happy teacher day

SINGAPORE – In 1948, at the age of 23, my grandmother, Madam Zhang Juan, raised $500 to buy Poi Chai school in Sembawang.

Situated in the kampung at Chong Pang, the Chinese-medium school served the children in the area.

In those difficult times, she served not just as the principal managing the school’s administration, but also had to take on the roles of music teacher and operations manager.

To encourage parents to send their children to school, she went door to door visiting families, waiving fees where necessary so that no child would be deprived of an education due to life circumstances.

Life in post-war Singapore was difficult, as individuals and families struggled to pick up the pieces.

No doubt my grandmother was one of those who heeded the call of the 1947 Ten-Year Programme introduced to provide education for all children, though this is something I cannot know for sure.

I had not thought to ask her before she died recently, just before she turned 100.

Training new teachers

To educate the young, the government of the day recognised that more teachers were required. The Teachers’ Training College (TTC) was set up in 1950, first for English-language teachers and later expanded to other language teachers.

After Singapore obtained self-rule in 1959, the courses at TTC were consolidated into a single three-year, in-service and part-time certificate course in January 1960. This was to grow the supply of primary school teachers to meet the needs of new schools.

TTC was replaced with the Institute of Education (IE) in 1973 under the charge of founding director Ruth Wong to focus on enhancing the quality of teacher education and professionalism.

My former mentor Edith See, an English language and literature teacher at Raffles Girls’ Secondary School, remembers teaching in the morning and reporting to IE in the afternoon as one of those in the inaugural batch.

She chose the part-time, 18-month course over the one-year, full-time one because the work-study arrangement included pay, which was necessary to contribute to family expenses, including her younger siblings’ education.

Caring for our children

Beyond the mandate of teaching to upskill a nation to meet its economic goals, teaching in its essence is a caring profession.

American philosopher and educator Nel Noddings (1929 to 2022) highlights that we should “want more from our educational efforts than adequate academic achievement” and that real education can only begin when “our children believe that they themselves are cared for and learn to care for others”.

This labour of caring was why my grandmother knocked on doors to talk to parents, borrowed money to improve the school premises and organised excursions for children who would not have much of a chance to venture out of Sembawang.

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At home, she cared for her seven children and, at school, she took care of more.

Emotional work continues to remain a crucial element in teachers’ encounters with students. This is why teaching is paradoxically both so rewarding and exhausting.

Learning to teach

By the time I chose to join the teaching profession in 1999, the Institute of Education had merged with the College of Physical Education to form the National Institute of Education (NIE).

I was part of the last batch of Postgraduate Diploma in Education students to complete my diploma in English Language and Literature at the Bukit Timah campus. In 2000, NIE would move to its current campus at the Nanyang Technological University.

In my first year as a teacher, I saved my lesson plans and resources on floppy disks, and printed Calvin And Hobbes comic strips and other classroom materials on flimsy transparent plastic slides.

Associate Professor Loh Chin Ee is deputy head (research) at the National Institute of Education’s English Language and Literature Academic Group. PHOTO: COURTESY OF LOH CHIN EE

I would go to the classroom, switch off the lights and turn on the overhead projector. The light would project an enlarged image of the slide so the entire class could view it.

For their assignments, my students recorded “talk shows” on cassette tapes and, a few years later, would create videos of Shakespeare parodies which they submitted using compact discs.

Fast-forward to 2024: Teachers look for resources on the Student Learning Space and the seemingly infinite worldwide web. They make use of apps such as Google Classroom, Nearpod and Kahoot, and dabble with generative artificial intelligence tools such as Midjourney and ChatGPT to generate lesson ideas and materials.

Besides grappling with new technology, teachers need to be continuously learning about their core discipline and updating their pedagogical knowledge and skills. My former and current students tell me they find time to read, keep up with the news, and go for professional development workshops, so that they can become better teachers for their students.

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Teaching the future

The purpose of teaching has not changed, but the context in which teaching occurs has.

Technology has accelerated the rate of transformation. Borders are porous, yet invisible walls may be put up both within a nation and across nations. Our teachers have to constantly adapt, managing their own lives and their students’ lives, to thrive.

At the opening ceremony of the Redesigning Pedagogy International Conference held at NIE in 2024, Education Minister Chan Chun Sing brought up the concept of the “pedagogy of one”, which refers to the personalisation of education for a child according to his or her needs and strengths.

While technology will play a significant role in this move, teachers remain key for educating a nation.

To plan a single 40-minute lesson, a teacher needs to consider the content to be covered, the best pedagogical methods for engaging students and how to make full use of various resources, including technology.

An excellent teacher, as a study of award-winning English-language teachers by my NIE colleagues found, utilises his or her autonomy to design lessons with a student-oriented mindset, flexibly adapting the lessons to optimise learning.

In 1957, Singapore’s literacy rate was 52 per cent.

Today, the country counts as one of the highest performing ones on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment tests.

More crucially, we continue to engage with the question of how we can create opportunities for our children to flourish.

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The education of a nation is accumulative, beginning with my door-knocking grandmother, and many others like her.

To the many educators who continue in her footsteps, happy Teachers’ Day.

In memoriam Madam Zhang Juan, 1925-2024

A former secondary school teacher, Associate Professor Loh Chin Ee is a teacher educator at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University.

reducing teacher workload

SINGAPORE – Before I left the teaching service in April 2023, I was in 15 WhatsApp chat groups that were related to work.

These included chat groups with my form class of 37 Secondary 3 students, 12 English language department teachers, 35 drama club students and 11 subject teachers who also taught my form class.

More than half of these groups had important messages I had to take note of, or reply to, on a daily basis.

Sometimes after five periods of back-to-back lessons, I would check the notifications on my phone and shudder seeing the number of unread messages.

This came to mind when Education Minister Chan Chun Sing said on Sept 18 that teachers do not need to share their personal phone numbers or respond to work-related messages after school hours.

The aim of these new guidelines, he said, is to ensure educators have protected time to spend with their families, rest and recharge.

This is a step in the right direction. I do not think, however, that it will afford teachers more “me-time”. Teachers have many demands on their time and taking calls after school hours is just one issue, and perhaps not even the biggest one.

For one thing, the scenario of parents hounding teachers over trivial issues like spelling lists and which attire to wear is probably more common in primary schools, where most children do not have their own mobile phones.

And when I taught in secondary school, I seldom encountered the challenge of being overly accessible to parents or students after school hours.

The messages I received were typically from students, five minutes before the morning flag-raising ceremony, telling me that they were in the toilet with a tummy ache and would not make it for assembly.

So if you tell teachers that they won’t be disturbed after school hours, they will thank you. But they will also ask you to look at other aspects of their job that make it difficult.

One hat too many?

What truly drains teachers of their time and energy is the range of responsibilities they have to juggle.

The work that teachers need to handle during the school day often spills over into their personal time after school.

Teaching is just one small part of a teacher’s job.

The hours I spent in the classroom were often dwarfed by the time needed for lesson preparation, marking, meetings, organising events, managing co-curricular activities (CCAs), conducting remedial lessons, handling disciplinary issues, performing committee and department work, as well as national examination duties.

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Teachers are pulled in many directions, often forced to balance the expectations of teaching in classrooms effectively with the numerous additional “out of classroom” duties.

The issue is systemic, and no amount of after-hours relief can address the exhaustion caused by overburdened schedules.

I’ll use myself as an example.

On a typical week day, I’d arrive in school before 7.15am and head over to the parade square for the flag-raising ceremony.

I’d mark my form class’ attendance, and message students who had not arrived to check if they were late or unwell.

My first lesson would start at 7.45am, and each period was 45 minutes long. I’d get a one-period break at 10am, which I would use to snack, print materials for the next lesson and squeeze in some marking.

After another two periods of lessons, I’d get my next break at 12.15pm. This time was spent having lunch, responding to e-mails and WhatsApp messages, and preparing the next lesson’s materials.

Since I was in charge of the Secondary 3 English lesson materials, I’d also use this time to print out the week’s resources for my colleagues and place the materials on their desks.

At 1.45pm, I’d begin my last two classes of the day. I’d finish at 3.15pm and quickly head over to the drama club room, to open it for students and the trainer before the co-curricular session started at 3.30pm.

Along the way, I’d meet three errant students and tell them to start on essays that were overdue.

While the CCA was ongoing, I’d go back to the staffroom and see two test papers on my desk that I needed to vet and pass on to my colleagues before leaving school for the day. So I’d grab the papers and my laptop, and head back to the drama club room, where I was stationed till 6pm.

I’d take attendance and start calling up the parents of students who did not report for their CCA.

I’d complete the vetting of the test papers and run up to the staffroom to hand them to another teacher, while trying to locate one of the students who had yet to submit his overdue essay.

Back in the drama club room, I’d read an e-mail about committee work. As a member of the spatial and learning environment committee, which is tasked to improve the school’s infrastructure, I was responsible for duties such as writing synopses for 10 student artworks to be displayed around the school.

After dismissing my CCA students and firming up administrative details like rehearsal timings, I’d look through the next day’s timetable to ensure all was in order.

I’d notice that some niggling tasks such as drafting a letter to parents, booking a bus and catering snacks had not been done. But since it was already a little past 6pm, I’d leave them for the next day.

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By the time I finally collected the three essays my students submitted late and drove home, it was almost 7pm.

While spending time with my children and having dinner with them, my mind would also be on the three essays I needed to mark after they went to bed.

So while this new policy may offer some relief to teachers and set some boundaries, it is merely a small Band-Aid on a much larger problem – the excessive workload which pressures teachers to perform and also overwhelms them.

21st century problems

The ministry has taken some steps to lighten teachers’ workload in recent years, including giving schools greater flexibility to pace the implementation of some initiatives, and experimenting with technology to support some tasks like planning lessons and administrative work.

But challenges persist. Teachers do so much more than just teach, and the job has become very complex in the last decade. Today, they are expected to weave technology into lessons, use hybrid learning platforms and manage students’ use of personal learning devices while ensuring they remain engaged.

Teachers also have to cater to an increasingly diverse profile of students with behavioural issues, special learning needs or mental health concerns. Discipline in schools can get more challenging with problems like vaping and cyber bullying. The push to develop “21st century skills” like creativity, collaboration and problem-solving has resulted in several curriculum reviews which teachers have to stay on top of.

All these developments are necessary and good, but does a teacher need to wear so many hats? Being spread so thin may in fact do a disservice to students under their charge.

Beyond the core duty of subject teaching, some educators are better at connecting with students, some have a passion for certain CCAs, others prefer reviewing broader school policies and brainstorming for new ideas, while some are adept at refining the curriculum for different student profiles.

Instead of expecting teachers to perform a variety of tasks and evaluating how effective they are across all of them, one way is to give them space and time to find their niche and where they can make the most difference.

It’s time to consider reforms that prioritise teaching quality and teacher well-being over multi-tasking ability.

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happiness

NEW YORK – You have experienced it: the urge to withdraw and duck experiences you know you will enjoy, even when a mood boost is what you need most.

You skip the birthday party. You cancel lunch. They just do not seem worth the effort. And then, more likely than not, you feel worse than you did before.

So how do you find the motivation to get out there, especially when you are feeling low, stressed, tired or lonely? One proven strategy is to strengthen what psychologists call your reward sensitivity.

People’s drive to seek out happiness is a muscle that they can develop. So is their ability to relish experiences. And almost anyone can learn to amp up their reward sensitivity by training himself or herself to notice and savour his or her positive emotions.

That is even true for people with depression and anxiety who struggle to experience pleasure, a condition called anhedonia.

Of course, many people have trouble pursuing pleasure sometimes.

I recently took my young sons to the beach for the weekend. Hours before our getaway, I learnt a friend had died. Numbed by the news, I was in no mood to have a good time, even though I wanted to make things special for my family.

It is part of my job as a therapist to teach people how to manage their emotions. And, as I tell my patients, it is possible to honour legitimate sources of pain and still recognise that moments of brightness improve our well-being.

The research-backed strategies below, which I use in my practice, helped me to make the most of our trip.

Reward sensitivity and mental health

When it comes to mental health treatment, doctors and therapists tend to focus on easing their patients’ negative symptoms – they want “to take away the bad”, said professor of psychology Alicia Meuret at Southern Methodist University.

Yet most people do not just need to reduce pain, but they also need to boost joy.

In fact, improving positive emotions can be a higher priority for patients than containing their depressive symptoms. And research shows that treatments based on this idea can be effective.

A 2023 study co-led by Dr Meuret found that when adults experiencing depression or anxiety participated in 15 weeks of psychotherapy focused on enhancing positive emotions, they reported more improvement than a group whose therapy focused on reducing negative emotions.

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Shorter interventions have shown benefits as well.

A 2024 study of 85 students, led by assistant professor of psychology Lucas LaFreniere at Skidmore College, gave subjects with anxiety regular smartphone prompts to plan pleasurable activities, savour positive moments and look forward to future positive events. After a week, they showed significantly improved feelings of optimism.

An exercise to boost your reward sensitivity

Your drive to seek out happiness is a muscle that you can develop. So is your ability to relish experiences. PHOTO: PIXABAY

To raise your reward sensitivity, you can try an exercise based on the treatment plans in these studies. Make it a daily practice for as long as it is helpful, but commit to at least a week.

Begin by planning one activity a day that will make you happy or give you a sense of accomplishment. This will make you less likely to postpone positive experiences. Be realistic – it can be as small as treating yourself to a favourite snack, reading a few pages of a novel or video-calling a friend.

After you have enjoyed that daily moment, close your eyes and recount out loud, in the present tense, where and when you experienced the greatest joy. Home in on details and physical sensations, like the breeze cooling your face as the sun shines.

This might feel hokey, but do not gloss over the specifics, Dr Meuret cautioned. The idea is not just to remember how you felt, but also to amplify and re-experience it.

More ways to stretch positive feelings

Here are some more subtle but powerful tweaks you can make to nurture a positive mindset.

Expand your joy vocabulary: Many people struggle to label their positive emotions much beyond fine, good or great. But research suggests that finding more words to describe those feelings can validate and intensify them, Dr Meuret said. When reflecting on how something made you feel, try to be precise, using words like serene, elated, exhilarated, delighted, inspired.

Share your highlight reel: Think about the details you typically volunteer when asked about your day or a recent trip. It can be tempting to vent. But broadcasting what made you happiest can make you feel better, spread that happiness to another person – and strengthen a bond, said associate professor of psychiatry Charlie Taylor at the University of California, San Diego, who researches social reward sensitivity.

Find silver linings: With practice, it is possible to notice the positives hidden in things that you might first see as negative, Dr Taylor said. For example, if you invited co-workers to get together and only one person showed up, you could easily view that as a failure. But the silver lining, he said, would be that you got to know that one person better.

Forecast future wins: If looking at your calendar sparks dread, Dr Meuret said, pick an event that is approaching and think of the best possible outcome. If you are tired and want to back out of meeting a friend for a workout, picture an especially energising class. Imagine smiling at each other across the room, feeling proud. Using imagery can encourage motivation and prime you for more uplifting experiences, Dr Meuret said.

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Keep in mind, too, that it is normal to sometimes feel uncomfortable with pleasurable feelings, particularly if you experience depression and anxiety.

“Some people can feel vulnerable when they let themselves feel good,” Prof LaFreniere said. Worrying can make you feel like you are ready to respond to threats – but by constantly preparing for disaster, he said, people miss the happiness in front of them right now.

On my recent weekend trip with my kids, it was a challenge to let myself have fun.

But sharing s’mores by the glistening ocean still filled me with lingering delight. I made sure to pause and savour the best parts, like when some florists gave us fistfuls of hydrangeas and roses from a wedding arch they were taking apart alongside the beach.

I felt waves of sadness crashing through the trip, thinking of the friend I had lost, but letting myself bask in love and levity helped me find my balance again.

“The truth is,” Prof LaFreniere said, “sometimes we need to behave like happy people if we actually want to be happy.” NYTIMES

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