Change through emotion

I spoke to some parents over the recent PTM about their children's very poor performance in their exams, so poor to the point that they did not meet the most elementary passing criteria to advance to the next level. It's quite sad actually, to witness these youths not living anywhere near their potential.

To make the best of the conversations, I thought that I will make it as emotionally charged for the receiving end as possible, hoping that the pupils and parents will feel the emotional weight and the grim implications of the printed numbers. I wanted the pupils to realise that not only have they not live up to their expectations, they have basically forgotten who they are and what they can achieve. 8 people broke down during the conversations, both parents and pupils.

Not wanting anyone to go away feeling totally dejected and helpless, an injection of hope was made about the positive possibilities ahead when the pupils faithfully complete their holiday bridging programme, that their last chance at making it good awaits on their decision to do this well. Everyone was relieved and encouraged upon knowing about the opportunity. Hope is a very important driving force.

We are really in a people's business, and communication is crucial. My recent interest in NLP made me realise that there are so many things we can reap from this in the context of education, and there are so many things which we can equip ourselves in communication that will allow us to do our jobs more effectively.

A quote from a Polish mathematician and philospher - Alfred Korzybski, in the beginning pages of my first NLP book which I bought for my holiday reading.

"The map is not the territory."

I am already intrigued.

Paying for Performance

Fortune magzine this week had a coverage on Joel Klein's (New York City School chancellor) perspective for the need to incentivise the teaching profession. It is the same sentiments raised across different studies, like those from the research of Bill and Belinda Gates Foundation, that the key to the success to a good education lies fundamentally in the quality of our teachers.

A link is here http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/storysupplement/flyp_ibm2/

The need for quality teachers is certainly there, no matter which society we live in, and I am sure monetary incentives have been effective in drawing and retaining talents. But have we successfully found ways of motivating people to give their best other than monetary incentives? These are people skills which we need to learn in order to contribute in this area and are so varied that it is unrealistic to systemise.

Moral obligation

I came across this quote from Jay Abraham in a business book I was reading, and it got stuck in my head for a while. Although crafted for the business world, it certainly can be applied in schools, or whenever we are making decisions. The quote goes, "If you truly believe that what you have is useful and valuable to your clients, then you have a moral obligation to try to serve them in every way possible."

So what do we truly believe to be really useful and valuable to our pupils, colleagues, family or friends? Our lives will be great being mindful of this, and having the capacity to contribute to this end.

Dynamic calendars in sync

Information plays a large part in how we work. More specifically, clarity, ease and access of information allows for better decision making, at all levels. This week, I finally got to subscribe the school's work calendars to work in sync with my iCal on my Mac and my Calendar app on my iPhone.

What I thought initially to be something rather simple about subscribing and publishing took quite a few hours of my time to sort out. As I have already have been using iCal for years and getting it synced glitchlessly on my iPhone, I want everything from the school's calendar to be under the same software. In other words, I want it simple and I want it to be all under one big calendar, without the need for me to swop around different programmes to see, make changes, sync, etc. And after scouting the internet for a solution, I finally bought BusySync to get exactly what I wanted. $30+ is a steep price to pay for a tiny programme that sits in the System Preferences. But it gets the job done beautifully, all at the background. I am very happy with it and will not want it any other way.

By the look of it, the days of the Filofax calendars are dead. Dynamic calendaring offers so much collaborative potential that can improve the quality of both our personal and working life that there is no looking back.

Mindmaps in Management

I attended a sharing about mind-mapping in the classroom during the mini conference on Thursday and is impressed with the amount of work gone into inculcating this very useful tool into our learning environment. It is evident that we have confident and passionate people who believe in the merit of this and it is important that we drive this through with perseverance.

For mind-mapping to be successful in the classrooms, it must be as immersive as we can allow it to happen. Very much like how one's acquiring of a new language can be done so much more effectively with immersion. Teachers familiar with this tool have to use it whenever it is apt so that it will gradually be infused as part of the pupils' visual language.

When playing around with the recently acquired iMindmap software, I was researching online about the how corporations use mindmapping software in GTD environments. I stumbled onto this clip on YouTube about how mindmaps came into play for project management and immediately felt the need to incorporate this as part of my workflow.

With end of the year planning just around the corner, there cannot be a better time to start using this. Really wish that the all pen and paper mindmappers (including myself not that long ago) will give the mindmapping softwares a try. The dynamic way in which they can be revised makes it a truly useful tool.

Coursework

This week marked the end of the Art coursework. After months of hard work for most pupils, the end was a relief. It was a relief for me as well, as many days towards the end were really Red Bull Days, where I need 'nourish' myself to keep my mind alert on a tired body.

By and large, this is the best batch of Art pupils I had the opportunity working with. There is a general sense of motivation and perseverance, the will and courage to try new things, and the resolve to see it through the end. It has been a joy to teach this class and I hope that the experience of coursework will bring them a level of thought and self discovery that is able to enrich their lives in a way or another.

As this is already the third batch of O Level Art pupils we have, there will be sufficient data to do some decoding when the results are out. By this, I mean a process of understanding (both for the teacher and pupils) in detail, what constitutes a good piece of coursework, or at least in the perception of an external exam. We have been doing this analysis in terms of showing pupils distinction coursework pieces right from the beginning of Sec 3 to establish understanding of the parts, but have not been able to spot a trend amongst a common genre and specify a list of specifics that we can agree with.

Assessment in Art can be fuzzy and will never be a science no matter how robust the rubrics is, impression still counts. If we are able to decode the ingredients neccessary for successful performance, it will be useful as an aid for our weaker, and less initiated pupils. The end result may be more formulaic as a result for these pupils, but performance in general will likely get a boost. As for the stronger candidates, we should give them our full support for most of the creative endeavours which they have decided to persue, as long as the teacher is able to provide constructive feedback in the genre of work.

Revisiting some work tools

I was thinking about the 2 working tools which had made their impact on my life these few days. GTD and Mindmaps. Both of which are applicable to all manners of life, whether it is personal or professional. Although I am an advocate and is totally sold on both methods, I still have plenty to learn from each and is still constantly falling off the bandwagon. The fault does not lie in the methods, it just takes a lot of effort to turn workflows into working habits. For this, I am hopeful and optimistic, that as long as I have questions for myself on these methods, I will learn and get better.

David Allen is the guru who invented the GTD philosophy and workflow, which is gaining a lot of traction in the past few years. The inaugural GTD Summit this year at San Francisco is a measure of its international following. While researching for materials on this subject, I stumbled onto a YouTube clip where David Allen himself was presenting to the folks at Google. Going through the 45 min clip served as a good refresher for those of us who had read the book. Those who are new to the methodolgy can also be quickly introduced its main ideas.

I had also included a mindmap which I made of the video while watching it.

There is a great opportunity to introduce these tools into the classrooms.

Pressure and Encouragement

Being away for some official duty for some time, last Friday was the first time which I got back to school to see my Sec 4s. I supposed they were both eager and anxious to see me, as I have always been very frank when I am giving feedback concerning their art. Truly, I appreciate their anxiousness, for that means that they do care about what they are doing.

Well, everyone was under certain amount of pressure. I had to quickly adjust to the mode of being a coach to pupils who have such a diversified range of work while the pupils were all rushing to meet the coming deadline. I can see and feel the pressure experienced by the pupils, from their eyes especially. Some pressure is always good, they just need to know how to draw strength from it.

And during such times, the ability to give encouragement and move foward is crucial. Whatever flaws committed were really water under the bridge, we need to focus on what is ahead and what in our control can be done. Pupils need to believe in themselves that they can do it, teachers have to be there to give them this validation.

Over Lunch and Coffee

Through some engaging conversations last week, it is really interesting to get to know how others in the teaching fraternity are dealing with both problems and opportunities in their own contexts.

What is heartening to witness is the presence of some teachers who care deeply about the ideals of education, having the courage and priority to always do what is right and good for the pupils and not being distracted by perception or measurements. Their conviction is inspiring and there are plenty of methods which I can learn from.

Stories are exchanged and one of those which really left an impression on me is a case whereby a friend recalled an incident when he was still a pupil in school. It was an impressionable lesson carried out by a highly persuasive teacher. His teacher spent perhaps the course of one lesson to convince his class, using clear statistics, that they are better off not furthering their studies after they finished secondary school, and that they should just contribute to the workforce as early as possible. The very sad thing is, some of my friend's classmates and friends got convinced in that very short amount of time that it was indeed a very viable option and they went on to do exactly that.

More than 20 years down the road, my friend still spoke with much anguish and contempt about that incident, and how it had adversely affected some of the lives of those who were there in the class that day. Such a strong influence, but such a crippling belief.

Fortunately, this friend of mine did not get indoctrinated on that day and went on to graduate in a reputable university and is presently a very skilled teacher in bringing about changes in pupils, in a good way.

We play such important roles in shaping beliefs. This, we have to do very mindfully and effectively.

Inspiring Campaign

David Pogue of New York Times did something quite amazing for the past month or so in what he called the "Take Back the Beep" Campaign. The idea behind is basically that telcos (the case here refers to those in the US) are ripping consumers off with the mostly mandatory instructional message played each time when you wish to leave a message on the phone. The precious seconds are billed onto the consumers' phone bill and that the whole thing should really be made optional as almost everybody will know by now how to go about pressing which button to get a voice message recorded. Something more important is the amount of time wasted each time a person needs to hear the whole instruction read out to him, even if it is already the thousandth time he is recording a voice message.

One man's idea vs the ingrained operations of many established industry heavyweights, what are the chances? Well, the amazing thing is that through spreading his idea of getting everyone (as many as he can reach from his blog) to pen their frustration on this matter to the telcos, the effect picked up tremendous momentum and it came to a point that David Pogue got interviewed by national news on this matter and that all the telcos are obliged to review this entire process due to the unsually high number of complaints.

This is really quite inspiring. If David Pogue just kept on assuming that such matters are way beyond his control to do anything about, everything will just be status quo, people will continue to be unhappy and just live with it. But his decision to do something. The decision which always precedes action, makes all the difference.

If you are keen to read about the story of this "Take Back the Beep" campaign, take a look at his blog here http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/take-back-the-beep-campaign-an-update/

And just to end, Snow Leopard is sweet. :)

Snow Leopard is out!

And it's out for Pre-order on the Apple website!

Mac Users, it's faster, better and consumes less system resources, do the right thing and go place your order now!! :D

Useful tools

A boy in 2E3 made my day when he shared me about his search for a good mind-mapping software and introduced me to iMindmap, the only mind-mapping software endorsed by Tony Buzan himself. I shared my own mind-mapping experience with the class a few months ago and told them how I wished I had discovered this tool much earlier in my schooling life as it had really benefited me. I am of course very glad that someone in the class had gone the extra mile to explore the mind-mapping opportunities in the digital world, and I hope that his journey into the mind-mapping world will empower him in many ways.

I discovered mind-mapping techniques in my early twenties and took to it straight away. So intuitive, simple and effective. These tools are really important, and another gem which I had discovered only in these couple of years is none other than GTD (Getting Things Done). I introduced the method only to my Sec 4 pupils and the most conscientious ones are still using them, telling me that they find it to be useful in collecting and tracking what they have to do. Their post-its manner of implementing the system is not ideal and many could have abandoned this method due to its low tech hassle. Those who persevered obviously tasted the pleasure of the method's usefulness, and had hung on to it till it became habit.

A quick dabble into iMindmap's organic expression that mimics hand drawn maps.

Mindmaps and GTD. Certainly my top 2 favourite tools in managing my thoughts. They are completely applicable to pupils and are definitely things best learnt when young.

Surreal

Going to be a short post this week. Too busy to really think of anything else with the arrival of my first child. :)

The whole experience is simply surreal and I am enjoying every single precious moment of it. Tired, but feel very blessed and happy.

Ok, now where's my Kopi-O?

Walls of Display

National Day can designs by our lower secondary pupils

The gallery for the past few days had been filled with cans and cans of limited edition soft drink designs (almost 200 of them) which were created by our lower secondary pupils especially to celebrate National Day. Took some time to sort through the better ones and to ultimately put them up in the spotlights but it was certainly worth it when everything went up. It is really quite a sight when the diversity of creative expressions is displayed collectively.

We have learnt to trust the good old 3M mounting tapes for such jobs as anything lesser (we have tried and we know) would have little chance of holding these three-dimensional pieces up for any decent amount of time. They are less difficult to remove too after the exhibition is over, although I am always hoping they will invent something which comes off the walls with even less effort when we wish to dismount the art pieces.

Vibrant red walls are seen everywhere

The pupils were quite excited to see their design pieces go up on display and I think that is always important, that they feel encouraged and gain confidence in expressing themselves through art making and get the validation for a good work done.

Tethering on the iPhone!

Such vibrant colours!

I am writing this via iPhone tethering and it is just great! Having internet everywhere is simply amazing and we are definitely living in exciting times!

OK. Bus interchange coming.

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Well, this part of the writing is done at home. I was having too much fun playing with the iPhone tethering just now that I almost did not realise that I had to get off the bus really soon when I started writing. Just thought of following up on what I was thinking of when commuting.

Our school is getting a brand new coat of paint these few weeks and there is quite a lot of change in its appearance. This intended colour scheme is supposed to express more fun, more live and more energy. I was hoping that the Lego colour scheme would win in the votes and it was a close one. 40 more pupils prefer Gummies, which I am sure our painting contractors would breathe a deep sigh of relief if they were to see what the other probable colour scheme actually looked like.

More reds

The environment. The seemingly passive element for all the buzzing activities to unfold within it. Ignoring its importance and contribution would be a mistake. For manipulating the physical construct will be the easiest component to create a change in perception and gradually having its trickling effect on culture, and possibly belief. Visualise having a big, vibrant modernist painting hung on the otherwise blank walls of an empty room, and its effects on our minds and consciousness of being.

I hope that the pupils and staff will feel better or happier with this new coat of paint and with so many bright, freshly painted walls, it is time for more art to go up.

Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP)

Subjective Experience

I had been looking forward to attend the NLP workshop last Thursday. My primary goal of signing up is to find out more about suggested methods I can use to increase the level of motivation in our pupils. Attending workshops during normal school hours is quite a novelty to me, as I more often than not would prefer to read on my own for information or ideas.

How did the workshop go? Well, I will say that Dennis Sale (our trainer) is a very accomplished communicator, and being in his class is a very engaging experience. We were told early in the class that in a single day, we would only get to touch on the main ideas behind NLP, and anyone seeking furthur undertanding and practice would have to do some homework on their own.

Mindmap of NLP workshop

Above is a simple mindmap I had constructed with my iPhone during the course to remind myself of the main associations. There are plenty to talk about and I am going to focus my reflection here in how NLP sees behavioural alternation, which when focused rightly becomes the response to my quest in increasing pupils' motivation. 2 main points were raised.

Everyone will seek Pleasure and move away from Pain, exactly the same points the famed NLP guru Anthony Robbins had mentioned. Both pleasure and pain are of course subjective experiences and with changing contexts, differ widely from person to person. The challenge here is to know what exactly are the pleasures and pain-reduction that our subject matter is seeking. Adapting our approaches with a good understanding and in accordance of the above will increase our probability of success in behaviour alteration. For that to happen, we will have to first of all have a better understanding of our pupils.

In some videos we were shown in the workshop, I am quite convinced with the manipulative power of NLP under the skilled execution of a practitioner. Under good hands, it is a very power skill to have in education and it is definitely worth finding out more.

Importance of pushing forward

At this time of the year, graduating class Art pupils are having individual consultation sessions with me to clarify their approach to finish up their coursework. To my surprise, one of the weakest pupils told me last week that she has the intention of dropping the subject. Perhaps in the environment which I have built around the value of candor and transparency in feedback, she has found the regular comparisons of work to her peers who are performing much better, to be a bitter and painful reality to swallow.

Comparisons in the standards of work (using visual references) are critical in understanding differentiation, for without it, pupils will be even more lost in this seemingly impressionistic subject where benchmarks are difficult to comprehend. So how do you carry out comparisons without letting those who are not at the glorified end to be accepting of the feedback? This would require an earnest and effective communication with the intention of the exercise rationalised, that knowing the differences in performance would benefit the group collectively. In fact, it would benefit those who are not scoring well with a better idea of what their friends did that made a difference.

Well, those are the intentions and I still feel that it is the right thing to do. The focus now is to sharpen my persuasive ability to not let those who are doing poorly feel dejected. This is a skill which I need to continually build up. If an educator is able to sustainably let his pupils feel the hunger for success and be always positive in living their lives, much can be achieved.

After having a lengthy talk with that pupil of mine, she told me that she will let me know if she is still keen on continuing with her coursework this week. Doing Art in 'O' Level, or not, is just a small step in one's education, deciding to quit and just exit when times get tough is the attitude one cannot afford to adopt in life.

Attention. Interest. Recall.

There is plenty that our art pupils can learn from the advertising industry. The latter's conviction to resolve problems, to always create relevant and authentic content that intrigues prospective buyers, in certain ways is consistent with our candidates approach to doing well in their exams. Both are sales pitches to drive impressions, but to different ends of course.

I read this somewhere a while ago about an approach a certain famed ad agency adopted to focus their attention on delivering good ads. 3 simple questions that designers or art directors will ask themselves to keep delivering on the edge. They call it the AIR approach.

1. Attention

A good ad must have the ability to grab attention. If it is able to stop you even for a few seconds before turning the page of a magazine, there is a much better chance that you will want to find out a little more about the content.

2. Interest

The content has got to be of interest to the viewer upon getting their attention. What is the meaning of the work? Is it conceptually relevant?

3. Recall

Only the very best will be able to be remembered in the world we live in which is constantly bombarded with all kinds of visuals. This will be the so-called 'stickiness' of the idea.

I had introduced this AIR idea to my upper secondary pupils when they were first doing their coursework and after many repeated attempts to link the relevance of this approach to well known art pieces during our discussions, the value of it is sinking into some of them.

It is not that pupils are having an easier time to create highly interesting work with an approach like this in mind, but at least there are familiar points of reference during discussions that brings up certain areas that they should be more mindful of.

Preparing our pupils for their future

First of a series of scenes around school captured using iPhone 3G and Camerabag App

There is some discussion recently about how schools are able to prepare our pupils for their future. Have we not been doing that all this while? Sure we have, but always in our more traditional manners, mostly catered to preparing our pupils for their next stage in education. The landscape or lives in which our pupils are living have changed so much in the last 5 years that the roles of schools and teachers need a re-examination to keep ourselves relevant.

When such discussions went on, I was asking myself what the main difference is? As in the lives pupils live. Much of me was thinking about the digital divide and the cultural manifestation technology plays on our society, it intervenes directly into how we perceive our realities and how we experience our lives. It is a cultural thing, it is immersive and will surely continue to evolve rapidly. If we do not stay relevant, coming to school will just be pure distraction for many pupils, for they are able to equip themselves with far more knowledge when they are connected to the internet than we can ever imagine providing them.

So how bad is the gap here? I think it is a huge one. Someone I was talking to over dinner mentioned wisely that we are 'teaching our pupils for our past, and not for their future'. I cannot agree more.

It seems that there are plenty of content on the internet in this area of preparing our pupils for the challenges of the 21st century. When I saw the 3 Steps video which highlighted the importance of Collaboration, Competition (Self), Environment, Global Awareness, etc, it provided some really simple but totally relevant things we can surely work on. We just have to focus on which one to start with.

The picture which you see in the beginning of the post is a creativity exercise I set for myself to document some interesting perspectives of our school using purely my iPhone 3G and a local phone app. There will be no other processing like Photoshop done outside these tools. Just a fun thing to keep me doing Art which I will try to keep doing alongside this reflection blog.

On motivation

Once again, a new school term had started and we are back in business. The Sec 4s coursework deadline (internal) was up last Thursday and nobody had finished their entire set of coursework ready for the actual submission. Well, the whole class understood that the real, external deadline is still a few months down the road and that the internal deadline is merely for feedback purposes, so hardly feeling the pain of not completing.

This is not the first year that we are asking our graduating pupils to submit their coursework much earlier, and although we tried to tweak our approach each year with the hope of improving things, the results are mixed and still leaves much to be desired. Are there pupils who are able to cope with the demands of time and quality on their coursework? Certainly, and they exist in each batch. The problem lies with the others who are not coping that well. And the more I see it, the more I think the difference lies in each individual's belief.

What are the differences between those pupils who are motivated, proactive and always seeking ways to improve themselves compared to their less confident counterparts who are always procrastinating, slow and general less 'hungry'? It is their belief, and both groups have in a sense already decided whether they are going to excel or to trail behind.

Pupils have no problems understanding the consequences of procrastination, or should I say that they understand it at an intellectual level, but not necessarily be able to realise it at an emotional level that prompts for action to be taken. It would be great if as educators, we are able to have this skill of effectively changing our pupils' belief about themselves so that they can make good decisions for what exactly they want to succeed in.

After showing my Sec 4 class Anthony Robbin's TED talk during the Art Camp, I got interested in the Neuro-linguistic programming that he is associated with and is currently reading one of his books. Hopefully I can pick up some skills to better motivate my pupils.

100MB Problem

Edumail status... Bliss.

I had benefitted from a piece of brilliant advice from a good colleague in school last week and I am going to share this with everyone here.

100MB is all that we have got on our Edumail, which is just a measly 0.1GB, and what can we do with 0.1GB of storage space these days? Archiving the emails you want using the built in archive function is not the easiest way to manage emails, and we become constantly agonised over which emails we should keep so that we do not breach the storage levee.

Come Gmail to our rescue!

Set up another Gmail account (even if you already have one) so that it deals with all the emails you want to archive from Edumail. So all that you have to do after that is to just forward the emails you want to archive to your new Gmail account, and of course delete them from your Edumail.

That's it. All emails you still want are stored safely on the cloud. Problem solved.

And searching archived emails on Gmail is a breeze. What are we talking about? It's Google.

Depth of concept lacking

When I did a comparison in how well the Sec 3NA and Sec 4NA Art pupils are coping with their Painting and Drawing paper, there is quite a wide gap in their achievement levels in conceptualising ideas even when discounting the difference in the length of exposure each has been exposed to the syllabus. The younger group had largely responded to the questions in very direct, superficial and frivolous ways even after they were shown lots of examples of good work. This worries me.

The make up of the 2 groups are very different, the 4NA group this year had always been in the same class as the Sec 4E group since last year and has benefitted from the exposure of the comparatively more robust thinking and interpretive abilities of the latter. There is always some form of excellence to measure up to and pupils learn quickly to adapt so as to keep up. This is largely done through a transparent review and assessment model which encourages questions, comparisons and critique.

To bridge the gap in the 3NA's ability to conceptualise more thoughful ideas, they will need to be exposed to a more challenging environment where there is someone who is significantly stronger to model after. Perhaps I will start getting some Sec 4s to carry out coursework presentation to the Sec 3s. The older group will get clearer as they deliberate their concept to their juniors while the younger group will get a chance to ask questions from their seniors about their approaches. Both will benefit from this exchange.

Top 10 Reasons for Blogging

There are so many reasons that I can think of in response to this topic. Here's my top 10 list for why we should blog our reflections.

No. 10: Easy Archival

Blogs are automatically archived on the cloud and there is no need for us to physically file such content anymore. When the content is tagged (I'd better start doing that), search is also incredibly fast and easy. Over a period of time, a properly archived blog becomes a rich source of learning material.

No. 9: Media Rich

Unlike traditional methods of using a pen and paper. The blogging environment allows for a far richer content of media types, such as photos, videos and podcasts (audio or video). These different content types allow for different approaches in establishing clearer undestanding.

No. 8: Builds Professional Portfolio

For teachers who are trying to build a portfolio of their teaching life, what better way is there than building a blog? The projects which you have taken charge of, your experiences and inventive approaches of solving problems, can all be easily recorded in a blog. This can be a rich portfolio which illustrates your strengths with contemporary culture to your future employer or postings.

No. 7: Openness

A blog is instantly accessible by many at the same time. Communication is open and multi channeled, unlike the closed nature of the traditional manner of submitting papers straight to the department head, both lateral and vertical transfers are present.

No. 6: Personal

Being like a working personal diary, there is a sense of ownership in how you maintain your blog. You can customised it in a manner which you fancy and have your own following of readers.

No. 5: Comments

One of the beautiful things of a blog (or in other Web 2.0 applications) is the ability to give comments. Another perspective of viewing things is really useful when friends and colleagues drop a line to encourage, learn, advise, and simply support each other.

No. 4: Ease

I am really encouraged when I see the older members of the team contributing regularly in their blogs. When it is on the world wide web, there is no need to sign in to cumbersome VPN or be localised to specific computers, people can basically do this everywhere. When you are commuting on your mobile phone, on your netbook while waiting for your friends, or just anywhere where you have internet access. Ease of use is really, really important here and the cloud based companies such as Google are doing such a fantastic job in this.

No. 3: Aware of Concerns

As we share, we become more aware of the concerns or problems going on at work/personal life which may not become apparent when not communicated. This awareness allow us to have a better understanding of situations and be more apt in responding to them.

No. 2: Sharing Good Ideas/Practices/Experiences

The whole thing is really about sharing things easily. Good ideas, practices get around a lot more quickly as compared to traditional means and we can all collectively benefit as a learning community. The more senior teachers, with their wealth of experience, can also share their wisdom and perspective to the young. Everyone benefits from such sharing.

No. 1: We Get Better

And the No.1 reason why we should blog, in my opinion, is that we all get better when we share. We become clearer in our approaches and is more aware of our thoughts. And in being more reflective, we can have a better understanding of who we are and why we are doing what we are doing. How can we not get better when we are doing this?

Wow! So glad I did this. And I am learning everyday.

Habit

While addressing the once again dwindling blog posts for reflections in the department yesterday, some teachers find it difficult to keep up with the weekly reflections, reasoning with the usual concerns that there is no time to do this, and that they are not good in writing, etc, etc.

Come on. How many times do we have to do this? Initially, reflections were done on paper over 10 min during staff time, then there were concerns over how such information can be shared laterally, so after numerous reviews and adjustments, we have finally evolved to tap on the strength of the blog to do this.

There is nothing wrong with using this as a tool for reflection and we are definitely not going back.

Man is a creature of habit and some things just need perseverance to set in. We will just keep doing this until the habit stays. For greater transparency, reflection submissions per teacher will be charted on a termly basis and the information will be shared within the department. This also encourages and gives clear credit to our colleagues who have been contributing consistently.

It needs to be clearer

I was quite upset with the performance of one of my 4N pupils when he took his Art Paper 2 Exam and I gave him my immediate feedback on what he had not done (e.g. he was only effectively using 1/3 of the exam time to do his work), or what he could have done a whole lot better right after the paper had ended. I told him straight that with his current level of performance, he is not going to come close to even passing this paper when he sits for his 'O's next year.

What upsets me more is that this is a decent pupil, someone who had never once given me any sort of behavioural problem. He may not be the fastest in getting the point, but he puts in effort to keep up with the expectations and is always respectful to his teachers and peers. I can see that he felt really bad after hearing my feedback and had not once lifted his head the whole time.

I did whatever I thought was logical. Showing him exactly where he had done wrong, with visual reference to some of the much better examples his peers had produced so that he can see and realise the gaps. And specifically what he can do about it to get better. All the same kind of feedback which I had dispensed the previous time he had done poorly in a similar assessment.

I do not believe that the pupil did not want to get better. It is very likely that the pupil just did not truly understand exactly what he should do. And this clarity of instruction got to come from me. Rubrics, feedback, follow-up, practice. How can I be clearer at each stage for this minority group of pupils who have a greater challenge in comprehension? This is a question I always have to ask myself. If pupils do not gain value from our feedback, we cannot blame them for non-performance.

Criticism

As the legendary creative director of Saatchi & Saatchi, Paul Arden, once said, "Do not seek praise, seek criticism." It is relatively easy to get approval if you ask enough people, and generally people want to be nice and will want to say things which you want to hear. But these pleasantries do not help very much in improving oneself.

It is natural to be uncomfortable with criticism, but being too defensive in trying to explain everything defeats the whole intent of dispensing constructive feedback. We must have the basic faith that feedback is given with the singular intent of helping each other to get better. That the small, specific steps if taken, may lead to a more positive end point. We may not be right everytime in the feedback that is dispensed, but there must be an open mind in the receiving end to fairly gauge an different perspective other than their own.

Having a closed door only detaches one from reality.

Classroom videos

Completed 5 lesson observations this week with video recordings. It was a good experience and I learnt about quite a lot of things about how I should do this effectively. What is most important to me is that teachers getting a copy of the video footage will find it to be of value to them in analysing what exactly happened during their class time, so that they will be able to make use of this information to improve.

It took a while to export a typically 20 min footage to a DVD playable on both computers and home DVD players but everything was managed without much hassle really. This is possible today more so than a couple of years back mainly because high-def videos can be captured and processed very easily and very inexpensively through technology. The Flip Mino HD was used with iMovie in this case to quickly put the video clips together. All DVDs were passed to the teachers involved either on the same day or the following day they were recorded so that impressions are still fresh.

Teachers will bring the DVD back to reflect on what they saw on the video clip by isolating 3 strengths and 3 weaknesses they perceived of themselves in the video. We will then make use of those impressions and have a discussion over our perceptions during the post-observation meeting a week later.

I suppose the key to this is what value it brings to our teachers in improving what they do. Good practices can be shared collectively as a team and individuals can analyse in detail their methodology in class with the perspective of a pupil. I am glad that a couple of teachers who had watched their own videos told me that it is worth doing. I will need to collect more feedback from the team on how this can be done better.

Etiquette

A disappointing piece of news broke after a long weekend. Some pupils were apparently making a nuisance of themselves at a performance outside school and had brought embarrassment to the school.

How do one learn such things as social responsibility? Apart from the socio-economic conditions and the family upbringing of the child which we have no control over, how successful has our school been in grooming socially responsible and respectful citizens?

A day-course on etiquette can make clear about certain contextual information necessary for those wanting to carry themselves better in a social setting, it does not however, create the necessary habits for respectful living.

Good habits require repetition to be nurtured. Change of habits involves intervention, monitoring, and perseverance to press on doing the right things until a desirable state is achieved and maintained. This is certainly one of the most challenging tasks.

Lunchtime 2009

Last Tuesday, the first round of Lunchtime (used to be called Lunchtime Concert) this year was successfully performed to a large crowd of pupils. It is very gratifying to see so many pupils (most in groups) signing up for the short, informal performance which was unfolded in front of their fellow schoolmates. The diversity of the performances, ranging from guitar playing, singing, dancing, to yo-yo stunts are inspiring and our VH pupils are very game too, as they actively participated with a song and dance item.

Pupils gather to support their friends who took the courage to perform.

This is an excellent avenue for pupils to creatively express themselves and gain confidence in performing in front of a crowd. We should continue doing this and strengthen this mode of informal performance to be part of the aesthetics culture in the school.

The importance of play and expression in education cannot be undermined.

Photo management

On Achievement Day last Friday, the inadequate state of our school's photo management system arose. It is cumbersome in quickly finding school-based images using our existing archival method. This is not a new problem, and it is my area of responsibility.

Do I know how to go about solving this? Yes.

Have I done anything about it? Nope.

We need a solution which is based on the cloud for easy access, where images are tagged by descriptions such as events, time or other specifics, where the focus is easy retrival of intended images by the users. A good reference point where there is success in such modes are the online photo stock libraries, examples such as Corbis, iStockPhoto and Getty Images.

I need to come up with something quickly before the season of image gathering for the school magazine begins. The first to come to mind would be some subscription based services where there is a larger file size limit to the photos we can put up (so that pupils and staff can download the files and get them decently printed to at least 4R size). Something like the online galleries integrated in MobileMe would be a good place to start.

Observing myself

This has been a really interesting week for me as I started observing myself teach in class. I managed to get hold of one of those tiny 'Flip' video cameras on Amazon and thought what a fantastic opportunity it would be to be used in class. No more hassles about managing the cables and adapters necessary for video work. No more time consuming analog to digital conversion before using the video, simply just plug it into my laptop and everything is so effortlessly transferred. I propped the Flip up on a tiny tripod at the back of my class and had been recording myself teaching in class for 3 consecutive days.

Wow! Never have I learnt so much about myself teaching in such a short amount of time. I definitely have a lot to learn to be a more effective communicator. All the nuances of my speech patterns such as the pauses and stresses, the manner I speak when addressinga class of 40 compared to talking to a small group, all the embassingly incessant amount of 'Ok?' and 'ahh?', became so crystal clear during playback. Now, I have a much better sense of how it feels like on the receiving end of the instruction.

Below are 2 very short clips of me teaching in class.

Clip 1 shows me teaching a group of 40 pupils, refreshing them on the materials to bring for their painting lessons.

Clip 2 shows me explaining to a couple of upper secondary pupils on the key words used in the Study of Visual Arts compenent.

I picked up what I thought are the more critical gaps and was a lot more conscious of correcting them the next time I was in class. I followed up by recording the subsequent lessons too, important as that I can make a comparison.

There is so much to learn in observing yourself in action that cannot be replaced by the feedback given by the impression of others. I am excited about the prospect of using this for self improvement and I am definitely going to introduce it to the team.

My Last ICT

I had spent my whole March holidays attending my In-Camp Training. The special part about this particular ICT is that this our unit's last. After more than 13 years together, it is time to say our goodbyes.

Mixed feelings arose at the parting, relieved at one end that after so many years, our national service training cycle had finally been completed, but sad that we will be missing all the people who we had gone through all the thick and thin with. We have been a very cohesive unit all these years, won the Best Combat Unit in our active days and subsequently winning 6 Best Reservist Unit in the years after, a record unparalled in the SAF. On Saturday night, grown up men in their thirties started hugging each other as we bade farewell after our stand-down ceremony, it was a touching moment.

I am privileged to have witnessed the very best in action, exemplary men from all walks of life who had gone the extra mile to get things done under outstanding leadership. What I have left from this experience is the friendship which I had developed over the years and the good memories of the people who had shared this path together.

This has been a memorable chapter.