My Corner for Education

I found this article online yesterday. The writer has good points on parenting issues, which many teachers are not in a position to express to parents. No matter in the East or the West,  people generally blame our society as a whole or criticise the teachers particularly for the declining of education quality. I think it is time for everybody, especially the PARENTS, to reflect on their own responsibility of parenting and family education. Bravo to Ms. Krista Boryskavich! The following is the article from the Sun.


April 19, 2007

 
Parents, not villages, raise kids
  By KRISTA BORYSKAVICH


  Hillary Clinton once said it takes a village to raise a child. But if today's generation of youth is any indication of the level of parenting skills possessed by the proverbial village, it may be time to think about moving.

My deepest sympathy and condolences to those victims who were killed or hurt yesterday at Virginia Tech

I am extremely upset and saddened by the tragedy at Virginia Tech! Every time when I heard about this kind of gun violence tragedy at any school, I fear for my students and my school because this kind of senseless killing always happened in a school that is so mundane and common. The matter of fact is that it could happen to any school, any ordinary schools like mine.

Even though, unlike USA, we have gun control in Canada, many inner city schools are still concerned about the gun violence infringing the education sanctuary. Last year, we had one incident at Dawson College in Montreal. A young man walked in the college and shot many in the school. Yesterday at Virginia Tech, a student did exactly the same killing with even greater magnitude of brutality.

We live in a very different society nowadays. There are many angry children who grow up to become troubled adults in our society. They blame the school system, the family, the peers and the society in general, but never about themselves! We try to promote self-reflection in education, but we still get people who blame others for things that don’t come their way. These adults generally do not take rejections or failures well. Some of them eventually become parents who don’t give a damn about others. They raise children of bullies or become bullies themselves. The powerful and strong ones brutalize others and the brutalized ones take their revenge later. Violence goes in vicious cycle that never ends. The only sad outcome is that innocent bystanders are victimized in the process of power struggle.

Throughout the years, I have seen a few odd students who seemed to be misfits in the school community. Occasionally, these students might verbalize a few threatening remarks to the teachers but then the school would discipline them for their defiant behaviors as consequences. Sometimes, their parents might be frustrated with the discipline strategies at home, but they seemed to be grateful that the school has been trying their best to help the child. 

In every October, I usually pick Canadian Pioneer Life as the theme for my Grade 3 class. It is one of the subject areas for elementary Social Studies in Ontario curriculum. Last October, my class went on a field trip to visit a Pioneer Village. While we were reenacting in a pioneer one-room schoolhouse, the lady who dressed up as a teacher from the past taught my students about the routine in her pioneer schoolhouse. One of the routine instructions was “a thought of the day", which became the motto for my class. My lovely students just adopted the thought immediately, and I was quite happy to "emphasize it" through out the year. It is a great motivational tool to those little kids who are trying to advance themselves. We had a big lesson on this motto. The sentences from the teacher of the past have made a big impact on my students! You are welcome to share it with your own children at home or students in your class.

 

Whatever you do,

Do with your might.

Things done by half

Are never done right.

Unfortunately, we only learned about "one" thought for that day. Some of my students should be put in a pioneer school to learn a few more. Hahahaha. 

Since the topic of ability grouping came up (To Stream, or Not to Stream, on March 25), I have this memory relapse about my junior high school in Taipei. No one at my school would believe the traumatic experiences I had with testing and ability grouping in junior high school except our ESL teacher from India. I guess she was traumatized in her past as well. I don’t remember much of the fine details because it was way too farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrback in my past. Maybe I have been trying to suppress my memories of junior high trauma. There were incidents, however, that I would never forget no matter how old I am.

Once upon a time, I went to a very competitive junior high school, Da Li Girls’ Junior High School in Wan Hua District in Taipei. The female principal at the time was notorious for the “tight grip” and“quality control” on her students’ academic performances. I remember she used to live on the school property, and had a tight control of the school from close by. Furthermore, she made sure that her graduates have one of the highest admission rates to the top 7 senior high schools in Taipei. At that time, we had to pass city-wide and nation-wide exams in order to go to a senior high or a university.

My first year in junior high was a fun year though. I had a male teacher who really promoted sportsmanship. I was the leader of the class and heavily into track and field like everybody else in class. I had the high time of my life until my first IQ test, which I did not know much about then. I was naïve, and I could care less at the time. I still remember the day when my teacher called me to his desk, and asked me with a stern face if I actually took the test seriously. Apparently my score was 75. (Ha.ha.ha, 75 is considered developmentally challenged.) He was very upset with me because he knew me well, and no way that I would only score at that level. He was a very kind teacher. In fact, I went to school with his son in elementary school.

In my grade seven class, we had about 49 students in a class and there were 21 grade seven classes! Yes, 21 classes! There were more than one thousand grade seven students in a girls’ school! The grade seven students were not streamed at the time because that was our first year out of elementary schools. We were given the opportunity to adjust to the new environment of a super big school for a year. It was not easy to be in a large school because you tend to lose your personal identity so easily in the large crowd.

I remember vividly that every morning all students would gather in the super sized school yard for national anthem, and then listened to the Principal’s daily lecture and instructional broadcast. At the end of each day, we would be dismissed after another gatheringin the field. If the weather was not cooperating, we would have the broadcast over the P.A. system.

If you want to listen to this song, please click on the link below.     

Daniel Powter – Bad Day lyrics

Where is the moment we needed the most
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost
They tell me your blue skies fade to grey
They tell me your passion's gone away
And I don't need no carryin' on

I presented at a conference on Saturday to a group of Chinese parents who have children enrolled in the public education system. The conference is to promote literacy to the parents. It is great to see parents who are supportive and concerned about their children’s education. At the questioning period, many of them raised questions about how to help their children achieve and succeed in the Canadian educational system. My final recommendation to them is to ensure that the golden triangle is soundly implemented.

What is my golden triangle? The positive relationship and communication among parents, teacher, and the child actually forms a golden triangle. To maintain equal balances among the three parties is the key to a successful educational development. I reminded them that when any one party is weakened within this triangle, the angle and the sides of the triangle will be skewed. Each party has to take the responsibility of ensuring a job well done. For those parents who attended the workshop, they obviously are very involved or want to be involved in their children’s education. Teachers are in school to help them move their children along on the path of leaning. The majority of teachers I know are passionate about education because they want to teach children. I encourage those parents to open the communication channel with their child’s teacher, but, first and foremost, help their children develop positive work ethics. Children at the formative years are adaptable to a routine, which is easier to help them develop a “work habit".  If the child has established a diligent work habit when they are young, they will have a positive attitude and be ready to take on anything and everything later on in life!

At the end, I did give them a few concerns that I have about the new immigrant generation because most of the parents are the first generation immigrants who just came to Canada. Their children are either recently enrolled in school, or born in Canada. This group of children will be a generation who do not understand how difficult life was when their family first arrived. The hard working attitude and endurance their parents brought with them will be faded or eventually erased in their young minds. This group of children, who are well provided for, will be a generation of new Canadians who haven’t known tough times.

Throughout the years, I have seen many students who could have anything they want or could have gone places; however, the only thing that is lacking is having “self-discipline” and “work ethics” instilled in their upbringing. Nowadays, some parents in Taiwan or in Canada alike seem to experience this inability to handle their children’s defiance or rough-edge attitude.  All I can say is, the issue of rebelling children has been reoccurring in our society throughout the history of time, and the problem can not simply be created or solved within a few days. The only way to avoid or solve these attitude problems is to deal with them up front from day one. Parents need to take control and work with the teachers to ensure a child’s education is fostered within a solid frame work of positive work ethics! 

Canada is a country of immigrants who have brought many of their old values, good or bad, from the "old country" to this new land. To all immigrant parents who are concerned about education, your family education and cultural values are very important to your children, and definitely will have an impact on their future education. Take the better of the two cultures and help your children succeed.

This is a very simple song for ESL learners. It is very easy to learn with the subtitle. It is also kind of sweet for Asian students. The song writer is a very talented gentleman from Hong Kong. The singer also has a cute voice. I am not sure whether it has been out for a while in Asia or not. I heard of this song a while ago, but I am kind of out of touch with a lot of popular trends or fashion styles in Asia anyway. Plus, I was never a fashion follower in my other life in Taiwan. I like the song, and I happened to find it on YouTube. So, any ESL teacher who just needs a pop song to motivate their students, here you go. Go to the YouTube site and find it. Do tell students about the copyright issue when downloading from any website.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h1a10qWUos

 

 

 

 

 

We had pouring rain on and off all day long. Snow had been longgone in this part of Ontario. A few days ago, spring arrived andalso brought thunder and lightning along. We don’t normally hearthe rain or thunder inside the concrete school building; however,it is a different story when we are out in a portable. A portableis shaped like a trailer box which is supposed to be used as atemporary classroom. Unfortunately, in a city where population ison the rise, portables have become permanent fixtures to manyschools in Ontario. The brand new school in my neighborhood alreadyhas 9 portables in her second year.

Our school is in an older neighborhood where students’ enrollmenthas been declining every year. Since the school was open, we hadthese porta-pad classrooms for ten classes for the last 16 years.Finally, our school got the opportunity to renovate and build newwings to attach to the main building. A large portion of our schoolwas torn down and has been under construction since October2006.

My class is one the nine classes that have to be temporarily placedin portables. I call it “a cottage” because it is like having aclass in the great outdoor. When I open the windows, I can seegreen grass and tall trees in the park. The scenery is very eyes-soothingfor us in the portable. For days like today, I could see the flashes oflightning and the rumbling of thunder all day today. It is too badthat I left school a bit early today and missed the hailstorm. Apparently,the hails, each shaped like a flat rounded coin, came down sosuddenly. I was just on the highway on my way home when I wascaught in the thunderstorm. A hailstorm is rare. I unfortunatelydid not get to see the hails. Can you imagine thousands offlattened ice marbles dropping on top of your roof? How cool isthat! (Of course, it could be dangerous, too.)

Spring is always a rainy season here in Canada. It is wet and damp.That’s why we say, "April showers bring May flowers." Well, we stillhave to wait a while till May though. Today I finally put on myfirst ever rain boots which I bought two days ago. I had neverowned a pair of rain boots before. With the weather like today, Ireally did not have a choice but putting them on.

My problem started with the construction. Our portables aresituated quite far away from the main school building. Whenever thesnow is melting or the rain is gushing down, the pavement betweenour portables and the building creates a perfect “lake”. On top ofthat, the construction trucks and bobcats carry mud everywhere.Whenever kids run through the muddy schoolyard, the water from thisextensive mud puddle splashes on their backs all the way from heelsup to their heads. Their jackets, boots and snow pants are SO messybeyond their control. I say “beyond control” because we adults getmud everywhere on our pants as well. It is so GROSS! The trip tothe office has become so unbearable, and I had ruined my brand newboots through the past winter season. My steam finally let off likea kettle! I can not stand it any longer. From now on until the endof the construction, which seems to be no end in sight, I amgoing to wear my sky blue rubber boots just like the other teachersin the portable zone. We call it our Spring Fashion of 2007.

I am not techno-savvy, but it is fun to learn new tricks. This song "Mad World" is a remake from Tears for Fears' original song. I like both versions. The old one has that New Wave flare (that tells you how old I am. Ha.Ha..), but the new one has a very errie feeling to it. Anyway, enjoy the new one sung by a Canadian musician, Gary Jules. I have to credit TotoDuchie for the help on this one. If you are interested in adding a clip to your site, please visit the forum for Wretch BLOG.