, like my GP teacher. He enters the class and distributes reading articles. Then, he leaves the class. Of course, everyone left for home. At home, we analyse the articles ourselves, and do some research while we're at it.
I'd rather be in the first scenario. If the teacher discusses issues during class, it saves me a lot of time from artifically creating discussions between my different personalities (assuming I'm a schizo....wait I don't know if I'm a schizo lalalalalala, quit giving me that -_- face!). My time would be more efficiently allocated!
Now it's time for more reading. D: