Last Friday, a pupil came to talk to me after school and asked me some serious questions about Art after watching Sir Ken Robinson's famous speech on Schools Killing Creativity. She is apparently very upset as half way through our conversation, she started weeping. She is passionate about Art and is considering her post secondary education options in Art-related fields. The reason why she was upset is because nearly all her friends thought that it is a foolish idea to pursue a career in the Arts, and that the subject should at best be considered as a past time, like some sort of hobby that one can possibly dabble in if he has some idle time. What further saddened her was that similar sentiments was also supported by a teacher when the topic was broached. She cried because she really cares. I was not let in on who this colleague is, as I would really like to have a conversation with him or her about this.
This is preposterous. It is first annoying and then disappointing.
It is one thing to express such opinion to one's friends. It is another thing altogether to express such insensitive remarks to a class of young minds who still do not have the maturity to consider the variance of life. They are easily swept by conventions and are fast to adhere to these societal norms. Teachers cannot be so insensitive.
Such conventions that the Arts are unimportant are prevalent in most societies, even in those where the Aesthetics culture are well developed. It is therefore very important for the teachers teaching the Arts to be keep pupils motivated with the examples of successes out there, as most often than not, their friends and parents will definitely tell them otherwise. That most artists only make money when they are dead. What happened to all the good examples? The kind of enriching lives they lived and how much they have enjoyed their fulfilling lives doing what they love to do. Concerned about not making enough money? What about the examples of so many creative content makers at the top of their games who became multi-millionaires?
Our pupils need to know of such successes. They need their heroes.
I sincerely hope that for those pupils who already know that their lives are inextricably linked to the Arts have the courage to pursue what is important to them. I believe that schools do kill creativity, and that it is therefore even more important that we are always mindful to encourage what is left.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
How about Dictation?
There is always a struggle on how time is prioritised for doing different tasks. Marking takes up a lot of time, especially so for our language teachers, as I do get this impression from the reflections shared.
What cannot be traded off is the quality and hence value of the feedback to our pupils. Because without quality feedback, pupils will have little clue on what are the 'next steps' for improvement. However, quality feedback takes time, and having many classes to teach makes the marking load tremendous. The variable here becomes the manner in which quality feedback is dispensed.
I am quite inspired to see how dictation software has evolved. And using dictation software (E.g. Dragon from Nuance) can have very time saving effects on providing feedback to pupils' work. With the accuracy of the most current dictation software coupled with a wireless headset, a lot more can be done with less time. Take a look at this video below.
An example. Comments after marking a particular essay or section of a coursework can come in 3 parts:
1. What are the strengths of the pupil in this piece of work?
2. What are the weaknesses of the pupil in this piece of work?
3. What he/she has to do to improve?
3 very simple but valuable feedback, customised to the context of each pupil, can be so easily and quickly done with speed with a dictation software.
When put to good use, the quality of feedback increases, the time to do it shortens and as the feedback is digitised, all previous comments for any particular pupil can also be easily tracked over time. This will be one example where the use of technology can have very tangible effects, very quickly.
What cannot be traded off is the quality and hence value of the feedback to our pupils. Because without quality feedback, pupils will have little clue on what are the 'next steps' for improvement. However, quality feedback takes time, and having many classes to teach makes the marking load tremendous. The variable here becomes the manner in which quality feedback is dispensed.
I am quite inspired to see how dictation software has evolved. And using dictation software (E.g. Dragon from Nuance) can have very time saving effects on providing feedback to pupils' work. With the accuracy of the most current dictation software coupled with a wireless headset, a lot more can be done with less time. Take a look at this video below.
An example. Comments after marking a particular essay or section of a coursework can come in 3 parts:
1. What are the strengths of the pupil in this piece of work?
2. What are the weaknesses of the pupil in this piece of work?
3. What he/she has to do to improve?
3 very simple but valuable feedback, customised to the context of each pupil, can be so easily and quickly done with speed with a dictation software.
When put to good use, the quality of feedback increases, the time to do it shortens and as the feedback is digitised, all previous comments for any particular pupil can also be easily tracked over time. This will be one example where the use of technology can have very tangible effects, very quickly.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
How do you make a teacher great?
With so many interesting things streaming on line from this year's TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference in California, I was searching for some relevant design-oriented content which might be useful in inspiring our D&T pupils when I stumbled upon this. "How do you make a teacher great?" research findings presented by Bill Gates himself.
Apart from Bill Gates' well known philanthropy work in the area of healthcare, one of the main goals of his foundation is to improve the quality of education in the American public schools. The research in this area has gone on for years and his sharing of the findings has been really interesting and useful for us to reflect on our practices.
Below is the link to the video presentation, please scurry through the video to 8:00 to watch the part where he presents this.
Some key points which I captured in his presentation.
1. Once somebody has taught for 3 years, the variation in teaching quality afterwards is very small.
2. The practices of the most effective teachers who have impacted most greatly on academic performance have not been passed down to the other teachers.
3. An interesting list of the attributes of these top-performing teachers.
4.The importance of assessment performance accountability for each teacher.
5. The importance of using assessment information in gauging performance.
6. The use of existing technology to increase the accessibility (of both pupils and teachers) to these information.
After thinking about what he had said on the above, which I totally agree, even more gaps in our existing structure surfaced. Point 4 and 6 looks like good starting points to work on.
I am really glad that technology has shrunk our space so much that such talks by inspiring people are readily accessible to us while we look at the screens of our laptops. It has also benefited those of us who will never be invited nor have pockets which are deep enough to fork out US$6,000 for an entrance ticket to be there.
The book which he mentioned titled "Work Hard. Be Nice." by Jay Mathews sounds like a worthy investment too.
Apart from Bill Gates' well known philanthropy work in the area of healthcare, one of the main goals of his foundation is to improve the quality of education in the American public schools. The research in this area has gone on for years and his sharing of the findings has been really interesting and useful for us to reflect on our practices.
Below is the link to the video presentation, please scurry through the video to 8:00 to watch the part where he presents this.
Some key points which I captured in his presentation.
1. Once somebody has taught for 3 years, the variation in teaching quality afterwards is very small.
2. The practices of the most effective teachers who have impacted most greatly on academic performance have not been passed down to the other teachers.
3. An interesting list of the attributes of these top-performing teachers.
4.The importance of assessment performance accountability for each teacher.
5. The importance of using assessment information in gauging performance.
6. The use of existing technology to increase the accessibility (of both pupils and teachers) to these information.
After thinking about what he had said on the above, which I totally agree, even more gaps in our existing structure surfaced. Point 4 and 6 looks like good starting points to work on.
I am really glad that technology has shrunk our space so much that such talks by inspiring people are readily accessible to us while we look at the screens of our laptops. It has also benefited those of us who will never be invited nor have pockets which are deep enough to fork out US$6,000 for an entrance ticket to be there.
The book which he mentioned titled "Work Hard. Be Nice." by Jay Mathews sounds like a worthy investment too.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Inspiring stuff from Ted Leckman
Nope, I did not read about it this time, I got this from the man himself when I was at AMEC 2009. Ted Leckman from Lucasfilm, the world famous studio responsible for the legendary films like Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Although I did not get a seat in his class through the official registration, I went in anyway with some like-minded friends, and boy, he is really good.
The title of the class was "Short film making on a shoe string" and what really impressed me was how well prepared he is. From the video clips he had discerningly selected to all the most current web and equipment resources he was sharing with us, the state of his preparedness really showed that he cares for the value his audience reaps. It is not just about the smooth delivery, but his mindfulness that the time we had traded in to be with him is well rewarded with something valuable which we can all take back. This cannot be taken for granted as the very next presentation (by another industry guy who I will not mention) I went to was really disappointing, with the speaker so ill prepared that he kept asking the facilitator how much more time he had left.
This reminds me of the importance of preparation we should have for our pupils' learning experience, and we have ourselves to blame when things fail in class as a result of us not doing our part.
There was an example of AFL in an advice he was giving too! He mentioned about the importance of the ability to 'reverse-engineer' shots which we see. How we can learn quickly by analysing a clip repeatedly until we can find out how to rebuild the scene having a strong reference point of 'the-end-in-mind'. This opinion about the importance of reverse engineering a shot is also consistent in the advice by David Hobby, founder of the famous photography lighting site Strobist.
Ted is an inspiring man who is a great teacher and a practising CGI artist who is at the top of his game. It is the blessing for those who have benefited under his charge. As the opening slide of the conference had so aptly stated, "The quality of an education cannot exceed the quality of its teachers." - McKinsey Report 2007. (How the world's best-performing school systems come out on top.)
The title of the class was "Short film making on a shoe string" and what really impressed me was how well prepared he is. From the video clips he had discerningly selected to all the most current web and equipment resources he was sharing with us, the state of his preparedness really showed that he cares for the value his audience reaps. It is not just about the smooth delivery, but his mindfulness that the time we had traded in to be with him is well rewarded with something valuable which we can all take back. This cannot be taken for granted as the very next presentation (by another industry guy who I will not mention) I went to was really disappointing, with the speaker so ill prepared that he kept asking the facilitator how much more time he had left.
This reminds me of the importance of preparation we should have for our pupils' learning experience, and we have ourselves to blame when things fail in class as a result of us not doing our part.
There was an example of AFL in an advice he was giving too! He mentioned about the importance of the ability to 'reverse-engineer' shots which we see. How we can learn quickly by analysing a clip repeatedly until we can find out how to rebuild the scene having a strong reference point of 'the-end-in-mind'. This opinion about the importance of reverse engineering a shot is also consistent in the advice by David Hobby, founder of the famous photography lighting site Strobist.
Ted is an inspiring man who is a great teacher and a practising CGI artist who is at the top of his game. It is the blessing for those who have benefited under his charge. As the opening slide of the conference had so aptly stated, "The quality of an education cannot exceed the quality of its teachers." - McKinsey Report 2007. (How the world's best-performing school systems come out on top.)
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Our Mentors
A friend brought up a point about the significance of mentors to managers. Important stuff, as good mentors are rare to come by and their advice can have far reaching effects on people development. We should count ourselves lucky if we get to meet a few in our life time and see them in action.
This kept me thinking for a while. I believe that we should choose our own mentors, like choosing our own heroes whose conviction and purpose in what they do become standards we would like to emulate. The problem is, what if they are not accessible to us?
My immediate response to this will be a place on a book shelf. Pick an author, a thinker who you can associate with and learn something from. Just think about all the life changing advice Peter Drucker could have told us if he was our own personal management mentor.
Sharing circles in the work place are important and cannot be substituted. We learn a lot faster from each other through the sharing of our experiences and we can get immediate support in the localised context of our work. But beyond that, great mentors are a lot more accessible on the book shelves.
This kept me thinking for a while. I believe that we should choose our own mentors, like choosing our own heroes whose conviction and purpose in what they do become standards we would like to emulate. The problem is, what if they are not accessible to us?
My immediate response to this will be a place on a book shelf. Pick an author, a thinker who you can associate with and learn something from. Just think about all the life changing advice Peter Drucker could have told us if he was our own personal management mentor.
Sharing circles in the work place are important and cannot be substituted. We learn a lot faster from each other through the sharing of our experiences and we can get immediate support in the localised context of our work. But beyond that, great mentors are a lot more accessible on the book shelves.
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