Before teachers and students alike get angry with me with the above, let me explain what I have in mind. Yes, I am going to suggest lengthening the annual academic calendar of schools in Singapore. But there is one very important caveat before I will agree to such a step. I propose that if schools (read teachers too) are willing to discard the written examination approach and teachers are allowed the freedom to allow time for their students to be able to explore what they learn meaningfully and deeply, with an emphasis on deep understanding and learning for transfer, then I say lengthen the school academic calender. Consider even banishing the school holidays.

I am inclined to believe that if schools decide that learning is to be done in this manner, students and teachers will find the teaching and learning more meaningful. It will not be the daily repetitive chore of the Singapore school sweat shop that students and teachers undergo. Teaching and learning would find new meaning and purpose. This alone, I believe, will inspire teachers and students alike to want to be in school. It becomes less of just mundane work.

Students can be given that independence to be real learners rather than just licking whatever that has been dished out to them or in many cases, rejecting what has been offered. Learning can be more in tune with the natural curiosity of students. When the task is consistent with nature, then it is not work but to be in a state of “flow”. The same will apply to the teachers. For students, it also means that they will not be treated like individuals with differing learning needs as opposed to the mass assembly line approach currently used.

Teachers will no longer find themselves as the Nuffield Review described, that is, as mere “curriculum deliverers” rather than “curriculum directors and developers”. Ownership of teaching goes back to the teachers. If that is not motivation for teachers then I do not know what is. It is telling the teachers that they are the professionals. It is telling the teachers that they are the ones who know their students best. It is reminding the teachers and reaffirming that they are the ones who know best what suits their students. It is also about humanizing a profession that has been reduced to concern only for high stakes examinations performance.

So extend the school calendar. But do so only if meaningful teaching and learning is encouraged and supported as the main activity of this place called school.

I have been a big fan of mind mapping and I used to teach my classes how to mind map. Many schools in Singapore do get their students to learn mind mapping through external agencies. But usually these efforts to teach mind mapping go to waste because the teachers in the school very rarely follow-up upon the training by not insisting that students make their own mind maps of what they have learned. Teachers even sabotaged these efforts by providing students with teacher-prepared notes.

Perhaps we can all gain by watching this video where the originator of mind maps himself, Tony Buzan, explain the thinking that goes on behind the use of a mind map. Enjoy.

“The increased central control of education brings with it the need for a management perspective, and language of performance management — for example, levers and drivers of change, and public service agreements as a basis of funding. The consumer or client replaces the learner. The curriculum is delivered. Stakeholders shape the aims. Aims are spelt out in terms of targets. Audits measure success defined in terms of hitting targets. Cuts in resources are euphemistically called ‘efficiency gains’. Education becomes that package of activities (or inputs) largely determined by government.”

- The Nuffield Review (2009), Britain

Teachers in Singapore will be familiar with the edu-babble that is quoted above. However, how many of them realize that the schools have been run like bureaucracies rather than like educational institutions? I have mentioned in some of my posts about schools being run mainly from an administrative convenience point of view. How the teaching and learning is done is very much defined by the bureaucratic needs of the school system. Teach to the test or examinations. Why? Because the test or examinations is the simplest way of denoting how much is learned by someone. The numbers will connote progress or retardation in learning. As if the assessment of learning is such a simple thing.

Accompanying this is the rise in edu-babble as highlighted by the Nuffield Report. In Singapore schools, terms like “KPIs”, “targets”, “stakeholders”,” customers” and “bottom lines” have become common and makes the reflective teacher wonder whether he is in a school or a factory. As the edu-babble increases so does the confusion as to what education is all about. As the report further highlights:

“As the language of performance and management has advanced, so we have lost a language of education which recognises the intrinsic value of pursuing certain sorts of questions, of trying to make sense of reality, of seeking understanding, of exploring through literature and the arts what it means to be human.”

There is a loss of meaning in this transition from education to management. There is a dehumanizing effect even. Professor Richard Pring, one of those responsible for the report, said:

“We are losing the tradition of teachers being curriculum directors and developers — instead they’re curriculum deliverers. It’s almost as though they have little robots in front of them and they have to fill their minds, rather than engage with them.”

Mary Boustead, from the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said:

“We call it edu-babble. It completely denudes education from being a human and social act.”