Congratulations: And Look forward

A Special notes to Sigma graduates who sat for the SPM 2011: Congratulations for having achieved excellence in the recently released result. Many As and A pluses were produced, it is indeed our joy and pride for having journeyed together with you in the past years putting in effort together to work through the challenges in physics, chemistry and mathematics.

Despite the undeniable fact them some of the higher expectations of A pluses were not met. The personal excellence was achieved. To us this is much more important than the others.

Regardless of the result, we urge all alumni to look forward with your plans to pursue your dreams. Remember your effort had brought you this far, more effort will pay in future.

To end this short short note we quote from Otto Scharmer's << Theory U>> where the grandfather encouraged the father after a disastrous fire destroyed all the family's hard work for many years " Kopf hoch, mein Jungen, blick nach vorn!"-"Keep your head up, my boy,look forward"

Renovation Done! Open Days Dec 31,Jan1 & 2

We have completed our renovation.
The flooring is given a new and brighter look.
We are ready for new registration and enrollment.
Open Days would be held from Dec 31, Jan 1 and Jan 2 from 9 am to 4 pm.

Welcome!

We are all the more committed to provide better service for your tuition need.
For the past 3 years we have empowered lives and helped discovered potential.
We desire to continue with new fervent and zeal ; your achievement is our greatest joy!

Congratulations to Our PMR students who have done well.

Empowering Lives, Discovering Potentials

Practice make Perfect!

A few days ago, I was sharing the method of solving maxima and minima problems with my students. I discovered that they are very good at following a fixed method of solving. I was relating this to the instruction following environment that the current Z-generation is being brought up with. They are bombarded constantly with a plethora of instruction followings in facebooking, gaming etc.
The application problem is something that is a challenge for most. However, some of them could solve by looking at similar pattern. There are a handful who could think through the problem and come out with innovative solutions, too!
Interestingly, the students that solve more problem are progressing despite the difficulty of the problem. The fast learner that solve less problems are at equal with the those average learner that solve a lot of problem. Perhaps, practice make perfect is true for every skill, mathematics is just another skill!
On the other hand I found another group of students who has no confidence at all in solving problem. These tend to refer to solutions of others and  be a copycat. They are found to be hardly progressing in they learning.
I strongly encourage these group of students to try solving problem on their own without relying on solutions of others. Hopefully that will help them to progress better....

I have heard of retirees that stop active thinking  or working developed Alzheimer and soon afterward  depart their earthly life.On the contrary I knew quite a few uncles and aunties who keep themselves involved in various organisations and voluntary work maintain their mental alertness and stay healthy.

It seems to me that, relating these two cases of students and retirees,the more we use our skills, be it mental or otherwise the better we are at it. Moreover, not using the skills acquired will fasten the pace of aging! Truly the adage of practice make perfect has a lot of sense!

Value and Purpose

Once I heard a story about what is like in afterlife. Everyone is given a pair of long chopsticks upon entering the netherworld. There are endless flowing of food for everyone everywhere. However, the chopsticks are rather too long to be practical. And, he food could only be picked with the chopsticks alone.

All the souls are welcome into this great banquet hall. No sooner than entering, the souls are somehow divided into two groups. One group is happily feeding each other with the long chopsticks, while another trying in vain for eternity to feed themselves!

That differentiates Heaven and Hell; everyone is invited for Heaven, but some turn it into Hell!

We are human that live in community, serving each other is the key to live happily! Somehow, this important value is getting diluted more and more. It is implied in various ways that the overemphasis is given to self rather than the contrary.

I hope educators are getting this important value across to our young minds that will build the future!

Riot in UK

We were impressed by stories related from our English teachers about true behaviour of an Englishman. How a true gentlemen hailed from the cultured British Empire and good upbringing shall be. Recently, there happened in the nation of gentlemen incidences of riot- even resulted in several mob attach and deaths!

What has gone wrong? Supposed gentlemen are all morphed into barbarian?

After much deliberation by the British authorities; it is about the situation of the Y- generation.

One of the changes that the British society has gone through and experienced by the so called Y- generations-a high percentage of this generation come from families that are dysfunctional.They have experienced some forms of negligence in their early upbringing.

The dysfunctional family comes in many manifestations. Single parent, both parents are not giving due disciplining or transmitting values to the children. Some implied the norm of family has gone wrong. Traditionally children are raised within a family. Nowadays, a baby could be born and abandoned by the biological mother. A child might experience complex changes in the family structure due to divorces and remarriages. The old fashioned " til death shall we part" no longer holds!

The fact that these Y- generation youngster are abandoned/ orphaned in the cyberspace has imbued them with the amazed power of IT. Hence they are really very savvy at it. The spread of riot through many localities is helped by the borderless cyberspace!

On one hand, we could ponder on how to bring our children up with proper values and constant vigilance, on the other hand if and only if cyberspace is used to spread goodwill; justice and peace shall prevail....truly pacem in terris

As educators, the approach you take in teaching plays a role in effectively imparting knowledge to the students.

I have been switching piano teachers for my children. mainly seeking a better teacher-child match for learning effectiveness. It was an interesting journey to discover many great piano teachers in the community. It is the teacher-student matching is important for better progress. This holds true in any other learning context.

To understand your own approach there is a free inventory checking on your teaching philosophy ( what you believe); your intention (what you plan to do in teaching) and the actual way you teach (actual practice in delivering lesson). The site also comes with explanation on the outcome of your evaluation. Check it out:

http://teachingperspectives.com/html/tpi_frames.htm