Looking back my earlier blogs

Just as I was about to blog today, I noticed I have written a few blogs which I did not published. Reasons? Partly I felt it was negative feelings about my previous job and I just did not want to throw in the white towel as yet, thus, I held back my feelings and kept it to myself.


However, I left my previous job end October 2013 and started the new appointment in the beginning of November. It was an opportunity which I strongly know that it was given by God. It is coming to my 6th month now. I am still enjoying my work tremendously and always looking forward to go to work. All jobs have stress and this job is no exception. I have to face challenges of my new colleagues, but when you know you have a boss which believe in you and backs you up. It does give me the confidence and feels good when I have the support.


Moving on, I will be starting a new blog on Mentoring. Recently, I attended a course on it and have a lot of new thoughts on it. I will be sharing more later.

Feeling Guilty

Lately I have been so busy with work that when I come home I am too tired to spend quality time with Junior any more. I tend to react rather than respond.

There are others who are doing the same role as me at work, but I wonder why they can take everything so lightly while I am foolishly working my guts out and putting my family at stake.... I don't spend time with Junior now then when?

I shall give myself up till end of June and see how it goes. By then still can't I am throwing my towel in...Isaiah and my family shall come first.

Reflection just before the Chinese New Year

All these while I had been very committed to work. I could go all the way out to complete what I need to do and I will do it well (even at the expense of my health)

But lately I had been feeling I am being taken for granted in the company. All the hard work I had put in and no one bother to appreciate. What made it worst was after putting in all the efforts, it ended up as others' credit.

Another bad experience was also my boss.

A boss whom I had great respect and appreciate, had stopped talking to me all of the sudden. This week when I am back in the office, there is just akward feelings in the air. He didn't even bothered to personally pass me the re-designation letter. I felt that i don't matter much to the department and I could be kicked out just like that....How disappointing.

 

I am not pushing all the blames away but I behave the way I behave is because there were too much pride in my work that I find it hard to release and it could have caused all the misuderstanding.

However, upon reflection, I need to move on and no point to dwell on what had passed. I need to continue to help those who deserves my help and to those who doesn't deserve my time I should not be feeling all sad and sorrow because they are not worth it. I should take a step back and be like those others in the office... happy - go - lucky. As it is not worth worrying and worrying and be a fool.

All the negative vibes will need to go away and I want to start new with this Chinese New Year. Time for me to mend my relationship back with my family rather than outsiders. There is really no one worth my effort and my time except my family.

Gardens by the Bay

Woke up this morning and still wasn't too sure what to do with Isaiah. Do I bring him to the wet market and do some groceries, come home and do activities with him or do I bring him to the library? Or to Gardens by the Bay?.....It was until when we were ready to leave the house that I decide we should go since the weather looked rather fine. We went for a quick breakfast, hopped into a cab and off we went.
 
Arrival at Gardens

Not knowing where or how we should proceed after we got off the cab. While walking I saw some people queueing up for the tram ride at the Information Counter and decided to join the queue, got our tickets and we boarded the tram. They call it the Garden Cruiser.

 

He was excited as it's his first visit there too...dunno what to anticipate



Some of the sceneries while riding on the cruiser

 We decided to make monkey faces

 

While we were on the cruiser, Isaiah commented loud enough that the driver heard him "nagging" that he wants to go onto the Super Tree. When we finally reached the stop, Isaiah was more than happy to hop off. (I think the driver was also more than happy to let us off...Isaiah too naggy..lol)

 

 

 Some of the views up there

 

 After going up the super tree...I am surprised Isaiah commented that he is hungry and would want to look for food....I am more than happy and quickly made our way to find a eating place....The Char Siew Noodle was good...

 

 

 

 While having our lunch, the sky was getting darker. I was worried that once it rain, we will not be able to get back to the Cruiser and I don't have a map or umbrella with me....did try to rush Isaiah to hurry up but was still not fast enough...It began pouring.....

 

I like this picture

 

I like him taking the initiative to problem solve with me when I tell him of the situation. He went around to look for a map when I told him that I didn't picked one up at the entrance and when I told him the cruiser might not come to pick us up...he said it's fine and let's try walking and see if we could get to the dome. He was patient with me as I was suffering from sciatic nerve problem, we walk, sit and talk along the way till we found the dome.

 

 

 

 

After taking several pictures of him. he insisted it should be his turn soon and he wants to take picture of me too...

 

 

 

Suddenly, I felt that my son is a big boy. Now not only can I do things for him ....He can do things for me too and he can do it well. Visitors in the park was amazed at him taking snap shots of the plants and me. They found him adorable and everyone smile as they walked by.

 

 

I was really enjoying the moment I spent with him. We talked about everything under the sun and though I was in pain, I managed to enjoy the day with him. Its really quality time spent.





Cherie Hearts Discoveryland

Cherie Hearts Discoveryland is the school that Isaiah attends. It is not a very big school but the people in it are big at heart. I feel safe and reassured when he is in school that he is under great care.

 

One might wonder what is the defination of good to me. Must it be a school that teach him how to read and write? Must it be a school to prepare him for Primary 1? I actually don't think I really read into that.  I just feel that the school must be a place where they feel confortable in and learning naturally will come in place. Of course, there will be a time whereby I will have to prep him but I don't think it is just the school's role to teach him solely on how to read and write. It will be my duty to guide him too.

 

Recently there was this open house organised by his school and i took some snap shots of the exhibition.

 

This term they are on food theme and they decided to come up with this idea of supermarket.

 

They learnt parts of chicken...Can you spot Isaiah's work?

 

 

They did collage of crabs for the seafood section. (This work Isaiah was not involved coz he had to stay away from school)

 

Angus Beef and Pork Belly were beautifully and realistically painted by the 4 years old. There were photos of showing children at work...

 

Salami and Sauages ..... Anyone????

The various cuts of beef.... 

I was happy to spot one of Isaiah's chinese work.

Some watermelons and sweet potatoes. Yes some of the work requires the teacher's help to finish it but there were lots of involvement of the children as well.

 

There were many more pictures which I had taken and many more exhibits to show but in the end decided not to...coz of "copyrights" of the teachers...lol...

I just need to blog today!

Recently there had been some changes at work. The company has a new CEO... a famous and well respected lady from the industry.

In a way I do see that with her expertise...we will be moving forward to a better future for the company and maybe even for staffs.  She had commented she will look into the staff benefits too. She had many plans and interesting ones too.

One of the changes that she is going to implement was to place a few of us who are ECCE trained back into centre to assist with the enrolment. When she did the announcement last week, I was excited and in a way looking forward to it. The other colleagues came out, feeling angry and was banging table saying that they want to resign. However while they were in the meeting today.. they were as meek as a mouse. When CEO prompt them to speak up, they just kept quiet. Instead, today I was the one who rejected where she was going to place me. I spoke up for myself and explained to her why it was not possible for me to take up that particular location. It is not only far but it will also implicate my family routine and logistics.

And during the meeting, the other three was out to impress her and kept boasting about their experience. I shot them down by telling them that I can never picked up as much years of experience as them for a fact that I am much younger. OOooohhh... It is definitely not because I am jealous or anything...but just felt extremely gross at the "enthusiasm" when they actually had none at all. They are so fake.

For whole of last year, there were no one to impress, so they were behaving themselves...but now they are back at it again....Awww!!!!....HOW I WISH THEY ARE NOT IN EXISTENCE!!!

Early childhood

I went for a training today and got a chance to meet up with other teachers from my organisation as well as from PCF. We had a little exchanged on what the Government's recent views on ECCE and these were what was concluded..."It is always so easy for them to propose and execute their ideals but they never understood what is on the ground and set realistic goals for educators to follow"...

 

Give children their childhood and not over teach

 

Oooo!!! Oh yes!!! we need to give children back their childhood. Well said!!! Achievable? You tell me, with all the streaming and PSLE... How can any parent coolly say that they are fine with all the streaming and PSLE and is alright if their child do not make it to the main stream? Almost everyone will start to look for the best childcare or Kindergarten to the ideal Primary School even when the child is still in the infancy stage and whatever the school cannot provide, they will send their child to Enrichment Classes.

 

Parents have also degenerated to not knowing what to do with their own children when they do no have a class to send their child to. I have heard comments from parents that they are actually making sure that the children are spending their time worthwhile.

Yes, nowadays Pri 1 & 2 have no exams...however, the government is not rectifying the problem. They are just delaying the process... at the end of the day the children still have to struggle to get to the school top few.

 

It had been drilled into everyone of us that people are the only resources that we have and we have to be the elite few. I had once read in Straits Time that Singapore has the most OCD cases in the world...we became a country of perfectionist and can withstand failure.  Therefore, these are the "must do" and "foolproof" method that most parents will follow just to make sure that their children do not loose out in future.

 

Here I am, kind of caught in between. I do not want do what most parents do (sending children to Enrichment Class) but at the same time I do question myself whether am I doing enough for my son. At the moment, I am still giving my son his well deserve childhood and only sent him for one Language class. Other than that I am exposing him through books and real life experiences and yes....Learning Through Play!!!!

Learning Through Play

As an Early Childhood Educator and parent myself, I know children learn best through play...Be it incidental play or playing with a purpose.

 

It is always easier to encourage parents to do so but I also understand they are not easily convinced. The "insecurity" that they have when they see their child are not writing as much as their peers from other school. Definition = more writing must be good, able to spell = smart.

 

There are many instances children can learn to read and spell....they learn to read signages when they supermarket or shopping...they can write on sand and not necessary on paper....they learn counting when they count how many steps they took when they go up and down the steps...they learn colours through the surrounding that they see....learning is EVERYWHERE!!!! When they help to set the table for dinner, they are doing one to one correspondence, when they wear shoes and socks they are learning about pairs..

 

All the parent need to do is just get the children more involved in their daily living and experience they will not need to pay money to Enrichment Centres to teach these concepts. But sad to say, most parents are just relying on school to teach...

 

Higher Trained Teachers

Government & Parents heavily stressed that to bring up the quality of ECCE teachers, they must all further go training, it is also a path which I agree that most of us must take in order to improve ourselves and keep abreast of all issue pertaining to children's development.

 

However, the government must also remember that it is NOT necessary that all degree trained teacher equates to GOOD teacher with Passion and does what is right for the children.

 

We are unlike other industries, when graduated they just handle issues and asked for high pay. We handle tender lives and plays an important role in moulding them and allowing them to grow up in the right path. Its life we manage. My job in auditing allowed me to meet so many qualified teachers (on paper) doing worst than a teacher who does not have the paper qualification but what she does can bring to shame for those who had.

 

In the market now, there are really a lot of teachers with qualification but no experience and yet asking for $3k and above. They have no passion, they are simply going through the motion of doing and they could not even do the basic of being reflective on their daily work. They only complained at each basic request from us and kept saying that it is not possible to achieve.

 

I know of a few teachers who fell through the gap of not having paper qualifications and due to some reason they do not have the training path. They are doing so much for the children and yet not being recognised. I feel for the children in losing such dedicated and capable teachers. I really hope the government who is eagerly trying to meet in being the world best....do not overlooked these dedicated teachers. There are really more crappy teachers in the industry and those being able to work.... 

 

At the end of the day, it's the Education system that need to change so that Parents' mindset will change. By adding more things to do for the staffs is not exactly good when they can't even manage the basics. Keep asking staffs to go for studies is also not necessary be the only way to bring or keep good teachers in the market. Set goals that are achievable and not blindly follow other country.