Reflection on the course "The Social Context of Teaching and Learning"

Under the performance dimension of Professional Practice, the core competency that resonates well with me is that of nurturing the whole child. In my opinion, nurturing the whole child means identifying the needs of my students in more than one aspect, ranging from physiological and emotional needs, to learning needs and the search for personal interests.

Being a teacher in the classroom, it is important that I am able to satisfy the learning needs of my students. For instance, in a class of forty students, there is a mixture of students of high ability, medium ability and lower ability. This is a common sight among students in mainstream, co-ed schools. However, it is often overlooked that even in autonomous, SAP schools, such combinations of students will still occur. I was also guilty of this. When people around me learnt that I have been posted to CHIJ St Nicholas Girls’ School to teach, one of their first responses will include a comment along this line: “The girls are all very smart, don’t worry that they can’t learn.” I agreed with them. Judging from the number of top scorers in national exams that the school has produced in the past few years, the students are clearly very smart! After all, who would know the amount of blood and sweat shed by the teachers as well as the students behind this feat? Fortunately for me, something that my School Coordinating Mentor mentioned during the induction course at the school today shed light on the fact that within a class, there may be students who came in with very high and those much lower PSLE T-scores. The question now is how could it happen? One of the causes is the introduction of the Direct School Admission Secondary (DSA)-Sec, a scheme that allows talented Primary Six pupils who excel in their CCA to apply directly to enter the school of his/her choice. From what I know, in the DSA route, after a student passed the trials and interviews for a CCA that the school is placing emphasis on, he/she will be admitted to the school’s Express stream as long as his/her PSLE T-score is good enough to place him/her in the Express stream (i.e. ~188). In other words, he/she does not need to meet the minimum cut-off point to enter that particular school. Therefore, teachers should not feel complacent if they are going to teach in a reputable school, nor should they feel jaded if a class of lower-ability students seems to take a long time to comprehend the lesson. What I wish to highlight is therefore the importance of having differentiated instructions within the classroom i.e. the role of teachers in ensuring equity in the classroom by believing that “all pupils can learn”.

While academic results play a major role in our local education, teachers should not neglect the role of CCAs in developing the character of our students. We see people around us who are doing extremely well in their profession which is more related to their CCA than to their course of study. For instance, I have a friend who is now a music teacher even though she studied nursing in university. I had gotten to know her when we were playing the flute together in the NUS Wind Symphony. If a student is not doing well in my teaching subject, will I reprimand her that she is spending too much time in her CCA that she did not do my homework? No. I will sit down with the student, find out her commitments within and outside of school and we shall figure out a win-win situation together. It does not help to put down a student because he/she is highly involved in her CCA. It could be the only time that he/she can relax and unwind himself/herself, it could also be where the student’s true passion lies. Who knows, the skills that the student picked up during CCA could be possibly lead him/her to having a successful career in the future! This point also links to the teachers’ core competence of tuning into self under the third dimension of Personal Effectiveness. It is important for teachers to achieve work-life balance. Sometimes, even if it is for a short while, I will take out my ukulele to strum it a bit or sit at my piano and play the same old song a few times.

Under the Leadership and Management dimension, I believe that the core competence of partnering parents is essential. According to what has been commonly discussed, parents and teachers are usually the only adults that young people interact most with. I would liken this to the scenario of a family where a child receives differential treatment from his mother and his paternal grandmother. The child wants a lollipop but his mother refused to buy one for him; knowing that his grandmother dotes on him, the child turns to ask her and she bought it for him without hesitation. The beliefs of the mother and the grandmother are analogous to that of teachers and parents. It is important that there is coherence between what the teacher has taught the student (e.g. imparting morals and values to the child) and education by parents at home. Ideally, parents should support and reinforce what have been passed on by the teachers. Hence, collaboration between teachers and parents is the key to maximise the learning and growth of students.

Finally, under the third dimension of Personal Effectiveness, teacher should possess the core competency of resilience and adaptability. Being the adult in the classroom, teachers have the advantage of having more life experiences than the students. Share any inspirational stories with your students, it could be one of yourself overcoming a certain problem or one that you have heard of and has inspired you. Always be positive and it will rub off onto your students without you knowing. 

Information on the Graduand Teacher Competency Framework (GTCF) can be found here.