teacher tells student to get tuition: what's really happening? KTM (in the comments on my inaugural SA post) brought this ST forum letter to my attention. The parent was writing in to complain that the school recommended his/her son to get private tuition because he "needs more help". The parent, well aware that private tuition is not cheap, is livid that that is the solution given by the school, supposedly the main provider of education. At first I thought excuse me, are you from ITE? I've stopped blogging completely in recent months, but the remarks by the principal to her Sec 5 students 2 weeks ago piqued my interest, and I started reading what some people were blogging about this incident. BL gave a good overview of the different issues involved, and Mollymeek has an interesting commentary on what this reflects about our society. It is also interesting to note that two a quiet contemplation I've been inactive for a while, mainly because I have been (and currently still am) very busy. I haven't been able to read most of the stuff that's going on, but there have been two clear issues which seem to dominate the plogosphere recently. The first is Myanmar. I currently can't make up my mind about Myanmar, and thus I won't blog about it. The second is the call for repeal of 377A. This the first degree: a publication on scholarships i was quite surprised to receive a copy of "the first degree" today, together with today's edition of TODAY. [siah lah, there are 3 "today"s in the last sentence...] it caught my attention because the girl on the cover looked like sun yanzi for a moment, but actually it was a Mrs Leong-Ho Hil May, a MOE post-graduate scholarship holder. according to the color-printed guide (on page 35), "the not unreasonable to ask otto fong to take down letter I'm tight for time, but I feel really inclined to write something short about all this furor going on about Otto Fong, and his taking down of his open letter. I've been trying to find the official MOE press release about this incident but failed to locate it [can somebody help me?]. I read an excerpt of the press release on a comment in an article on TOC, but that article has been deleted (in some updates i do have some ideas i want to play with, but i'm currently swamped with work (including 2 music performances in september), and i doubt that i'll have the time to blog a proper post until october or so. in the meantime, a few quick updates: 1) Intelligent Singaporean has closed down. i have been thinking what to say about this, but i am unable to come up with anything appropriate. InSpir3d's thoust art n00b hence thou shalt not blog (part 2) In all honesty, when I wrote Part 1, I wasn't too sure what I wanted to write in the Part 2. After thinking about it and after a discussion with dansong, I realized that this is a complicated and not at all a straightforward issue. I am still going to present my thoughts, and I apologize if one finds them haphazard or incoherent. Criticism 1: Aaron's article is flawed in many ways. Criticism 2: thoust art n00b hence thou shalt not blog (part 1) My good friend, Aaron, has recently joined the ranks of Singapore Angle, and in his debut article as an SA writer he wrote about health care economics. Aaron's article has been heavily criticized. I know nuts about health care, so I can't comment on that, but what I found rather interesting were a series of comments saying that since Aaron does not possess enough expertise in the area, he should (for own reference) significant events in past 3 months I went on a 3 month hiatus from May to July, and during that time I hardly read anything from the blogosphere. This article is an attempt to catalogue the significant events that during my time of absence for my own reference, as well as to comment briefly on each event. If I missed any events which you think are significant, do let me know and I'll fill it in. 1) Concern over State of the neutral and objective (part 1) In the recent interview of Ephraim Loy by TOC (very interesting in its own right), this comment by Sarek_home drew my attention: “An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.” Mahatma Ghandi Fighting “Partisan” organisations with “Partisan” organisations will blind the society collectively with partisan also. We need to set an example and evolve beyond partisan politic. Readers who distaste MSM congratulations aaron & peiying!!! =) the food was quite good. but you never introduce me to any char bors....=( 10 blogs i don't (like to) read isn't making a list of links so fun? and there's no better way to make a comeback than by making enemies. =P before i list the blogs that i don't like, it is important to note that just because i don't like them doesn't mean that i am discouraging you to read them. very often, my dislike for certain blog has got to do with my own personal tastes and preferences, and little to do with the actual i not botak (purple) i have this bad habit. when i meet someone for the first time (as experienced by some of you), i like to ask: "how old do you think i am?". not wanting to be rude, most people tend give a generous estimate, "30?". i would then tell them my real age (when i meet bloggers, i sometimes also add that i'm the same age as aaron), and then get a kick out of seeing their reactions. i've been told this unfinished projects at the behest of my good friend aaron, i dropped by the blogosphere today to take a look at the current commotion going on about university admissions, where KTM and Bart, two of my favourite bloggers, had made significant contributions. aaron also notified me of the (rather nice) eulogy that Ned Stark had written for me. as a result, i had been sufficiently motivated to un-retire (not that i was tv irony i just saw something on tv so amusing i just had to blog about it. i'm currently watching "i not stupid", one of my favorite movies, currently showing on the 10pm-midnight slot on channel 8. in the movie, there was this scene where Jack Neo and his colleagues, who work in the advertising industry, complain about how their proposals get rejected for "inappropriate language" such as "don't play music break some of you might know that i am a musician. i have a concert coming up in july, and most likely i will be very busy preparing and practising for that concert, so i doubt if i'll have much time to blog until then. contact me personally if you would like more info about my concert. moving pebbles [This is a much belated tribute to Kitana. It took longer than expected to come out because I had to scrap a previous few versions that I didn't quite like.] [On terminology. "Plogosphere" refers to the subset of the blogosphere which talks about local social, political and economic issues. See here for more details.] I can't make a difference. This is a not uncommon sentiment in the freedom writers and stressed teachers i have been reading this post by stressed teacher (on the movie "freedom writers"), and the exchange between GomuGomu and yanjie on the comments thread. i have a few fragmented thoughts to share after thinking about what was said: stressed teacher compared the job of teacher to that of ministers (in view of the recent salary raise; not the first time). i feel ambivalent about such a comparison. 10 more thoughts on the ministerial pay hike Much has been already been said about the issue, but as I read through the blogs, they all seem to make the same points over and over again. Here are 10 thoughts (not all original) that are perhaps, not so commonly found in other blogs: 1) Progress or Regress? Like Aaron and KTM, I found the various issues raised to be unoriginal, recycled and boring. Blogs all say the same thing until I welcome to the fold: you are in hostile territory recently, there has been some "spamming" going around the plogosphere on posts related to ministerial salaries (Dr Huang, Ben, Kitana, Lucky Tan, Ian, etc), and they all come in the form of two comments. the first is a cut and paste of this blog article, left by a pseudonym of "Young PAP". the second goes: "Ms Elaina Olivia Chong is the Vice Chairperson of Young PAP Women committee ok! U should unimportant omission? my attention was just drawn to this article on CNA. the article was about a recent email exchange between Mr Philip Yeo and a blogger, and Mr Yeo invited the blogger to tea. the blogger agreed but wanted another party to be present and also wanted to record their conversation and put it up on his blog. Mr Yeo refused, saying he did not want to be "interrogated" in presence of a "witness". the talent, salaries and a greater cause for concern? As expected, the announcement of the increase in ministerial salaries caused much commotion in the plogosphere. Many bloggers talked about if we use higher salaries to attract people into public service, we might attract self-serving individuals. Others might have talked about the formula used to peg the salaries and asked if that was the appropriate formula. These are important issues that need this is not a book review i just finished reading Thinking allowed? (politics, fear and change in Singapore) by Warren Fernandez (currently foreign editor of straits times), and i have 3 thoughts to share: firstly, this had got to do with a subjective perspective lens. the first time i came across this book was several months ago, shortly after i first started blogging. during that time, i was still relatively influenced Yao Ming, Kobe Bryant and bond-breakers [This is my second attempt to use basketball analogies to desribe apparent disagreements over the blogosphere. Some knowledge of NBA's system of drafting and trading players may be required to fully comprehend this analogy, and I apologize if anyone finds my analogy incomprehensible.] In 2004, Kobe Bryant was in the final year of his contract with the Los Angeles Lakers, the only team he had quarter life crisis? today is my 25th birthday. how am i going to spend it? i'm probably going to stay at home and read blogs. this has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the post, but i just wanted to whine and mope. =P both BL and Mr Wang felt inclined to give advice about career choice recently. BL shared his personal story (which is also found here), and talked about finding a dream and a passion and the clientèle of education This is the follow-up post to my article on streaming, as previously promised. Piper wrote that everyone is quick to criticize the teaching profession, whereas people are less inclined to do so for other occupations, such as handphone makers, or fast-food restaurateurs. Piper makes the valid point that most of such critics are not teachers, and have little idea the kind of challenges and blogosphere sabbath recently, i've been involved in a debate with ben. thinking about what to say in this debate has took up several hours of my time, and i've been feeling rather tired. also recently, i went to a library to borrow some books to read. i haven't been reading not because i don't enjoy reading, but i just haven't been able to find the time to do so. then suddenly today i had this idea. i should take a publicity for stressed teacher once in a while, some folks would visit my list of teacher-bloggers, to read what's been happening with them. i actually haven't been following their blogs, but on impulse i just decided to read one of the blogs on my list, Stressed Teacher, and find that she's been writing some pretty good stuff. i think you guys should check out that blog. research break paiseh, i know i have been taking alot of breaks already lah.... i've come across something which i wanna do some extensive research about. i know not the result of my research, hence i will not promise to blog about what i decided to go research up, or even reveal what exactly i am researching. i may not totally abstain from blogging during this research break, but expect not productivty from streaming and intellectual discrimination Recently, Trisha talked about the topic of streaming, and Piper has talked about how everybody wants to have their say about education, and how it should be done. I would like to talk about streaming too. When streaming is discussed in public discourse, there usually are very few pro-streaming views. Perhaps everyone who saw Jack Neo's I Not Stupid will agree that our education system and its