Heartbeat of a Her

And here she is
Wisdom tells me Im nothing
Love tells me Im everything
Within the two, my life flows...

her journey her love her other voices her and herself

Heartbeat of a Her

Friday, September 19, 2008 exams blues

12:04 pm

The countdown towards final year exams has started. Parents have called asking, " Su, can we increase the frequency of tuition? " or " Teacher Su, I want my child to attend extra lessons. "

Mostly, I laugh when I hear these.. I dont blame them though for being very anxious about their child's examinations. Standards are no longer the same as they were 4-5 years ago. Its really competitive now and surely, parents do not want to feel as though they are short-changing their child if they do not enroll them in that tuition class, this tuition class.

If you have a child in primary 1 now, you'll find that other than the normal reading and writing skills which you'll have to teach your child, you will need to equip them with a deep understanding skill as well. Only in primary 1, students will have to write full compositions, with proper introductions and endings, answer inference comprehension questions, learn problem sums with 3 digit numbers and even multiplication and division. They not only have to battle reading challenging words and phrases, they have to be able to understand what it is they are required to do. Some, unfortunately, at this age, do not have that capability yet and they are seen struggling in school.

To add on, its the fasting month now. For several of my last evening classes which end at about 7 pm, I had to shake awake my younger students who were falling asleep. They were yawning away initially and then soon, their writing gets crooked or they start writing things they are not even aware of. And their eyes are dropping to a close. Cute. I cant blame them, can I? They are tired from school and feeling the additional exhaustion since they are fasting as well. I'll be like, " OK, go and wash your faces! "

At the end of the day, I strongly feel that yes, the education system in Singapore is indeed highly competitive but with strong positive support from parents, Im sure these students will do well. And at the same time too, we need to acknowledge that these children are going through tough challenges as well, as young as they are.