Finding focus

Firstly, Selamat Hari Raya to all our Muslim teachers! I hope all of you are having a good day of celebrations with your family and loved ones!

I took home a pack of compositions and I was marking them at my desk earlier. Sad, I know, but such is the life of a teacher, unfortunately. I do my work at home occasionally though, because it's quieter and I have easy access to drinks, snacks and TV should I get tired, oops, hehe.

Importantly though, is that because I'm more relaxed at home, especially on a weekend or holiday, I find myself being able to pay more attention to their work. For example, since I'm marking compositions, I am more able to pick out their mistakes and think of constructive comments to write on their paper.

Then it struck me: Why is it that I'm only able to do this on a public holiday, which is supposedly a day of rest? Why am I not able to even write proper comments during normal workdays?

The answer that came most readily to me was stress. All around my work desk are various reminders of everything I have to do in a limited time. Worksheets I have to mark. Deadlines I have to meet. Parents I have to call. Emails I have to answer. Post-its with To-Do lists written on them. Ironically, while I need these post-its to remind me of what I have to do, it also places an additional layer of subconscious stress. I'm constantly being reminded that I have tons to do. Sometimes, to take a supposed break during marking, I would stop halfway and do some other menial task, like answer a parent's email.

Faced with all the things I have to do, how is it possible to truly focus on your work? Even when I stopped marking for a while, I would be faced with all the glaring reminders to be more productive and accomplish all this before I go home to cook dinner for the family and spend quality time. Is this really possible???

I know there are plenty of people who can thrive like this, who can whizz through their marking, plan next week's lesson plan and still have time to cook 4 dishes for dinner and teach their children their homework. (Oh you people, you make it hard for the rest of us...)

However, it seems research would back me up when I say I'm only human and I can't always keep up with everything. Plenty of articles, including this one by Health.com will attest to the dangers of multitasking. Similarly, even a normal Google search for 'focus on what is important' will give you plenty of reasons on how better focus will lead to better productivity. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People also asks us to make a distinction between 'urgent and not important' and 'not urgent but important'.

That's probably why I find marking at home on a public holiday easier. More focus and a more leisurely environment allowing me to focus on what is truly important, namely my students' development, rather than their parents' worries or my heads' projects.

I wish I could have this everyday that I was at work, but for one, life doesn't always give us what we want, and two, sometimes we have to make the best for ourselves. Like bringing work home and working in a comfortable study. ;)

If you want to read up on some stuff to improve your focus, I can recommend:

- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The chapters on priorities in life and the distinction between urgent and important is one that has really stuck with me. You can read a short preview of the 7 Habits here but I would recommend you read the book for more details.

- Psychologies magazine has a good feature on finding your focus in life and work. I like this magazine because it comes with a monthly feature that has good tips on improving your life. I think you can still find the issue on Focus at Kinokuniya bookstores.  You can check out their content at their website here.

Models... Not the super kind...

Sometimes, a bout of marking will give me ideas on what to write on. This time round, the math worksheets have given me some ideas about models.

Models - One of the mainstays of our Singaporean Mathematics learning system. This method has been around for a long time and yes, even I remember learning them when I was a student myself! A quick search on Wikipedia reveals that this came about in our syllabus in the early 1980s so I suppose that makes my cohort one of the pioneers who learnt this system! (If you don't know what the model method is all about, here is a link to help.)

I do concede that my students who draw models during tests do better. However, marking their worksheets and thinking about the way schools in Singapore have carried this out has made me wonder: Are we putting too much emphasis on the model method, in the wrong way? I know my school isn't the first to have the students draw bars and bars of models in their work, sometimes even writing up whole worksheets dedicated to the drawing of accurate models. I know I'm not the first teacher to underline and redraw their students' models and sometimes, giving up altogether and making them erase everything to start again.

However, I want to say that by doing so, we have to be clear on our reasons for doing so.

First, let us consider what the model is. For this purpose, I found a video by Dr Yeap Ban Har very useful. This video shows him giving a talk on 'Singapore Math' in UK and here he explains what the model is:

(PS: I studied the teaching of Math under Dr Yeap in NIE and I found him one of the most entertaining and passionate Math lecturers there. If you ever find a course conducted by him, I strongly suggest you attend.)

So now I know that they are really a tool, or in his words, "a mere excuse... to develop visualization ability" and to provide a stepping stone to the algebra they will eventually encounter.

Which also makes me wonder why on earth some schools would force their students to draw models for every single problem sum, even deducting marks for models drawn wrongly even if the equations are correct. Isn't that like checking to see if you were counting on your fingers in the way that they want? Yes, it is an important tool for understanding but at the same time, there are other problem solving methods out there. Just as some kids would understand better through model drawing, there are also kids that understand just as well without the models. (Or worse, be led into misunderstanding the problem because of the model being drawn wrongly)

Another issue is the accuracy needed in drawing a model. Other than the lines having to be straight, the units have to follow mathematical logic as well. For example, if Robert has 3 times as many units as Stella, you cannot draw a model where Robert's 3 units are equal in length to Stella's 1 unit. This may lead students into developing a flawed understanding.

Yet I'm sceptical about making my students draw and erase until they draw perfect mathematical models. Remember that the syllabus is about developing problem-solving skills, not about mathematical drawing skills. Do we really have to make them draw all their models from scratch? Can we not, for example, provide blank rectangles for them to start the thinking process and then add on their own model drawings?

So as a summing up:

- Models are a method for teaching, amongst many others
- We teach them so that the students can visualize problems better (and there's a fine difference between problems and problem sums, I feel, but that's another topic for another day)
- We are not teaching them so that our students will be accurate artists
- Maybe there are other ways to let them use the model method, without making them draw everything from scratch
- Maybe we can also teach them, they have a choice to use it or not

Anyway, if you have become intrigued by Dr Yeap, here is another video where he talks about Singapore Math.

What do you think about the Model Method? Comment below!

It's been a while...

One day, I logged into Blogger remembering a dusty old blog that I used to keep. I wrote a bit about the education industry in Singapore, about the tuition industry and some little ideas about teaching. 

Then one day, I stopped. Or rather, I did not suddenly stop one day, but work caught up, the marking went up, the workload went up and then the blog was laid one side. Every now and then, a thought occurred to me about something and I would think about blogging about it but then other work intruded and the thought flew away. 

Nothing spectacular, just what happens to a lot of people, I guess. 

The funny thing is, while I was neglecting my blog, the Internet certainly wasn't. I would receive an email once in a while telling me someone had commented on something I blogged years back. I thought it was strange and then during the Dec holiday I decided to log into Blogger and see what was going on. 

The statistics told me: People were still reading parts of the blog, even after I had neglected it! The Internet and the spiders at Google were still surfacing parts of my blog and most touchingly, people were still interested in reading parts of it. Thank you very much if you were doing so. :) 

This year, I'm going to make another attempt at keeping this blog dust-free. There have been changes to the industry since my last blog post. There are big ideas I want people to think about. There are teaching practices that I want to share. I've found great resources and websites that have helped me in my teaching. I think there are things tuition teachers can use as well, so that they can be a great support to their students' learning, even if they have not been trained by NIE. There are things happening in local education that I want to voice an opinion about. 

And I know there are others out there who are interested too.

Thank you for keeping this alive and I will do my best not to disappoint.