Random Talking..

Life has been busy since my last post. Doing this and that and coming home late. Since age has been catching up with me, I now work and think slow. Forgetfulness is the norm. I have to recount the cup of rice I'm going to cook and simple multiplications is an arduous task. I have to write my next day lesson plans a few hours after I finished all my classes when the memory of them are still fresh. My multi-tasking skill is not a skill now so please do not  interrupt me when I'm doing things. Feel like my brain space getting smaller and constricted, giving me headaches. And I seldom get headaches before. Ha ha ha.

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I have finished marking the students KKG and walao..as is the norm, only a class out of my 6 classes got Code 1. Code 3 is common and maybe 2 classes, rounded, got code 4 and a very few, Code 5. Again, the quality of work is declining as it was the previous year. Copycats thrived although being warned many times. The public has complained about the exam-oriented education system being focused on rote learning. We do have that but we also have Project Based Learning in the form of coursework's which are open book learning. This assesses the students' skills in simple research, observation, thinking and report writing. However, the students and perhaps the parents too, don't understand its importance leading to perceptions like, 'it's not included in the PMR marks, so no need to do it well la.. right teacher?'
Wrong.

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Now we have PBS which is a new kind of assessment to gauge students knowledge and understanding of their subject matter. No national major examination starting in 2014, meaning no more PMR. Rote learning is no more. The students are happy but the teachers, being new with it, found it difficult and time consuming.  My advice is, try it first, go along with it, try to devise methods and strategies to make life easier and then evaluate. Changes are unavoidable and we must change to accommodate the changes in...whatever. He he. For further reading, click here.