The sharing by the various KPs on Learning and Development and Work-life Balance is really a learning journey for me. Firstly, it was the first time that I was involved in a Cluster Meeting which was not restricted to Math KPs only. Secondly, I learnt a lot of the different perspectives with regards to the topic that was given by our Superintendant Mrs Ong. I was really very nervous about saying out my thoughts when it is my turn to speak. I guess I never can get the stage-fright feeling off me....
Nevertheless, this is waht I have learnt:
Work-life balance (or harmony as many of the KPs have decided to change it to) can be achieved when there is learning and deveopment. When we learn something , that knowledege would (even though very little) help in improving the ways that we do things. We get more efficient in our thinking, teaching and doing work and this in turn would help us put aside more time for ourselves, family and our hobbies. Of course it is our choice to decide whether we would like to achieve a 50-50 , 60-40 'balance'. If we enjoy doing work , 70-30( with 70 being work) is also alright as long as we know that our family or our health is not jeopardized in any way. Quality vs quantity....
Also as leaders, we should try our best to get to know our teachers so that we know what is good for them and what is important to them. If the schools' needs and the teachers' needs are aligned then there should be some sense of work-life harmony. When teachers know that their leaders care, they are happy to come to work. They would teach happily in class and this feeling could be translated to happy students and more engagement in class, hence better attitudes and results...
Learning new things is important, no matter how small the fact is. But why do we need to learn? We need to learn in order to improve ourselves and learn new pedagogies that will help our students learn better. The new generation of students are more IT savvy and very much distracted by media (youtube, facebook, etc) so we need to be in the same page as them in order to know them better so that we can engage them more in conversations and hence work. By learning new ways of interacting with students and how to teach them more effectively, we also raise our own self-esteem and this translates to more willingness to try new pedagogy and the cycle continues.....
When we, as leaders learn, we become good role models for our students and teachers. We learn when we read articles, literature review, watch TV or movies or just by talking to our peers and students. Hence learning can take place anywhere. It's just how you make use of this knowledge to better ourselves and our lives....
Coincidentally just before we entered the meeting, Hong Heng was sharing about extremedeals.com, the place where we could buy cheap stuff for our gadgets. Those of us who have IPhones were really excited with this new knowledge and I guess some of us will make use of this new knowledge to enhance our own lives...I rest my case....:)
Sunday, 29 August 2010
Monday, 5 July 2010
Reflection on Mrs Yu Sin Tong's (DDSN) visit
I was inspired...full stop.
Mrs Yu is one of the few people who had inspired me. Another person I could not forget is my ex-conductor from AJC Symphonic Band who then became my ex-conductor in NUS Symphonic Band, Mrs Jessie Ho-Tan Wee Eng. Both ladies have this aura about them. Not only were they charismatic, they believe in what they do and they really do well in what they do. Mrs Ho is now the Senior Specialist CCA Music 3. I was once inspired to become a conductor because of her...but that's another story...
Ok back to Mrs Yu's visit. She is one person who can see things in macro or the big picture. I was talking about my responsibility as a People Developer and the different ways that I should go about developing my three different teachers. One is a trainee teacher, the second is a part-time teacher and the last, a flexi-adjunct teacher. I told her that I was still learning in this area. I need to be the role model for each of them (to be a good teacher and achieve all the targets), to understand their difficulties and also help them overcome any obstacles. I said that it was ok for them not to reach their targets as long as they had done their best. My mistake was just to stop there. I actually wanted to continue saying that they should meet their targets by the end of the year as the mid year work review should help them to identify their weaknesses and also make them realise how they could fill their gaps....(regrets..regrets...)
Mrs Yu gave me pointers on how to go about doing my job. For the flexi-adjunct teacher, he is supposed to be sharing his resources and methods with the whole department as his experience and good practices should be copied or adopted by others. As for the trainee teacher, he should be encouraged to ask questions (as we learn from being inquisitive) and to explore the different teaching pedagogies. For the part-time teacher, she said its about resource management. She expressed her disagreement with one clause on part-time teachers that allow them not to turn up for Staff and Department Meetings. I totally agree with her. I was always wondering why some teachers didn't have to attend Staff or Department eetings. I think that it was a totally wrong concept. Staff and Department meetings should be attended by all teachers, no matter what scheme they are in. Although minutes of meetings can be read by them, they would have missed the valuable discussions that the whole faculty would have been involved in. Meetings also promote collegiality and understanding on the workings of each teacher. I am really looking forward to a change in this clause.
On the whole I think Mrs Yu was talking about developing connections in the whole school. Teachers need to know their students well - ( I like the part where she said that if she went back to being a Principal, the first two weeks would be a getting-to-know-you session for all the teachers and students. ) Teachers that know their students' habits would be able to play a more significant role in adapting their teaching and how they interact with their students and thus know how to get results from them. I am also inspired to hear that a VP was once a naughty student who had turned over a new leaf after having felt being cared for by one of her school teachers. Care and motivation lead to little successes which lead to hunger (for more successes) and then to bigger successes. Middle managers and school leaders must also know their teachers in order to develop them. Developing doesn't mean saying the good things only. We have to be truthful in our observations and monitoring of our teachers. Only when we know our weaknesses do we get to change and improve for the better...
I really hope to improve my relations with my students and teachers. I do believe that if we show care and concern towards others, there will be less misunderstanding, more cooperation and thus the world will be a much better place to live in....Thank you Mrs Yu... :)
Mrs Yu is one of the few people who had inspired me. Another person I could not forget is my ex-conductor from AJC Symphonic Band who then became my ex-conductor in NUS Symphonic Band, Mrs Jessie Ho-Tan Wee Eng. Both ladies have this aura about them. Not only were they charismatic, they believe in what they do and they really do well in what they do. Mrs Ho is now the Senior Specialist CCA Music 3. I was once inspired to become a conductor because of her...but that's another story...
Ok back to Mrs Yu's visit. She is one person who can see things in macro or the big picture. I was talking about my responsibility as a People Developer and the different ways that I should go about developing my three different teachers. One is a trainee teacher, the second is a part-time teacher and the last, a flexi-adjunct teacher. I told her that I was still learning in this area. I need to be the role model for each of them (to be a good teacher and achieve all the targets), to understand their difficulties and also help them overcome any obstacles. I said that it was ok for them not to reach their targets as long as they had done their best. My mistake was just to stop there. I actually wanted to continue saying that they should meet their targets by the end of the year as the mid year work review should help them to identify their weaknesses and also make them realise how they could fill their gaps....(regrets..regrets...)
Mrs Yu gave me pointers on how to go about doing my job. For the flexi-adjunct teacher, he is supposed to be sharing his resources and methods with the whole department as his experience and good practices should be copied or adopted by others. As for the trainee teacher, he should be encouraged to ask questions (as we learn from being inquisitive) and to explore the different teaching pedagogies. For the part-time teacher, she said its about resource management. She expressed her disagreement with one clause on part-time teachers that allow them not to turn up for Staff and Department Meetings. I totally agree with her. I was always wondering why some teachers didn't have to attend Staff or Department eetings. I think that it was a totally wrong concept. Staff and Department meetings should be attended by all teachers, no matter what scheme they are in. Although minutes of meetings can be read by them, they would have missed the valuable discussions that the whole faculty would have been involved in. Meetings also promote collegiality and understanding on the workings of each teacher. I am really looking forward to a change in this clause.
On the whole I think Mrs Yu was talking about developing connections in the whole school. Teachers need to know their students well - ( I like the part where she said that if she went back to being a Principal, the first two weeks would be a getting-to-know-you session for all the teachers and students. ) Teachers that know their students' habits would be able to play a more significant role in adapting their teaching and how they interact with their students and thus know how to get results from them. I am also inspired to hear that a VP was once a naughty student who had turned over a new leaf after having felt being cared for by one of her school teachers. Care and motivation lead to little successes which lead to hunger (for more successes) and then to bigger successes. Middle managers and school leaders must also know their teachers in order to develop them. Developing doesn't mean saying the good things only. We have to be truthful in our observations and monitoring of our teachers. Only when we know our weaknesses do we get to change and improve for the better...
I really hope to improve my relations with my students and teachers. I do believe that if we show care and concern towards others, there will be less misunderstanding, more cooperation and thus the world will be a much better place to live in....Thank you Mrs Yu... :)
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