还是搞不懂

右手把榴莲往嘴里塞，

为什么洗了手之后有留下榴莲气息的却是左手嘞？

pointless

我很害怕的事终于发生了，

车子后面的 brakelights 坏了。

I'm super wary of the distances between 小红 and other cars behind it now.

pictures from this past week.

#1 8.30 tutorial

  

#2 qiqi is an angry bird

#3 with our 'baby'

#4 Friday night with Jenny.

#5 Crepe - roasted chicken with bacon and creamy mushroom sauce 

#6 Morel mushroom pasta

#7 Violette

#8 Salted caramel religieuse

Have been meaning to try out some of the pretty-looking cakes at Antoinette for some time now (the logo somewhat reminds me of Laduree), and I finally did on Friday. Visited the branch at Mandarin on Friday with Jenny and tried some of the mains as well as the cakes. Not particularly impressed with my crepe, though I did enjoy the cakes very much.

Had a wonderful potluck dinner at Siao's on Saturday with the primary school clique, and overdosed on Nutella because I didn't want to drink any alcohol as forfeit.

Was a little stressed while doing projects this past week so I painted some nails to relieve some of that stress a little.

#9

#10

Only two times this week, not much at all :x

Maths these days

Maths tutorials have been a whole lot of fun so far; my tutors have been most willing to share their experiences. We learnt many new teaching methods/strategies to introduce the same old math topics to students in more engaging ways and I'm really looking forward to putting all these strategies to use soon.

Before I go any further, I just want to say that the learning of mathematics these days is vastly different from what we were exposed to in the past; instead of focusing as much on rote memorization (that was very much how we learnt about maths back then, wasn't it?), the focus is now on the development of students' process skills which will come in useful in problem-solving. Instead of learning mathematics in an isolated contexts, students are now exposed to problems that are more relatable to their daily lives so that learning will become much more meaningful for them.

Also, instead of diving head-first into abstract representations of mathematical concepts these days, teachers let students play and explore with 'concrete' math-learning materials (that's where the fun begins) before using pictures to represent them and finally moving on to the abstract representation.

Here are some of the 'concrete' materials that we've been learning to make use of in our tutorials:

DIY unit-cube and cuboids that I used for one of my micro-teaching sessions; making 2D representations of 3D-models on isometric dot paper (P5).

Tangram pieces in the shape of a crane; something that we were required to fold when Grandfather Tang's story was being read (P2). 

Tangram square. 

Coloured counters to reveal patterns when counting.

Coloured wooden blocks; surface area.

3 corners from the same triangle; proof that interior angles of a triangle add up to 180degrees.

Geometric strips; teaching properties of figures (e.g. parallelogram, rhombus, etc)

There are more, but I think the ones that I've shown up there are enough to prove my point.

The other point of this entry is really for me to rant.

I'm getting increasingly irritable by some of the comments that people make about primary school mathematics like "maths problems are getting too difficult these days, I only learnt this in primary (insert appropriate level) back then", or "workbooks like to make things complicated for simple calculations; e.g. add in redundant steps, it's so confusing!", or "don't know if the kids are being tested on their English abilities or mathematical understanding"; people who have not been pedagogically-trained but think they know better.

Debunking these comments:

"maths problems are getting too difficult these days, I only learnt this in primary (insert appropriate level) back then"

以前警察穿短裤.

I'm sorry that you think math problems are getting tougher (it's true, at least for people like me who've gone through the older ways of learning) these days but times have changed (and so has the syllabus; not all though) and we need to keep up with these changes - that's the politically correct thing to say, of course. In order to keep up with the global pace and develop our students into critical and creative young people able to generate alternative solutions for an old problem instead of following the previous solution blindly (i.e. do for the sake of doing, without understanding), we cannot continue with the old rote memorization way of learning where students just do drill-and-practice sums all the time. 

These 'difficult' problems have been identified by many education researchers as useful in helping young students develop essential thinking and processing skills that will greatly aid them in problem-solving, and have not been presented to students just because teachers enjoy watching students (and parents too, for this matter) stumble on them.

"workbooks like to make things complicated for simple calculations; e.g. add in redundant steps, it's so confusing!"

Build the foundation/basis for more advanced thinking in children. Over the course of our education, we have come to become so good with the basics (or at least we think we are) and have absolutely no problems with simple operations (e.g. addition, subtraction, etc). Process of learning/acquisition may seem to have come very naturally to us, but I can assure you otherwise; it came along together with the countless drill-and-practice exercises that we've completed back then. Forget that students thinking and our thinking (as adults) are at very different levels/stages, in terms of processing capabilities, and we assume that they think the same way as we do. But that is not the case. They need lots of scaffolding (step-by-step instructions/guide) to progress from one level to the next. We see redundant steps in workbooks, children see a step-by-step guide. 

Why not simply use the rote memorization method, it worked okay for us, so it must work okay for the kids these days too, you may say. Because in the past, it was mainly just doing without understanding. Example, can you explain why must we 'bring' the '3' up to '7' when we do our working for 76 X 6? Are you thinking something along the line of "because that's how I've always been doing it" or "because that was what I was taught?" Not understanding, blindly following. The answer that I was looking for should actually be related to the concept of Place Values and Regrouping. 

Spend more time now to spend less time in future.

The steps are not redundant; can present to students alternative ways of deriving a solution, and over time, students will learn to judge for themselves which are the most efficient/effective ones.

"don't know if the kids are being tested on their English abilities or mathematical understanding"

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I definitely agree that language used in problems posed to students should be within their language competencies so that they are able to understand what the question/problem is talking about. On the other, I do not seem any harm in stretching our students slightly beyond their abilities across the curriculum because learning should not take place in isolation, i.e. what is learnt in English class should not just be relevant during English lessons, but should come in useful in subjects across the curriculum. It really does make a good opportunity for teachers to teach students new vocabulary. That said, I absolutely do not agree with using language in maths problems to 'trick' students; or using it to have the same effect for other subjects within the curriculum. 

The worst thing parents/tutors can do is to tell children that "these steps are stupid/useless" and insist on your way of doing things. Here we are, trying so hard to build up positive attitudes towards mathematics in children and by saying the negative things you do about math teaching and learning, you've just successfully destroyed whatever we've tried to construct. 

And yes, it makes me very upset :(

End of rant.

平时不烧香，临时抱佛脚

-_-"

Probably a tad too early to say this, since I'll only be going for my final practicum in July, but I really can't wait to start teaching!

十五暝

今天是元宵节，你吃汤圆了没有？

We had our annual CNY gathering at JM's place some 2 weeks back, a night before he took off to Eindhoven for his exchange programme. We had a very filling steamboat dinner with his family and a rather fulfilling (at least for me lah) gambling and drinking session after. 

#1 Ah Ong, the gambler.

#2 JM, the designer.

#3 ZL, the accountant-to-be.

btw, look at the enormous cards in her hands! 

#4 Boss, the Chemistry/Maths teacher

#5 Drinking game where JM was really unlucky lol

#6 Happy birthday Ah Ong! Congratulations on completing your FYP!

#7 We were kinda high by this time of the night.

#8 See what Kahlua and beer does to Boss...

#9 I hope he's enjoying the cold weather on the other side of the globe now

#10 I got the kitty frame from Taipei for about S$10, which I thought was quite expensive

#11 Nerdy frames ftw!

#12 The lot this time round minus Ah Ong and RL.

After countless rounds of ban luck and si gi, we went on to mahjong. It'll probably only be 6 months later before we can sit down together with JM again so... absolutely no apologies for keeping him up till 7 next morning.

I seem to be quite lucky in mahjong this year, concluding from the past few rounds I've played #pleasedontletmejinxit

Mumsy read the papers last night and there was a snippet stating that it's possible to make eggs stand on 立春, so we tried doing just that after dinner and... tadah!

#13 Number grid courtesy of my 4D-crazy dad; 7859, good stuff must share :p

speaking of which... Mumsy, Dad and YF won some money (3 + 1) for the $10 miliion draw a few nights ago. I must have been out when the god of fortune decide to pay us a visit :( 

Anyway, I just hope that it'll be a great dragon year ahead for everyone! Let's huat together :)

Daring to be different

Today, I sat in for an enrichment class for some kindergarten children and there was a component of the lesson where the 5 year-olds had to come up to share with the class what they'd like to be in future. As the school made use of content from a standard ICT lesson package, there were pictures of people in different occupations shown on the interactive whiteboard; including that of a scientist, a teacher, an astronaut, a doctor, and some other occupations that are well sought after. The kids had to go up to the board and tap on the occupation of their choice so that a picture elaborating that job would be shown; I believe some of the children didn't really know what was going on and so, just tapped on the same choices that their classmates made.

There were a couple of kids who went up to say that they wanted to be teachers; but they couldn't really justify what was it about teaching that they like, and got away with killer innocent smiles on their faces. And a couple of other kids who wanted to be scientists and astronauts too; but all of whom couldn't provide any reason for their choice. I know what you're thinking, that I'm probably expecting too much from a bunch of 5 year olds. And that was exactly what I was thinking at that moment too, maybe I should just cut them some slack. After all, some of them are not even 5.

I continued to think that way until this little girl, who was last to come up, spoke. She told the teacher that she didn't want to make use of the interactive whiteboard; we thought that she might be a little shy to come up to tap on her choice, but she clarified that her choice was not on the board. Wow. How's that for knowing exactly what she wants?

"I want to be a fish!" she exclaimed. I couldn't help but let out a chuckle for her most unexpected choice, not because I thought her answer was ridiculous, but because it was most adorable. Without much prompting, she went on to explain that "I want to be a fish because I want to/can swim very well". How awesome is this kid? I had 2 thumbs up for her in my mind; one for having a mind of her own and not just following her classmates blindly, and two, for her daring to be different and not being afraid of classmates laughing at her choice.

I'm not going to go into how she may not have experienced enough failures in life or may not have had enough people laughing at her unexpected and different choices, but I'm just going to say thank you, little fish girl, for reminding me of some of the most important, but easily forgotten lessons in life.

In the jungle

After our idyllic stay at Danau Toba, we headed up north to Bukit Lawang, a "small tourist village at the bank of Bahorok River in North Sumatra" (wiki) to do a jungle trek. 

#1 Rainforest - A simple home-stay run by the lovely Nora.

#2 Delicious watermelon juice to wean off the heat.

#3 A fast flowing Bahorok River right next to our backyard!

#4 Chrysanthemum in bloom

#5 'Lobby' at Nora's.

#6 These colourful paintings are for sale

#7 A friendly feline at Nora's; turned out that one of my travel companions is scared to death of them.

We did 2-day-1-night trek with some local guides at Gunung Leuser National Park (where an orang utan sanctuary is located) in the hope that we'd be able to catch a glimpse of our shy, red-haired cousins. 

#8 Didn't have to wait too long for our first sighting. 

#9 Was quite excited to spot such a colourful snake in the wild

#10 And another orang utan. They appeared to be doing quite well in the sanctuary; we came across quite a number of them during our trek.

#11 Gibbon, mohawk style.

#12

#13 Soft-shelled turtle. This is one funny-looking fellow who'd swim upstream furiously when it smells/detects food in the water.

#14 Heading for lunch

#15 Our friendly guides preparing fruits and lunch; loved how they arranged the oranges and pineapples.

#16 Lunch by a stream; a well-needed break to catch my breath. 

#17 2-in-1 :)

#18 Love the way the baby is clinging on to the mother's body

We ended half a day of trekking at a campsite where some more guides were already preparing our dinner. We took a dip in the cool waters of a nearby waterfall to wash off all that sweat from our bodies, and also, to be honest, get out of the ways of our guides who were busy cooking.

#19 Friendly monitor lizard who stopped by

#20 Dinner in the making.

#21 'Million star hotel'; our sleeping quarters for the night. 

#22 Masak masak toy cups from which we had some hot tea before dinner was served

#23 One of the few simple and delicious dishes that was served; this should be tempeh

#24

#25 Chicken curry

It rained briefly later in the evening, so we played Shithead and some other card games to pass the time, and I spotted my very first fireflies much later in the night too. Next morning, we woke up to find some unexpected visitors...

#26 Some very naughty macaques decided to pay us a visit 

#27 They must be pretty used to having visitors in the forests since they were totally not shy at all

#28 That's our clothesline btw.

I decided to take a rubber raft back to our home-stay, and we walked for about 30 minutes to reach the starting point of the raft ride. Along the way, we had to wade through hip-deep water with strong under currents to get across to the other side of the river; that was quite an experience.

#29 Some of the most beautiful butterflies that I've seen

#30 Chanced upon them as we made our way to the raft ride start; they remind me of butterfly magnets that Mumsy used to buy for our fridge some 15 over years ago. 

#31 The place where we got on to our rubber rafts. It was a 30-minute ride back to Nora's, and I'm glad that I went for it because it's such a different experience from the trek.

This should be the second time I did a trek while on holiday and though it got really tiring at times, looking at these pictures and recalling all the funny episodes that took place while we were getting badly bitten by the commando mosquitoes in the rainforest, I suppose I might just do something like that again in the future?

Today marks a year since I got back from Medan; I remember meeting up with KH straight after landing in Hong Kong on CNY eve so that we could visit a CNY night market. I had my first 麥芽餅 that night, and called Mumsy to wish her a prosperous new year when the clock struck 12 midnight; it's amazing how quickly time flew past and a year is over just like that. 

And that... sort of sums up this long-overdue entry.