Teaching - Playing A Brick Game

Teaching can be executed in various styles and methods. But what constitutes a good lesson? Is there a benchmark for it? I would think it is influenced greatly by the teacher's perception of the lesson outcome. Many tutors bear grudges even before starting the lesson, for example complaining about the students, the work load, and sometimes even the meagre pay, etc. These tutors are normally those that emerge unsuccessful in attaining a satisfactory outcome in teaching. Why? A misaligned mind leads to contorted thoughts and an under performing aptitude. So it boils down to having passion in teaching, or at the very least take it in your stride. But once again, many teachers still fail to deliver no matter how hard they try. In my honest opinion, i think the root of the problem lies in that we do not have an objective understanding of the reception of knowledge.

Learning, to me, is always a self discovery process. The feeding of information from others, ie teaching, has a limit onto how much the student would absorb. There is a learning curve as people always speak about. But the limiting factor to this curve is our mental processor. A processor that processes information in a way unique to oneself. A teacher would not be able to effectively pass on knowledge to a student if he or she does not have a rough idea how the information is assimilated by the student. On many occasions, teachers felt that they did all the could in presenting the concept and curriculum, but fail to grasp how meaningful these content meant to the students. I can give u an example:

A teacher administers his usual routine teaching to a class of students. At the end of the lesson, he proceeded somewhat comfortably to the question and answer session and began opening the floor to the usual quiet class. So any questions? He asked. Then from one corner, among the perplexed faces, a boy raised his hand and sounded off his qn. The teacher gave it a thought, and was then energised to provide an explanation. I want to direct my focus at this junction right now. Has the teacher really helped the student as much as he could by providing a solution? I would only dare to say partial.

What has gone wrong? The teacher didnt address the process which led to the question, but merely satisfying what the student queried about. Is teaching all about the superficialities? I'm afraid its not. If all lessons turn out to be in this manner, we would be breeding stagnancy in our education standards. The reason why some students turn out to be smarter than the rest is not always proportional to the effort they put in. Its like playing a brick game, u know those electronic ones with different shapes falling from the top. The student's understanding of the topic is the layout of the game at the bottom, while the teacher's solution is the falling brick at the top. If the teacher doesnt dwell into the intricacies of the students mind, he or she would not be able to orientate the piece of brick correctly into the entire layout. Be mindful that where the brick is laid, how it is laid, and sometimes how fast it is laid is of significant concern to the development of the individual, or in the case of the brick game, the sustainability of it.

Some students end the game quickly, in other words game over, because their bricks are tragically misplaced such that there is no continuability in the bottom layer of bricks in the game. In academic sense, they cant make sense of what they are learning though information has been fed. More accurately, the are not able to grasp the entire puzzle that has been fed to them bit by bit. In this case they give up. There is a limit. And test not the limits of an eager scholar, i beg of you. Learning is a life long process, please do not construct a dead end for them. Its a right to live.

That is precisely the reason teachers are valuable. Their jobs influence lives of students extensively and tremendously. It is incumbent on the beholder of wisdom to disseminate knowledge responsibly. And being a teacher isn't as easy as one think, if you are really passionate about the performance of students.

A Happy CNY 2007

A great CNY to everyone. Some look forward to it some dont really. They find the visiting a chore. But to be its like a welcome change in my life. Something like the 4 seasons. Its rather rejuvenating to know that for the next few days u no need to wake up and smell the NS stench.. haha. not that bad la, i exaggerated. By this time most visitings might have ended. I'd hoped u all have gotten all the ang paos u deserve. Or rather actually every year u would sorta expect a certain amount of money right? it cant possibly exceed the margin by loads. haha

Well can u all recognise a change in style of my writing? from those literary articles, its more of casual, more bloggish, more humane, more intelligible, and more relaxing entries. I am segregating the literary articles from the routine affairs, not because they dont form part of my life, but i want to compartmentalise it. So they are now not on this blog, but the link is on the right. So do visit them!

Magical Life Insurance - Aspire, Inspire, Acquire (AIA)

Many people aspire for a better life, they hold brazen ambitions, they dream big. But few are sufficiently inspired to reach for these aspirations. You can really see "aspiration" as being intangible, while inspiration as the tangible driving force. Acquisition is ostensibly the fruit of your labour. Success, in its untainted definition, refers to the complete acquisition of what we have aspired, through relentless inspiration in our drive to attain it.

We need to be able to imagine our desired outcome. Such envisage is truly imperative as the constant source of motivation, a catalyst for accelerating through tumultous situations. In short, it is a mental image that offers a perk to our soul, propelling our inner desire to work towards something great, palatable and attractive. It is precisely through such vivid imagination of our future that belies inspiration, bequeathing us a great deal of passion and determination to work towards our dreams.

But of course, the extent to which we aspire curtails our achievements. As with the cliche "Dare to Dream", it is only if you hold greater expectations and dreams that you will possibly achieve it. So it adheres to a succession of logic that if one merely hopes to be mediocre, he or she will probably be lesser inspired than what he aspires to be, and the outcome? Probably below average. So aspire leads to inspire and then to acquire.

However if i were to just stop here, my argument would definitely be horribly flawed, as people following my explanation above would know little more than DAYDREAMING - aspiring the impossible. They are only taught that the greater u aspire, u the greater u are inspired, and therefore u acquire more. But for this law to work, i guess we probably wont exist in this planet. In everything we do there is loss and gain, even in science we deal with conservative laws. This theory here works pretty much the same. There is a check and balance. For every bold dream u aspire, you inherit a bold risk. It commensurates each other. So i have just made the equation a little complicated. Success isnt tantamount to boundless aspiration, infinite inspiration, and countless acquisition. It is more accurate to say that success entails a delicate concoction of all three. Bold aspirations, Maximum inspiration, Predicted Acquisition.

Why bold aspirations? Needless to say, we need to involve ourself in something stimulating and challenging. We have to forcefully mould ourselves into products which are necessary, yet not always palatable and easily achieved. And why not boundless? its because in the process of formulating such boundless aspirations, you have already injected absurdity and improbability in your dreams. So in the sense it has already transformed into something fictitious.

Now, why Maximum inspiration? How different is it from infinite inspiration? Maximum denotes peak. There is always a limit to our inspiration if u notice. An artist would not indefinitely possess inspirations for his drawings. A runner would not have unending stamina even if his mind is very strong. Emotions also have its ups and downs. We cant remain in a eternally unperturbed predisposition. Neither can we feel exhilarated all the time. What i am trying to boil down to is that we derive inspiration through events which have a lifespan. We need to constantly renew this pool of events which provide us with perks. So in order to enjoy maximum and not infinite inspiration, it has got to do with extracting the most out of each event that bypasses our life, obtaining valued inspiration and move on.

Lastly, why Predicted acquisition and not countless? As with right from the start, we only demand a rightful proportion of our share. We have prefixed an amount to take away. No bargaining about that. But the more significant aspect of the word "predicted" is the idea of confidence, conviction and faith. This is what we are going to get. We will eventually achieve what we want. We are merely reliving the process of toiling. That is what must be said to oneself. That the outcome is fully within control, nothing is unexpected, nothing will deviate from what we want. Certainty.

Oh and that pretty much concludes the secret of this magical life insurance. There is no rehearsal in life. Neither is there a shortcut for success. Taking the right path is in itself a shortcut.

It is up to us to get enlightened. And I am barely trying to.