Can you imagine what it is like to be seating quietly in a class for hours on end? Oops I forgot. My sincere apologies, most of us went through that when we were in school. I did too,

All too often today, this classroom “management” approach of expecting students to be quiet is still being practised. Students are expected to seat still, facing their teacher who invariably would be at the front almost hugging the white board, be quiet and listen attentively.

Is this a classroom full of live human students or dog training school (I often wonder if dog training school is actually better)? Is a a quiet classroom good for the learners in the class? By learners I mean both the the students and the teachers.

In my view, a quiet classroom is a reflection of the teacher’s lack of ability to manage the class in a more dynamic way. Management of the class is by enforced stillness.  Have such teachers stopped to ask themselves if making students keep still in the classroom a natural thing for young children or even teenagers to do? Have they ever stopped to ask if they, the teachers themselves, have enjoyed it when they were students themselves? Even in passenger aircraft today, they want passengers to move around to ensure blood circulation. Ever wonder what happens to brains starved of oxygen due to lack of blood circulation that is due to keeping still in the classrooms?

Such classrooms only benefit the teachers whose main goal is the teaching of unquestioned obedience. Marshall McLuhan has pointed out that in such a classroom, where information flows in one direction only, what is learnt is not the information that is being “transmitted” by the teacher but what the students are allowed to do. Since they are allowed to only sit and listen they will then only learn unquestioned authority.

In a quiet classroom, students are likely to be passive learners if they learn at all. All that energy and curiosity that exist in the young bodies and minds is strangely channeled to learn to be still. The mind slows down to the barest level of activity as the teacher drones on. The stillness is only interrupted when the teacher has a question and the mind is expected suddenly to be at its best to answer the question. When are the students encouraged to reflect and think? When are the students encouraged to construct meaning for themselves about what they are supposed to be learning?

But unfortunately, for many, never mind all these because, to quote Mr. Gradgrind from Charles Dickens’ Hard Times:

Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts; nothing else will ever be of any service to them.

For many, the quiet classroom is usually not a place for noble educational goals. The classroom is quiet usually because the teachers want to cover the syllabus for the examinations. Any interruption is frowned upon because it slows down the teachers and the teacher will not be able to cover the syllabus in time. There is a lot to teach.

So in a  quiet classroom, learning is also not a social event. Students do not learn to work together. Students do not get the chance to sound off each other and learn from one another. Everyone is expected to be deep in his private thought. In the real world does learning take place in this manner? Yet, students expected to become team players at the workplace when they leave school. In the quiet classroom, it is everyone for himself.

Quite a few of you came to my post, “A rose-tinted view of Singapore’s education system”, from a link that had this comment:
“Just because many enrolled in extra tuition doesn’t necessarily diminishes contributions made by teachers in schools.”

I think the comment is off the mark. If he had just bothered to read carefully, the point I was making was that too much credit has been given to the Singapore school system by far-away foreign observers.

Our teachers are hard-working. Quite a few are too hard-working for their own good. Some time ago the local paper, The Straits Times reported that teachers made up the largest group of professionals who visited the local Institute of Mental Health (and I am not even suggesting that they are lunatics because of this). The local teachers’ union when asked if teachers were coping well with the work load would always claim that their members were coping well despite this piece of evidence, not to mention that many of the older teachers trying to get out of teaching through “early retirement” on medical grounds. The latter is another open secret of the Singapore education system. So our teachers do work hard.

But in all honesty I think the school system in Singapore is unable to cope with the high stakes exams as it is now without all these extra-school “assistance” like private tuition. The school hours have also been extended yet there are still lots of extra classes. Why is there a need for this if the system is so good or if there is sufficient time? Talk to teachers and they will tell you that they are always in a mad rush “to complete the syllabus in time for the examinations”. Why must learning and teaching be in a rush? In such a “rushed” situation, do they really teach conceptual understanding properly? The focus in our schools is not the mastery of such things; it is the mastery of the examination questions that is sought. Now if these are not evidence of an overloaded, unrealistic exam-oriented syllabus, then I don’t know what is.

Do we want to own up that teachers and students “officially” work longer than the official school hours designated for lessons that we want to tell to our foreign audience. I know of schools where principals close a blind eye to teachers carrying out “illegal” classes on Saturdays in school even though Saturdays are supposed to be off for teachers and students. That would be more honest. And if we do that would our system look as “great” in the eyes of foreign observers? Our education system is pretty good. But let us not go overboard with its achievements.

In the Middle Ages, what kept alchemists busy was the elusive search for the process  to create gold. The ancient Greeks had it much easier, with fables of King Midas and his Golden Touch. Today, many schools, including schools in Indonesia, are also looking for their version of the Midas Touch, a quick surefire way of creating gold. Privately-owned schools do have the goal of making financial surpluses at the end of each year. This is perfectly acceptable.

The alchemist and the search for gold

However, in their rush to make profits, some schools in Indonesia very quickly tag themselves on to foreign school models with foreign examinations or highlighting the presence of computer labs in the schools. They would look for administrative systems from abroad. Many of such schools in Indonesia try to follow the model in Singapore. But what remains key to ensure good academic excellence is often overlooked because they are harder to achieve and it takes a little more time than quick-fix measures.

The key area that all schools must look into is the quality of the teachers. Teachers define the quality of teaching that takes place in a school. It is not the curriculum or syllabus. Good teachers can more than make up for a poor curriculum. Curricula and syllabi can never fire the imagination of students while good teachers can. Good teachers can make lessons seem easy. The latest ICT hardware will not make much of a difference to the learning in school because it is only useful for education in the hands of skilled teachers.

Schools in Indonesia that rush to call themselves Sekolah Berstandar internasional (SBI) or “schools of international standards”, without paying much attention to teacher quality through investment in good teachers and their training, are deluding the parents who send their children to such schools, and themselves in the long run. This is especially true since the majority of teachers teaching in Indonesian schools do not have proper teaching qualifications. This includes the expatriates who teach there too. The lack of attention to teacher quality will eventually show. Parents and school administrators cannot afford to let this happen because the ones who will bear the brunt of poor quality teaching are the students.

To state the obvious, teaching is done by teachers, not good administration, nor a bank of computers on its own nor an international curriculum or international examinations. There is no Midas Touch in teaching. There are no quick fixes. What is required is good quality teaching by well-trained and highly motivated teachers.