So fast another Ess will be released into the world soon.

Is the world ready for this Ess?

Today is Aubrey's birthday. Her name was chosen because I heard this song Aubrey by Bread one day and decided that this would be a great name.

This name has its origin in Old German origin. It is a Norman French variant of Alberich, Germanic name.

Aubrey means 'elf'. In Germanic Mythology, the king of elves was called Aubrey. Yes, our Aurbey can be impish at times with her laughter filling up a dull afternoon. She is fiercely independent, with her mind of her own and very logical. Yet her heart is filled with love for her younger siblings. she has become their part time mum when I am too busy with work.

Her second name,Gabrelyn was chosen because she was conceived 9 months before Christmas. As Angel Gabriel has foretold the birth of Christ to Mary around 25th March, we decided to use this name.

When I goggle her name, I am so proud to see so many articles she has written published on various news website.

She has only one year to remain as a teenager. May she continue to vex her parents like all teenagers do and may she blossom into a lady soon.

With no hope of reward nor seeking gain

Recently one of my friend ask me to help her find an opportunity for her son to do extra Community Involvement Project (CIP). She has wanted her son, who is on the through train at a school in Bishan to get involved.

I found a project for her son to do which involved working with children who has terminal cancer. It would be easy as the hospice is only a stone throw away from his school. Just as the details were settled she asked if her son's effort would be recorded in the School Graduation Certificate. (SGC)

My heart sank. It sank even lower when she explained that another colleague of her helped her daughter obtained a scholarship by doing a lot of CIPs and it looked good when she went for an interview for the scholarship.

I do not think it is the fault of the mothers as any mother would try her best to help her child develop to the fullest.

The fault lies in the system where students have to clock in compulsory a minimum of six hours of CIP every year. Because it is a compulsion, it is difficult to develop this ideal of volunteerism in our teenagers.

I am involved with an NGO which seek to protect the environment through the promotion of eco living. Often, I will have to hunt for volunteers to support this NGO. I normally would not choose students who when asked to help would reply :" Will it count towards the CIP hours?" or "Will it be recorded in the SGC.?"

Students who have been volunteering with this NGO know that they will not get any CCA points, any CIP hours, nor it will not be recorded in the SGC. No Reward, No Award.

Recently, there was a blood donation drive at the Bishan Community Center. An ITE student went there to donate blood. She did not receive any CIP hours, it was not recorded in her record books and no one in her ITE knew about it.

She was rejected because she was under 18 and need parental consent. She went home download the parental consent form and went back to donate blood only to be rejected the second time because there was not enough iron in her blood. She is now taking iron pills waiting for the time when she is eighteen and when the iron level in her blood is within range.

There is still hope for Singapore after all.

How do the esshold knows that Christmas is round the corner? It is the sound of jingle bell ringing at the cash register at the shopping mall? Or the turkey advertisement asking us to buy tasteless meat so that your Christmas can be complete? Or the round of frantic shopping for gift to give to people who you think do not deserve it at all?





Apart from baking the traditional fruit cake in the Esshold, another tradition we follow is to set up the advent candle four weeks before Christmas.

The advent candles is made up of four candle: three purple and one pink representing faith hope love and joy. Each Sunday, one candle is lit and a short prayer is said before dinner.

This is to remind us that we have to put Christ back into Christmas. Christmas is more then a Christmas tree, log cake or even stocking hanging on the wall. We are all called to be gift to others not expecting to receive gifts at Christmas all the time.

How can we be a gift to all man? When a friend needs a listening ear, listen. When a sister needs a helping hand, help. When a spouse needs a shoulder to cry on, offer one. It is better then all the cheesy gift that you have to gift or receive.

Hand up the number of useless tie, bath soap, power you have receive. This Christmas make a simple card like a voucher that the receiver can use to redeem when it is needed. e.g One helping hand to be redeemed when required to move house, wash dishes or mop the floor.

Try it . It is worth it.

You are what you eat

A father allows his young son to watch World Wrestling and then wonder why his son has a violent temper.

Another mother bought her son the state of the art, latest computer because he claimed that he need such a computer to do a class project. (Mum believed him as she thought that since his son is in a top school in Bishan which offer through train, he would not lie.) She then wonder why he is addicted to computer game.

Another mother continue to buy a range of PSPs and proceed to complain why her son could not interact with his peers and has no friends. She failed to see that his eyes are constantly glued to the PSP during diner time, on the road or when visiting relatives and friends during Chinese New Year.

Many people who encounter our children often wonder why their children could not behave a bit more like ours. Ours not only obey us when instructions are given, they obey our friends' instructions. Often our friends would use our children to experience what it is like to have obedient children.

While we do not claimed to have all the answers to parenting or how to bring up great children, (our children can be devil incarnate at times) we can share the environment that our children grew up in.

Firstly, our house is a visually stimulating environment. There is a piano, a drum set, three guitars, a garden, a working kitchen and a large library where our children get a variety of stimulating input. According to neuroscientist Martha Pierson of the Baylor College of Medicine "children need a flood of information, a banquet, a feast."

However, this flood must not come from PBP or the television which is often used as a baby sitter. Television do not give time for reflection, interaction, or three-dimensional visual development. Television is two dimensional yet the development of the brain needs depth observed another neuroscientist V.L. Ramachandran at the University of California at San Diego.

Beside television moves too fast and talks about abstract ideas that are often non existent in a child's environment. It does not allow the eyes to relax which can aggravate learning difficulties. It is a poor replacement for play time and sensory motor development time.

Our house do not have a television set in the living room. We do not have cable, MIO nor free to air channel. This allows our children more time to better develop their language, social and motor skills. On a typical afternoon, they can bake, play the piano, dig in the garden or explore the natural environment in the park or fight and playing with other children.

Secondly, our children do not spend alot of time in the fastfood joint like MacDonald, KFC or Pizza. Children nowadays already eats too much saturated fat, sugar and simple carbohydrates. They eat too few fruits, vegetables and complex carbohydrates. Because our children are home schooled, they have fewer opportunities to eat junk food and we have control over what they eat.

Thirdly, we teach our children only when they are ready to learn. This demands that we do not given in to the temptation of measuring their academic performance regularly until the joy of learning as been replaced by the stress of performance. Children often has to perform well in their exam and test so that their parents can boast at the office's water cooler how great their children are.

For example, we did not send our children to reading specialist or enrichment class when they could not read nor write when they are about 7 or 8 years old. If they were in school, they might have been labeled slow learner or worst still mis-channeled to the wrong stream. Instead they blossomed into avid reader. Now they read widely and could handle a vareity of books from Harry Potter to Narnia. As Geeenberg (1991) observed "Wait until the brain's ready to read, then you can't stop it." Once our children attained a high rate of literacy, they woudld not have problem with their studies.

Children are gifts that has been placed in our hands. It is our duty as responsible parents to bring up our children. Sometime we have to be tough to love them and not give in to everything that they want but we must be there to give them what they need. Are we good parents yet?

Season of Giving, Season of griefing

Each year around this time, many adults and parents will be agonizing over what present to buy for their children and their relatives.

Once, I gave two children from a rich family a simple gift. They opened it infront of me and when they saw that their gift they exclaimed that the gift was cheap and proceed to discard it without any thought or rgard to teh giver.

This year, one of my relative warned me that I have to buy better gift for their children as they have already bought expensive gift for mine.

A gift is not an exchange or a transaction. It is an expression of goodwill from the heart. Not all who give Christmas present are rich.

Sometime poor people sacrifice what little bonus they have to give gift fro their relatives.

We bring up our children to appreciate whatever gift is given to them, no matter how inexpensive it is, to receive the gift with a grateful heart and not to judge the gift by it momentary value.

This Christmas, let us teach our children to accept gift from our friend and relatives with grace and dignity and not to expect expensive gift especially since many of us have been retrenched or lost our jobs.

If a murderer was crowned Ms World while serving time in jail, is she allowed to keep her crown as she explained that she would like to hold onto the title because she has come so far in her dream and she does not wish to, because of a past mistake, give up something that is meaningful to her?

Of course not right.

But what about giving her a second chance?

Of course I will give her a second change.

But You do the crime, you do the time.

After you have served the punishment then you are allowed to start afresh.

Now, I have no problem with MISS Singapore World Ris Low Yi Min not being able to speak well. I do no even mind when we are silly enough to choose a bimbo to represent all women in Singapore.

BUT this is Singapore. Hello Principle of Meritocracy where we are rewarded with hard work.

She did not believe in this principle. She took the easy way out.

She claimed that " she is not proud of what she did, and added that her crimes were committed in 'a moment of folly'. 'I don't know why I did it, it was not like I needed the money."

Hello?

In April and May last year, she spent more than $2,400 on at least four separate occasions, using at least three illegally obtained credit cards, at times impersonating the identity of their owners. She was sentenced to 24 months of supervised probation in May this year.

I cannot consider 4 separate occasions as a moment of folly.
60 charges were taken into consideration for the purposes of sentencing. This is not a moment of folly.

It is all pre-planned.

She said that 'I would like to hold onto the title, definitely, because I've come so far in my dream and I don't wish to, because of a past mistake, give up something that is so meaningful to me.'

She must be brave enough to stand up and face the time. Every action has a reaction. Every choice as a consequences.

Too many parents now a days are so afraid to punish their children when they have done something wrong for fear that they would scare the children for life.

As a mother of six, I believe that when we spare the 'rod' we will spoilt the child. If any of our children does something wrong, they will be punished. Non-negotiable.


As Mother Teresa said Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.

Ms Low, it is still not to late to start with the small things.
Start by first giving up the crown gracefully.
Start by doing the time and accept that you have to pay for your life of crime

Start by finally being a great role model for all the lost Ah Lian who need someone like you to look up to for all the right reasons.

Show them that you are begining to be an adult, that you knwo right from wrong, that at this point in time, you did not have the heart and support of Singaporeans to represent them.

Be faithful Ms Low to you time that you have to pay for your crime. It is the only right thing to do.

My colleagues know that I do not support any NLP based programme. Each year, when we have to go to camp with the students, I will ensure that I do not go with the classes that use NLP trainers. Each time they asked me, I would explain the pitfall of NLP. Often, it would fall on deaf ear.( We have used the same NLP trainer for two years.)

Recently, these NLP has expended to teaching students study skills. When I was given the opportunity to examine their course content, I was shock to see this statement wriiten in their course book. " To do well in social studies, you have to remember the dates and events." This is totally against what I have tried to educate the students in social studies. While I cannot speak on other subjects, I know that what they are doing for social studies is wrong.

I thus stated very clearly that I will not be held responsible for the results of the students who will go through these NLP courses. If they do well, these NLP will most probably use their face for some advertisement. If they do bad, I guess they would wash their hand off.

I still stand by my view that NLP is not appropriate for our students. It does not promote thinking. It only seek to programme our students which is totally against the spirit of education.

Like I always teach my students: Short term gain , Long term pain. or Solve one problem, create five others.

The choice is clear

Let teachers motivate ...

But principal uses motivational speakers to boost school's results

05:55 AM Aug 31, 2009

Letter from Roland Ang

RECENTLY, I received an SMS from my daughter's school asking me to sign up for a paid workshop to help parents understand their children - to be conducted by some neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) practitioners.

My daughter told me that the school had also engaged the same people to counsel and motivate them as her school principal was not happy with the overall mid-year result.

The purpose of the NLP-trained motivational speaker, they were told, was to help them achieve better results.

Private organisations use NLP-trained motivational speakers to enhance sales targets and customer service, notably in the insurance and time-share industries. Their relationships are purely commercial. However, that cannot be said between schools and motivational speakers as the latter have no stake and vested interest in any school.

Schools should leave the teaching, inspiring and motivating of children to parents and school teachers rather than relying on external trainers to enhance their overall school results just to maintain their school ranking. Is education all about results and nothing else?

Miss Ho Peng, the director-general of Education at the Ministry of Education, said in a speech recently at the Teachers' Mass Lecture as well as the formation of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), which are powerful platforms for teachers to learn from one another, that it gives her great fulfilment when teachers move on to greater responsibilities and, in turn, help to develop others.

I think this is a move in the right direction for teachers.

There are many advertisements in from NLP entrepreneurs. Their punchlines are about helping those who sign up for their courses to attain financial success, or to "get rich fast".

Legally, this is not wrong, but morally these people are capitalising on the weaknesses of people with a desire to get rich fast without the need to work hard.

Such courses may lead to an erosion of the work ethic in the gullible young, especially during this economic downturn when many are unemployed or desperate to recover losses from bad investments.

If parents want to send their children to accelerated learning programmes, they do so at their own prerogative. But I hope schools will avoid engaging NLP practitioners merely to enhance their students' results. Rather, they should keep faith and trust in their teachers to inspire and motivate their students.

Our children are human beings and not commodities.

This is a reply to the above letter

NLP has issues, problems

05:55 AM Sep 01, 2009

Letter from S Ganesamoorthy

I REFER to "Let teachers motivate ..." (Aug 31). Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) as a methodology has lots of hidden issues and problems.

As principals are increasingly inviting these speakers to talk to their students, there is a need to be circumspect and look at the issue of NLP from the broad perspective of its use in education.

NLP practitioners receive their so-called master's certification by attending a short course or via online master's certification.

NLP is also not accepted into the fold of psychiatry, psychology or even sociology or social work, and does not contain the academic rigour of being accepted as a field of discipline in its own right.

The originators of NLP are themselves not agreed on the objectives and targets that must bind the NLP process.

There is certainly an obligation on the part of the Ministry of Education to ensure that the methodologies adopted to instruct our students pass the acid test of evaluating NLP as a subject in its own right.

Besides, there is an urgent need for our educational/para educational, counselling, psychological and medical agencies to evaluate and validate the methodologies adopted by NLP practitioners and hold them accountable.

It is also worrying that these training providers, who are invited to train students at an enormous investment of time and money, also conduct courses and seminars on "short circuits" to becoming millionaires.

As we celebrate Teacher's Day, let us pay tribute to the many who have mastered their skills to make a difference in their students' lives and reassert their pre-eminence in the lives of all students today and in the future.

Let us empower our teachers so that they will empower our students.

As stated so succinctly by Haim Ginott, the teacher, child psychologist and psychotherapist who pioneered techniques for conversing with children that are still taught today:

"I've come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It's my personal approach that creates the climate. It's my daily mood that makes the weather.

"As a teacher, I possess tremendous power to make a student's life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humour, hurt or heal. In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a student humanised or de-humanised".

When I was young and Christmas tree was tall.....


This old song from the Bee Gees popped out of my head recently.


Life is a matter of perspective.

When I was young, certain thing and issue were up most important to me like: Will I have a date on Saturday or will any one be interested in a tomboy like me etc.

Now it has changed. I worry when one of my sons has too many dates on a weekend while my other children do not seem to mind that they do not have any.

I worry if they would find a good spouse and be happily married.

And so I have began to pray for all my children's spouses that they do not mind have an ess for a mother in law.

I also wonder will I be accepted as a mother in law to them. Will I be a living hell for them like Jane Fonda, a monster in law?

Most likely, I will be travelling around the world drinking wine with Gino in Venice or coffee at the cafe in gay Paris so that I will avoid being a mother in law.

Life is a matter of perspective. To my students who are reading this blog, who are heart broken because their swine of a girl friend has walk out of them all I can say is : Time will heal.

Yes, I know how you feel for when I heard that phrase when I was 18 .

Time will heal. I retorted so what? I am hurting now.

Trust me. All I can say is Time will heal.

30 years later when you look back at issues that you hold dear at 17 or 18, you will realise that what an ess you have been.

You will smile and you will remember that once an ess has told you that Time will heal and it is true.

Today my son Angus is twenty years. In a twinkle of an eye, that bouncy, fair and chubby baby has grown into a man.

No longer a teenager not yet an adult. A young adult who is learning to make important decisions.

We, as parents no longer can dictate what he can or cannot do. We can only offer advice when asked for.

Of course we will be tempted to tell you what to do, who to befriend and what to wear.

This period will be a challenging period for all of us as we learn to accommodate each other.The next twenty years will be as enriching as the last twenty year.

The fruit of your labour

If you are a doctor, you will know the fruit of your labour right away. If you give the correct medicine your patient is cured. If you give the wrong one, he dies. So simple.

What about a teacher? I can never claimed that it is due to me as a teacher that my students turned out well later in life. There are just too many factors in their life for any teachers to claimed that they have make a positive impact. Yet like the doctor, if a teacher took the wrong step often she has the ability to kill her students joy for learning.

A few weeks ago, my ex VP invite me and a couple of teachers for his daughter's wedding. Throughout the dinner, we managed to connect again. We decided to keep in touch through Facebook.

It was a joy to connect with the teachers but through their profile, I managed to connect with this crazy bunch of old boys that I taught eleven years ago.

I remembered them clearly because they broke many teachers heart. To say that they have behaviour problems was an understatement. There were many underlying factors that were influencing their life beyond what a classroom teachers could influence or control.

I remembered the Principal, Discipline Master, teachers and I spend a lot of time cracking our head over how to help them.

Sad to say at the end of the year, we felt we have failed as we have nothing to show for our effort.

It was so heartening to see that so many of them have turned out so well after so many years. Some have settled down and married. Others are still in the university as they are late developers. One who created the most troubled even top his cohort and earned an oversea scholarship.

A teacher can only do so much in class. Like a gardener, she can only ensure that the soil is fertile for the seed to grow. Sometime weeds will grow along with the seedings. She have try her best to weeds out these weeds but the growing has to be done by the seeds themselves.

I am so gald that these bunch of students from 3E6 has grown into gentlemen and scholars of who is passionate about life.

Thank you fro giving this old ess hope to continue her journey as a gardener. If she is luckily to harvest some more fruit, she will remember that she is not the one responsible for it but it was the seeds themselves.