Being Schooled

There are some lessons you never learn in teacher training.

Muddling through NIE and rehashing contemporary, fashionable education ideas about teaching being a two-way process in my essays, I'm only beginning to understand what a professor of mine in  Bristol once said to me.

I asked him how he got from studying engineering to teaching then to training teachers and finally to becoming an educational cognitive neuroscientist. As he related his story, he had this faraway thoughtful look of wistfulness, sadness, pride and amusement when he touched on his teaching career. Then he paused and said, "Yeah. Teaching. Knocked a few edges off me."

Then we went back to talking about my dissertation artificial agents.

In the last 6 months, I've certainly had some edges knocked off me.

Here's a lesson in pain and resilience:

There was a kid in my class who has an impressive track record of crime since he was 7. It ranges from housebreaking and theft to arson and violence. His family background isn't the most stellar, with both parents in jail. He had absolutely no interest in studying and in Term 3, he was in school only 18 days out of 40. Also, he's a brilliant kid and a fast learner, but because of his chronic absenteeism, he had fallen behind very badly and couldn't follow the pace of lessons whenever he returned to school.

So he gave me some problems in class, and for the first few months, I was always nervous of this kid, because I didn't know quite how to relate to him. For one, he didn't seem to care that much for rules or routines in class, and probably saw through my discipline attempts - that I was pretty hopeless at being tyrannical. Here are some reasons why I will always remember this kid.

1. One day after banishing him to the back of the class because he had lied about doing his homework, I called him to me after I gave the others seat work. I asked him why he thought I was angry and he muttered under his breath, not looking at me and being really pissed off, "Because I didn't do my homework." To which I told him it wasn't because he hadn't done his homework, I knew he couldn't do it, I was disappointed because he had lied. I told him simply that I knew he was a better person than that.

I didn't know what an effect my words could have on this kid. He lifted his eyes to stare at me, and in that moment, that hardened look I saw so often in his eyes gave way to tears.

2. I heard from the social worker that his mum had gone into jail. His dad had gone in about a year earlier. His aunt was now looking after him and his sister. A day after his mum had gone in, during snack time, I noticed he didn't have anything to eat and during recess again, he sat by himself on the bench, not talking to anyone. I asked him to show me his wallet, so I could check if he had any money on him. He took out a brand new wallet and opened it.

There was nothing inside - no money, no ez-link card - except for a tiny, carefully preserved picture of his father.

I felt a lump rise in my throat as I asked him what he had for breakfast, and what he was going to have for lunch and dinner. He said his aunt would cook for him if she was home.

"What if she isn't home?" I asked.

"I drink water," was the reply.

Now, after the social workers' visits to the house, the aunt ensures that his meals are well taken care of.

3. His mum was pregnant when she went into jail. This kid was really worried because the doctor had told them that his baby brother wasn't going to be able to function mentally as well as other children. I suppose he didn't really know how to express this to me, because he told me when we had built a better relationship that his baby brother was going to be 'handicapped'. He always furrowed his brow and tear up whenever he told me about this. One day, as I was marking, he sidled over and asked shyly, "Miss Tan, is 24 October last week?"

I confirmed this and he smiled happily, "Oh. My baby brother born already." Then he skipped away. I've never met a kid who remembers dates like that.

4. As far I knew, this kid was completely unsentimental on the outside to his friends. He was one of the biggest troublemakers in school, but as time went by, I saw a side of him that makes me want to cry. There was a day where I made him stay back with me to go through his Science homework because his exams were coming up soon.

The next day, I found a tiny, crumpled up note shoved into my class letter box. It read:

"Thank you, Miss Tan, you help me Sience homework." 

5. During an FTGP lesson, we had the kids identify their love language, then write down one person in their lives that they wanted to show their love language to them.

This kid couldn't follow and probably didn't quite understand what was happening, but this was what he wrote.

Now that the year is up, I still think about this kid's notes to me. I think about how he carries his family's burdens, but still has innocent childish worries about others not playing with him. I think about how he wrote 'goli' in his exam paper, because he couldn't remember the English word for 'marble'.

Most of all, I think about how he thanked me and I really want to say to him,

Thank you for teaching me more about life. 

Teaching Experiment #4: The Silly Ingredient

When I was still doing my MEd. in the Psychology of Education and debunking neuromyths, we had a session discussing how BrainGym wasn't really "repatterning and rebalancing our brains" for better learning. However, simple exercises could aid in learning because it's associated with blood flow in the frontoparietal areas, regions which help in higher-order reasoning processes. For a full report on BrainGym, click here.

So what does the Silly Ingredient have anything to do with this, you might be wondering.

I was sitting in class one day after the exams (yes, revision went by in a blur, and exams have come and gone!), looking at my kids, who were needless to say, a bundle of energy encased in tiny human bodies. I had to go through the answers to them and ensure that some sort of learning did take place. So I brightly told the class we were on a mission to zoom through the exam paper and I really really really needed their help for that. As all eager-to-please 10 year olds do, they boisterously stepped up to the task of assisting their teacher.

Within 5 minutes, I had lost them. They were all dropping like flies.

In desperation, I recalled Energizers I had encountered in Cooperative Learning strategies. Then I remembered how physical movement and exercise could really get the blood in the brain flowing (Finally, the point!). So I made up some short, silly energizers you could play with the kids to wake them up and get them ready for the next 20 minutes of chalk-and-talk. Over the past few months, I've perfected some. Feel free to make your own up - the sillier, the better!


1. Call the Action
First, tag actions to your own set of words. Then simply call out the actions and the kids will have to show them as quickly as they can. To make it more confusing and to drive the kids nuts, I often call out the actions and show the wrong action to throw them off. For example:
a) I tagged 1 to showing 1 index finger, 2 to showing 2 index fingers, 3 to putting both index fingers on one's lip.
b) High 5 to putting one's hand up in the air, high 10 to put 2 hands up, high 15 (leave this to the kids' imaginations - my kids put up both hands and one foot), high 20 (this one is always funny)
c) Bunny ears (to show bunny ears behind their heads with their fingers)
d) Medusa (intertwine 3 fingers from each hand and wriggle them behind your head to simulate Medusa's hair)

2. Mix Your Seats 
I call out people with a defining characteristic and those who belong in that group has to jump up and change seats as I count down. Some categories I use are:
a) Those with long hair....change seats!
b) Those who wear glasses
c) Those who love peanut butter
d) Those who are scared of the dark

I also use this activity to get to know my kids better and find out things about them. Make up silly categories for your kids - they love those!

3. The Best Freezer 
Basically, I get the kids to do a series of actions, where they have to concentrate on memorizing them. Teach the kids the actions in a rhythm so they can remember the series better. Then as they are doing them, I shout out "FREEZE!", and they have to freeze in the action, which is always very entertaining for their friends and me. Those who move get disqualified and stand in front with me to identify their unfortunate friends who aren't able to keep stock-still in the next round.

Another variation of this is me getting the kids to walk around the class and I would call out a particular category and those people who fall in it have to freeze. At this point, the kids usually get extremely noisy, so I incorporated this phrase, "You have to keep quiet because I'm calling...THOSE WHO SIT BY THE WINDOW!" After a couple of rounds, the kids learn that they have to scamper around while suppressing their laughter and excitement to an acceptable noise level, otherwise they won't be able to hear the group I'm calling out.


After 5-10 minutes of these energizers, the kids are normally on an adrenaline high. So to get them back to a more sedate state, I get them to sit down and close their eyes. Then I get them to take a deep breath, while I count down from 5 to 1 before they breathe out. This usually settles them down a little, leaving me with more perked-up kids and a longer time before their concentration flags again!

Teaching Experiment #3 Take-off, Touch-down and Mini whiteboards

I've been experimenting with how to make revision lessons less tedious and more engaging. It's pretty difficult to figure out what the general class' ability is if you can only ask one or two students a question at each time. In this post, I'm going to talk about the 'Take-off, Touch-down' strategy and mini whiteboards

Take-Off, Touch-down

I use this to test the learning temperature and preferences of the class. Basically, touch-down means to sit and take-off means to stand up. Though it sounds simple, the kids really enjoy this because it means they can move around and they like the airplane metaphor. 

I use this for True/False questions, to find out the likes and dislikes, if they understand or not understand - basically, for anything that only has 2 answers to.

Mini Whiteboards

So now, mini whiteboards are my new best friend for formative assessment in class. They are very easy to use, and the kids love them! Note that you should also use DRY-ERASE markers with them, as other markers tend to leave an ugly stain on them. A lot of my kids have their own whiteboard dusters, but for those who don't, I get them to use a small square of toilet paper, or if you want to be environmentally friendly, just any old piece of cloth will suffice.

Here's what I use my mini whiteboards for:

1. Pairwork
Today I got the kids to sit in pairs to do a grammar exercise on Present Perfect Tense . They numbered themselves 1 and 2. For each question, they got to discuss the answer and 1 and 2 took turns to write.
I would time them and give them about 20 seconds, then call out '1, 2, 3...FREEZE', whereupon they would show me their answers.

The kids love this probably because they can legally talk to their friends in class and there's some safe competition going on with their friends.

2. Groupwork
I use this in a few contexts. I usually get the kids to first number themselves and give each number a role (E.g. scribe, leader, material collector, noise controller).

a) Sometimes I get them to discuss a difficult Science application question (or any more difficult question that would help having more discussion), then have them discuss it among themselves and show their answers.

(I also used this in my Sink and Swim game that I blogged about awhile ago. Check out the post here.)

b) I've also found out that magnetic mini whiteboards are fantastic. When I was teaching the topic of light, I was trying to find out if the kids knew how to draw the lines showing the reflection of light into a person's eye. I found that it was really helpful that I got the kids to work in groups and draw them out, then put up all their magnetic whiteboards to point out the right ones and where the misconceptions are.

This also worked really well when I got the kids to brainstorm ideas then put them all up on the whiteboard to draw links and connections to ideas.

You can find magnetic mini whiteboards from Daiso, they come in different sizes!

My mini whiteboards and markers.

You can put them up if they're magnetic! Makes for a good teaching tool. 

Good Minion, Bad Minion

I have a very special card on my bedroom wall from a student. It was the only card I took back with me during Teacher's Day. Not only because it made me laugh the most, but also because it was a very honest and sincere response from a student that made me think more about my classroom management skills and the kind of self I want to present to my kids.

Anyway, needless to say, I've made my fair share of blunders when it comes to managing my class. I took over from an extremely experienced teacher who believes in authoritarian classroom management. Her unyielding consistency and tough-as-nails approach has conditioned the kids to be well-mannered angels (I was amazed to see them march up to class on the first day, with arms folded behind their backs into two lines so straight I could see down the middle. Oh, and they also had 2 specific stops on the way to class so stragglers could catch up).

When I took over, I tried to incorporate her no-nonsense military approach into my management style. It didn't work. I do not, by nature, have a loud voice. And I hadn't yet made up my mind about who I could be with my kids, so I tended to speak to the kids sometimes as if they were my friends and let them get away with some things. But then, I would recall what other teachers tell me - to be extremely strict, to keep some boundaries at first so the kids don't step all over you etc. So there were a couple of times I let it rip and hollered at them to assert my expectations on the kids. And it kind of worked - I managed to scare them into submission (Apparently, it's all in the voice and the eyes.).

However, I think I just managed to confuse my kids with this inconsistency.

Are you ready? Here's the card:

1. So I see the front page of this card and immediately go 'AWWW.' because I love Despicable Me minions. I'm obviously the minion, because this girl has written ST in the little diamond box on the minion's clothes (unless she meant Super Teacher hehehe).

2. Then I open the card and start reading. At first, I think, "Oh this girl is so sweet." Then I get to the part about me being mad at the kids, and start feeling a little bad about it.

 3. THEN I get to this bit in the card and I sound like I have Split Personality Disorder. Haha! For those who don't know, the yellow minions in the film get kidnapped by the bad guy, get given a special potion and turn into little evil monsters that are set on taking over the world. They also have a serious case of aggression and are by default, berserk.

4. LOL. That's all.

So I guess I need to straddle the line of being friendly and tough to the kids without being two different persons with them. If anyone has any tips on how the best teachers interact with the kids I'd love to hear it!

Teaching Experiment #2 Evaluation of learning in a Singapore classroom

I was struggling for awhile with formative assessments and how to make students think about the learning they had done in class that day. I thought that would enable them to develop a sense of responsibility for their own learning, identify their area of weakness and provide me with feedback on what kind of intervention I should carry out next.  I find most Singapore kids in classrooms quite afraid of sharing their thoughts and opinions openly, and when I ask questions of the class, the few dominant ones usually end up answering everything. There are two strategies that I've been using at the moment and it works well for my kids.

1. Thumbs Up - Thumbs Down
I often use this strategy 'Thumbs up-Thumbs down'. I check students' understanding by asking those who understood the concept well to show a thumbs up, and those who don't understand quite well to show a thumbs down. Usually when I use this in between concepts, I ask students to close their eyes and show their thumbs. That way, they don't get pressured into not admitting their lack of understanding if majority of the class gives the thumbs up signal. I also use

I also sometimes pose questions and ask students to show a thumbs up if they agree and a thumbs down if they disagree. You can further check their understanding by asking them about their decision. This usually works better if you get the students to close their eyes first before showing their thumbs. Singapore students are so kiasu that they often feel peer pressured to go with the majority, even though their answers may be correct!

2.  3 - 2 - 1
3 - 2 - 1 allows the children to reflect upon their learning a bit more. It's basically a short reflection they do at the end of a lesson where they have to fill up 3 different categories. My adapted version of this strategy was to get them to write down:

3 things I have learnt today
2 things I understood wrongly but now corrected (pardon my poor English in the template, I should have rephrased 'misconceptions' a bit better to them)
1 topic I must revise more of

I was actually amazed by how well it worked with my P4 class, and how much I could learn about their learning and what I had to focus on the next lesson. I was initially sceptical of how well this could work, seeing as my kids aren't particularly great at expressing themselves. Of course, it would help a lot if you modelled at first what you expect them to write.

Anyway, when I got the feedback from my kids, I could see that there was quite a lot going on in their little heads (even more amazing was that there was learning going on in the heads of those who I thought were completely spaced out!). From here, I gather the importance of getting feedback from my kids and they are able to carry out metacognition. Learning and teaching is indeed a two-way process. Here are some examples of what my kids have written. It's not perfect English, but I get what they're saying and excitingly, that they are learning!

Bless this boy, I mentioned that it's all right to get an answer wrong just as long as they tried and he actually wrote it under things he had learnt for the day. He's usually quite spaced out in class, so I was quite surprised by the amount of detail that was written. And he even quoted examples. 

I really liked how this child was able to articulate what she misunderstood. Before this lesson, she would have said that everything around us, including shadows and sound, were matter. 

This kid is another one who is always spaced out in my class and I was pretty impressed that the kid could say what she didn't know at first and what she knows now. 

I've posted my own template of 3-2-1 below. I'm also thinking about making some changes to it, such as getting the kids to date their reflection and write the topic of that day above. They should also get to keep a copy of their own 3-2-1 reflection, so they know what they need to focus on and revise more of.

3 - 2 - 1 Template

Teaching Experiment #1: Revision Wide Awake

So I was sitting in this meeting a couple of weeks ago and was struggling so hard with actually keeping my eyes opened and attending to the desperately important information that the speaker was mercilessly droning on about. One of my colleagues muttered drily, "Now I know how the kids feel in my class."

It was kind of a revelation. And also a bit of a sinking feeling that -I- could possibly induce such a heavy stupor in my class when all I wanted to do was to do my job and make them learn.

Anyway, with revision week and the dreary task of making tons of revision powerpoint slides and facing 39 bored faces looming ahead, I decided to do a little research into Revision strategies and experiment with them.

One very interesting game I found was 'Sink or Swim'. I adapted it and it worked MIRACLES in my class. The whole class was actually engaged in the game, not a single person was trying to sneakily read/sleep/scheme to make mischief. When I gave them a topical assessment, the kids performed much better. Here's how 'Sink or Swim' works:

SINK OR SWIM

1. Divide the class into groups of 4/5, depending on your class size. Get them to number themselves (1 to 4 or 1 to 5.)
2. Give each group a mini whiteboard and a marker and something to clean the board with. 
3. The whole class starts off by standing up and 'swimming'. (This is already a plus point, it effectively ensures NO ONE is in a conducive physical position to sleep.)
4. Flash your revision question on the board and start with getting all the Number 1s in the room to write their answer on the mini whiteboard. Walk around the class to check answers. 
- IMPORTANT: Tell the other numbers in the group that they are not allowed to help the answerer or the group will get disqualified from the round. This allows independent thinking for the answerer and prevents free loading. 
5. After about a minute, announce 'GROUP CHECK'. This enables the rest of the group members to check Number 1's answer and teach/correct if necessary. (This facilitates peer teaching and learning.)
6. After 30 seconds, count down "5..4..3..2..1, FREEZE. " At this point, all writing should stop and all boards should be up for the teacher to check the answer. 
7. Those who get the answer correct get to continue 'swimming' while those who don't have to sink (sit back in their seat). Subsequent correct answers get awarded with the option to save your sunk groupmate. 
8. Repeat with the other numbers. 


It was one of the more awesome revision lessons I had with my kids. I've uploaded the PDF version of my lesson plan for those who want to use it.(Science Lesson Plan) I'll be talking more about mini whiteboards and Lesson closures in my next blog posts. I will also share some of my kids' reflections on their learning, which really amazed me.

Do comment if you have any thoughts on this. Do share if you have other fun revision strategies, or if you're planning on trying out Sink or Swim!

In closure, try to minimize 'low-grade clerical work' (I love this quote from Ken Robinson) and learning will naturally take place.

The Teaching Experiment

I wanted to have a blog to share my thoughts on teaching and classroom management strategies. This is especially since there aren't many teacher blogs that focus on the Asian context of teaching, learning and managing a classroom.

I've just had an extremely challenging, but rewarding 4 months into teaching in a Singapore Primary classroom (I now teach 10 and 11 year olds). In so many ways, when I'm in my class, I feel like I'm in a special experimental bubble where I have to try (many times by trial and error) to engage all 40 of my kids through various ways and to ensure that learning takes place, answer all their questions, teach them right from wrong etc.

Before I embarked on teaching, I never realised how many challenges there are involved in a Primary classroom. I had always loved school, and it was never hard for me to want to learn.

One big struggle I face is in teaching my kids (yes I have now taken to calling them my kids in a rather possessive way) why it's wrong to take revenge on your friends, to deceive your teacher, to steal and extort money and to fall asleep in class (among many other things). So yes, it is of IMMENSE interest to me how young children process morality. It doesn't seem good enough to just tell them off, especially in the Asian way, "It's WRONG. How could you be so SELFISH/LAZY/other negative adjectives."

The thing is, these kids probably didn't realise they were being selfish/lazy/other negative adjectives. Or if they did, they probably don't realise the effect of being so. Or sadly, even if they do understand the effects and consequences, don't care quite enough.

It would be really interesting to better understand the way the naughtiest kids think and then get around their naughty behaviour by addressing the root of the problem.

The academic year is coming to an end for my kids but I'll be studying this issue of teaching them right from wrong. Also going to be trying out more classroom management and teaching strategies and reviewing them here! =)