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What an interesting year. The reason for this ranting post is truly to consolidate my thoughts and also exploring options for what this blog can do (instead of downloading all my insecurities and frustrations on Zoe which is totally unfair and negative, maybe ranting here would suffice). So alot of stories would lack alot of context since I am lazy to provide them and the keywords themselves would be enough to trigger my own memories.
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#LoseRespect Part 1
Where do I even begin. Lets start from patting my own back and affirming myself. I am a music specialist that graduated from N*E with a distinction in practicum. I had a god-like mentor that was leaps and bounds ahead of me and every single day in practicum I was learning new things, reflecting on how to improve, linking the theories I learnt in N*E to practical application in school. When I entered my current school, I had a reporting officer who was a Chinese teacher turned Music Coordinator because she could play the piano. She didnt even have the qualifications to teach Music much less any sort of Musical pedagogy. I was a beginning teacher and of course I was humble and kept quiet about things I didnt agree with.
As time goes by, I was trying out new things, kids enjoyed my music lessons. I self-arranged ensemble songs like "Lion Sleeps Tonight" / "Pirates of the Caribbean" / "Shape of You" etc using recorders and classroom instruments. Children enjoyed it. They were practicing their recorders during recess, they were practicing their recorders at home. Students from different classes were exchanging scores to learn each other's songs. Teachers enjoyed watching the kids perform, they gave very positive feedback about using songs relevant to the children and some of them even asked me for the score so they can bring home and let their kids play. Sounds like I am on the right track? My RO told me to stop. Here are the 3 reasons she mentioned.
1) Don't teach the same song every year. Its boring. Teachers watching would also find it boring and question how come every year the P4s play the same song.
2) Don't teach pop songs. Parents MIGHT complain because the songs might contain inappropriate content/lyrics. This is to protect you.
3) Your songs are harder than my songs. Its unfair for students to be assessed differently.
Holy Moly. Just.. Wow.
1) I teach the same set of songs every year to DIFFERENT people? The point is only valid if my entire P4 class retained for one year?
2) Recorder songs have no lyrics. No MV. Its just notes on a stave. However, fair enough since there are definitely some anal parents. I think this is valid.
Imagine how mind blown she would be if I told her that when I assess students playing difficult songs my standards are lower. Imagine how mind blown she would be if I told her that students enjoy playing these songs and to me it doesnt really matter how well they play as long as they took the responsibility to practice and ultimately have fun.
Of course in the end I didnt say any of it and just let it go. I took her suggestions humbly with 0 resistance. This year I taught traditional folk songs like Rasa Sayang and Arirang. Nth wrong with these songs, the kids still enjoyed them because I am a distinction teacher. I also didnt have to arrange anything new and these songs were easy af so technically speaking my workload decreased. However, when the year closed, feedback from 2 sources came.
1) P4s: Mr Jay, how come last year the P4s learn "xyz" song but we learn rasa sayang instead? When are we going to do those fun songs?
2) P4 form teachers: Jay arh, last year the performances were better, this year the songs abit boring.
Lol. What to do?
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#LoseRespect Part 2
Every year, rubrics have been a big part of discussion. Every year holistic assessments have been a big obstacle to overcome. How do we give a fair holistic assessment and grade students on a fair rubric? N*E didnt teach us shit about assessment. Or maybe I wasnt listening enough because to me music assessment is honestly not a big deal to me. I am always the advocate of having fun in music lessons. Lets be brutally honest. Music results are USELESS. The only time music results were useful to me as a child was when I failed everything else and I went home telling my mom " At least my Music got A" to which my Mom also told me in my face that it was meaningless.
Lets say a child is looking to enter an arts secondary school like SOTA. SOTA doesnt even look at music results from school. They look at ABRSM results and certs. External / Private music education is far more advanced than what we teach in primary schools. To think we spend so much time thinking about what kind of holistic assessments to give and come up with rubrics and descriptors to grade students etc. What a joke.
Every year I seek to improve our assessment rubrics by suggesting changes to make assessment more fun and make it easier. If its easier, we spend less time on useless things like grades and rubrics and more time on actually conducting fun and meaningful music lessons.
Long story short. 3 separate incidents of discussion with my RO regarding assessment.
Incident 1
1) Our Guitar Rubrics are as follows. (simplified for context)
Good
(0 to 3 marks)
|
Very Good
(4 to 7 marks) |
Excellent
(8 to 10 marks) |
|
Chord Accuracy
|
Able to show proper fingering of 0 to 1
chord
|
Able to show … 2 to 3 chords
|
Able to show… 4 chords
|
Strum Accuracy
|
bla
|
||
Chord changing
|
bla
|
Any Tom Dick Harry Ah Cat Ah Dog can tell that there is something logically wrong with these rubrics.
My question to RO:
If a child is able to play all 4 chords perfectly on the guitar. He deserves an excellent. So should he get 8 marks or 10 marks?
If a child is able to play 1 chord, does he get 1 mark 2 marks or 3 marks?
Why is there a range of marks that are not proportionate to the skills we are testing?
ROs answer:
Because we need this guitar assessment to be upon 30. Since other components add up to 70.
Me:
Why do we need it to be upon 30? Why cant we just set it to be 30% and avoid the range?
RO:
Because I dowan to deal with decimals. Because other core subjects like Chinese is not doing that.
Me:
Whats wrong with decimals? We dont even have to deal with it. Excel does it for us. We are not a core subject, we are teaching Music which is subjective by nature.
RO:
Are you not confident of your own capabilities in handling the assessment? How are you helping the weaker students such that they are able to play more than 1 chord? Do you need professional development to help grow your skills in assessment? If you want to make changes, make it in other schools.
Me:
????????????????????????????
Incident 2
Student A missed 3 out of 5 piano lessons due to religious reasons communicated to the school.
Hence I made the decision to let Student A forego the assessment and pro-rate her results at the end of year to not include Piano.
Hence I made the decision to let Student A forego the assessment and pro-rate her results at the end of year to not include Piano.
Student B missed his piano assessment as well as the make up piano assessment due to health reasons.
Hence Student B forego-ed the assessment since the Piano vendors have already left and my RO explicitly stated that I was not allowed to administer the assessment for god knows why. I am waaaay more qualified to assess compared to external Piano vendors but oh wells whatever. Less work for me.
Hence Student B forego-ed the assessment since the Piano vendors have already left and my RO explicitly stated that I was not allowed to administer the assessment for god knows why. I am waaaay more qualified to assess compared to external Piano vendors but oh wells whatever. Less work for me.
Student C didnt take the piano assessment because he enrolled into the school in Term 2.
Hence he received no results.
Hence he received no results.
Amazingly at the end of the year, my RO actually questioned me:
Who gave you the authority to decide that Student A shouldnt take the assessment?
Why didnt you get the piano vendors to come back specially just to assess Student B?
Why didnt you inform the school that Student C didnt receive any results?
Can you take assessment more seriously?
..............
Can I take assessment more seriously?
Can I take assessment more seriously?
Can I take assessment more seriously?
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Incident 3
Student S broke his leg. Did not attend close to 4 Ukulele lessons, did not take the assessment due to being absent. After which it was mid year exams and he left immediately after mid year exams to Korea to fix his leg. After which it was the June holidays.
RO:
RO:
Jay, when S comes back from after the June holidays. Take some time to assess his Ukulele.
I snapped.
I fking snapped.
Me:
You are asking me to assess a student who did not complete the course due to an injury, did not practice for 2 months due to holidays and exams? How am I the one not taking assessment seriously? Its a lose lose situation. If I assess him without giving him time to re-practice and he doesnt do well, its my fault. If I assess him and give him alot of personal time and attention and he does well, its unfair for others and its my fault again. How is this taking assessment seriously? How is this not testing for the sake of testing? Why are you making me do this? How does this make sense?
RO:
Are you not confident in your capabilities to handle the assessment? Why are you questioning me? Why are you raising your voice? Since when did I say you did not take assessment seriously? Would you like to go down with me to the principal and discuss this together since you do not seem to agree?
RO:
Are you not confident in your capabilities to handle the assessment? Why are you questioning me? Why are you raising your voice? Since when did I say you did not take assessment seriously? Would you like to go down with me to the principal and discuss this together since you do not seem to agree?
I was sooo fking frustrated with this bitch. I swear. At this point I cant even bring myself to continue typing this post. What the actual flying fuck.
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#LoseRespect Part 3
Have you ever lost respect for someone so much. So so so much that you just feel lazy to speak / talk / justify / look at that person? After all the shit that happened, I was still respectful of my RO. Yes I raised my voice. Yes I was being aggressive. But I was all along aggressive towards the issue and not the person. On the other hand, every time I questioned the rationale of her actions, she would resort to questioning my capabilities.
WHO.ARE.YOU.TO.QUESTION.MY.ABILITIES?
WHO.ARE.YOU.TO.QUESTION.MY.ABILITIES?
How dare you? A measly Chinese teacher, dare to question a distinction music specialist? The only reason you are my RO is because ur dad fked ur mom earlier den my dad fked my mom. Thats it.
The final straw came. When one day I was called to see the vice principal together with my RO.
Vice Principal:
Jay, according to ur RO, you were rude towards her. She also mentioned that you would go for dental appointments periodically and miss after school activities. She also mentioned you came late twice for the past 3 years. On June 3rd 2018 u said this.... on feb 2nd u said this... on 4th April you went for dental on 3rd march u were late bla bla bla.
Jay, according to ur RO, you were rude towards her. She also mentioned that you would go for dental appointments periodically and miss after school activities. She also mentioned you came late twice for the past 3 years. On June 3rd 2018 u said this.... on feb 2nd u said this... on 4th April you went for dental on 3rd march u were late bla bla bla.
In short, this little bitch compiled a list of my shortcomings in the past 3 years and launched a complaint to the school with the exact dates. It was at that moment, I lost total respect for this person.
Its fine to be incompetent in your job. I am absolutely ok with incompetence, I am the pinnacle of incompetence in NUS. I am used to being carried despite my incompetence. The keyword is to let yourself get carried. My RO refuses to admit her incompetence, feels the need to question my competence, feels insecure about her incompetence, compiles a list of small things including my dental appointments AFTER school just to make her case stronger.
I am just so blown away. Such people truly exist. And the saddest part is, she is a nice person. The only reason she is like that is because she has no life experience. Teaching was her first job, she was literally my senior both in AHS and TJ and NUS. At 34 years old, she has no bf, no life, stays with her parents and lives in a bubble. She gave her life to work. She was thrown into the deep end of the pool, straying away from her comfort zone as a Chinese teacher and being made to come up with a music syllabus from scratch with no training. At this point, I just feel sad for her. She has no people skills, no leadership charisma, just a nerd living in a bubble.
Anyway heres the funny part. I believe in her head she expected me to be intimidated by this meeting with the VP. However I went into full serious mode and explained every single point from every single conversation with all the rationale. Her facial expression was priceless. She thought she was prepared with all the dates and whatnot but she sure as hell wasnt prepared for the "joker turned full serious mode" me. I am so used to standing up against authority she had no idea. I am so grateful for my NS experience where I went head to head with Majors and Colonels. I am so thankful for having a supportive wife that listened to me rant so many times that when I finally needed to string the words into an argument, I could do it with no rehearsal.
Long story short, I admitted I was rude. Explained I was only rude because my professional capacity was often criticized when I was questioning her rationale. 我是针对事，她是针对人。 Explained how conflicting it was to be told "not taking assessment seriously" and yet ironically being made to test for the sake of testing. VP agreed with me. Didnt even talk about other small things like dental appts after school. I know the VP will eventually play both sides because this is truly a fking small issue. The only person that made it a big deal was my "nerd living in a bubble" RO.
Now, my RO is very polite towards me and vice versa. I have made plans to move to another school. I will continue to fake smile to her. Offer no more suggestions. Offer no more value adding. Just nod and go home at 2. This is how young aspiring teachers get jaded and leave the system. Once again I have NS to thank for allowing me to exploit the system of 铁饭碗. I recall being so upset that incompetent people cannot get fired because they are employed by the government. Now I shall be that fked up person who just exist and stays in the system. I have no aspirations of promotion, I have no aspirations of improving the system. Just exist.
Long story short, I admitted I was rude. Explained I was only rude because my professional capacity was often criticized when I was questioning her rationale. 我是针对事，她是针对人。 Explained how conflicting it was to be told "not taking assessment seriously" and yet ironically being made to test for the sake of testing. VP agreed with me. Didnt even talk about other small things like dental appts after school. I know the VP will eventually play both sides because this is truly a fking small issue. The only person that made it a big deal was my "nerd living in a bubble" RO.
Now, my RO is very polite towards me and vice versa. I have made plans to move to another school. I will continue to fake smile to her. Offer no more suggestions. Offer no more value adding. Just nod and go home at 2. This is how young aspiring teachers get jaded and leave the system. Once again I have NS to thank for allowing me to exploit the system of 铁饭碗. I recall being so upset that incompetent people cannot get fired because they are employed by the government. Now I shall be that fked up person who just exist and stays in the system. I have no aspirations of promotion, I have no aspirations of improving the system. Just exist.
Which brings me to my next milestone. #HDBViolinTeacher.
