A show of their own

The NYght must be hands down the most popular of events on campus. An hour before auditorium doors open there is already a line. The noise and excitement only gets more frenetic the closer we get to curtain-up, and stays throughout the performances until final curtain. And even then, the celebrations continue as the exhausted contestants meet with their fans at the stage apron. Selfies and glitter abound.

Only on a night like this do we get to see the kids letting their hair down, determined to have a good time. This is the talent contest of the year, not to be missed because somebody inevitably knows somebody appearing on stage, belting out their own versions of the latest hits and showing off slick dance moves -- displaying an unexpected mobility going by how they usually slouch at their desks during tutorial time.

The importance of this event is not to be underestimated. First, it is their one and only opportunity to showcase their raw, unpolished talent. This is talent they can truly call their own, unsullied by any teaching or instruction provided by the best coaches money can buy. Their efforts are self-taught, their coordination; compositions; arrangements; and rehearsals all worked on in their own time rather than predetermined through adult supervision. This is student ownership in the truest sense of the word, and it's wonderful to see the whole thing come together.

This is not to say that the staff are completely hands-off. Staff manage the event but the content and substance are provided by the kids themselves. In this environment, the audience is entirely supportive and encouraging. Hiccups in the individual performances such as going off-key; the inevitable technical faults and delays; lapses of concentration; and the awkwardness of stage-fright are taken in good humour; while the audience is ever ready to forgive, showing their support with rhythmic clapping; generous applause; and enthusiastic singing along, buoying each performer's confidence enough to gracefully finish the set.

I've never, in other campus events, seen students rallying for each other to this extent. In other events, the knowledge that the performance has been stamped and approved by trainers and coaches raises expectations a lot and the house becomes less forgiving. In sporting events, the audience are led to chant artificially composed cheers according to a forced 3, 2, 1 togetherness. But on the NYght, it's wild; chaotic; friendly-competitive -- and yet it also reflects the kids' strongest support for one another in the entire school calendar. The performances may not in themselves be perfect, but that imperfection brings out the perfectness of the unity within the student body. This is the students' show, so let's keep it that way. Always.

Encouragement from a horse

Meh. Getting flack from upstairs about our choice for Dad in 'The Car'. So the kid was nervous and flubbed a couple of lines. Also, our choice of play was "too local" and probably wouldn't resonate with the 'foreign' judges. That, they say, is likely to devalue our assessment, jeopardising our chances at the top tier. Solution: conscript a better speaker for roles in our plays. The advice is, of course, well-intentioned, but certainly targeted at a very different goal from the one I am aiming at.

What is it with leadership? The higher they climb, the shorter-term the vision. There is no use in teaching the unwilling when there are those eager to learn, but would never get the chance to learn if winning was our top priority. Reminder: we're not here to chase accolades, we're here to encourage a life-long love of the art.

What was most encouraging for me at yesterday's performance was when a member of the audience stopped me for a little chat. She revealed that she was a long-ago member of the NYeDC and if I remembered her. I could not. She looked so different from the girl I knew when she was performing in our 'Animal Farm' in 200x. But when she mentioned her name, I immediately knew her role as Clover, the horse. Today, she is with the Arts Education branch of the NAC.

To me, that is a better success story for our little Drama CCA than achieving a high placement in a meaningless competition, which is no longer even identifying itself as a competition.

Run up to Drama Night

One milestone for the year finally crossed. The Drama Club made its Festival presentation today. It was an excerpt from local playwright, Verena Tay's, 'The Car'.

The eponymous car has survived a few decades, a very unusual feat for a car in S'pore. Because of the prohibitive COE tax, cars usually get scrapped after at most 10 years.

This car has seen a lot of the changes that S'pore has undergone, but more importantly, has seen the little girl grow to adulthood. Oddly enough, her major life experiences seem centered around the car, so he is a quite a repository of family history. If I were the girl, I wouldn't wrestle so much with the idea of having him scrapped. I would sell him to the Pawn Stars and probably get more money out of it.

Personally, I think the kids performed well at today's presentation. Their characters were quite real, their portrayals quite believable. Flubbed lines are par for the course, and I wish the recoveries could have been smoother, but we can't worry about that now.

Drama Night is just around the corner. That's gonna be an even bigger hurdle than the Festival presentation. No rest for the wicked.

Proxy of the Year

In a first, I (as Civics Tutor) get to read the citation for the Student of the Year in front of the most august College Day assembly. In another first, the Student of the Year has fallen ill and is unable to attend the ceremony in person. To make a perfect three of firsts, I get to receive the award for Student of the Year on her behalf. No, I've never been Student of the Year before, so yeah, it's a first.

When I delivered the award to the Student of the Year this afternoon, I got a chocolate cake and durian cake for my trouble. Awesome! Will place the chocolate cake in the staff room so my colleagues can help themselves to the token of appreciation from the Student of the Year. The durian cake, well, it had to be cut up and partially consumed in order to fit into my somewhat overstuffed fridge. It is no longer presentable, but is still edible. Trust me.

Pillars of light

Such an occurrence is hardly impossible on Diablo 3 RoS, but it is uncommon. Two Legendary item drops from the same elite pack of monsters is rare enough, but to have one regular (orange) and one set-piece (green) at the same time is just puking rainbows. Granted, both Legendaries turned out to be underwhelming in stat rolls and bonuses, but still...!

Lick my poop cycle!

We GP tutors think we are so important. We're all about complex systems, procedures and outcomes. Right.

What is GP really about when we strip all the elaborate trappings off our precious subject?

1) Read
2) Think about what you read
3) Write about what you think about what you read.
4) Read some more...

There is nothing else.

This process is akin to the poop cycle. Input --> processing --> output --> more input

The poop cycle is instinctive. The GP cycle, well, that's essentially the communication cycle -- and it works the same instinctive way.

The more procedure we try to drill into our students, the stronger the indigestion. Outcome: malnourished, bloated, constipated students with writing to match.

The truth is, the kids can survive if they are allowed to do what they do naturally. They can even survive without us. All we need to do is to help the process along -- let it flow, not impede the process with obstacles of 'GP' conventions.

Downward slide... arrested?

Is the state of blogging truly dead? Neither my nor any other blog I follow has been updated for some time now. Not that there haven't been opportunities to blog about. To date, I've missed potential reviews of Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls and its whole system 2.0.x revamp and Captain America: The Winter Soldier; and even personal family milestones like the passing of Aunt L.

Could it be that my not blogging is due to subconsciously unfollowing a trend everyone else has already left behind, or that I've simply lost my love for it? In fact, it seems like I've lost love for a lot of things I used to enjoy doing, and now I'm just going through the motions out of routine or habit, following someone else's agenda instead of my own. Zombie is probably an appropriate description of how 2014 has been so far.

What's been behind this downward slide? Top of my list of demotivators is a sense of a loss of autonomy in designing my own curriculum because of a current mania for 'standardization'. It's a good idea to share best practices among experienced staff but a very poor one to take everybody's best practices and mash them together into a prescriptive SoP that everybody must follow. It is really a step backwards and will probably undo much of the good we have accomplished to date.

The second is the sense that the recent don't dos are the things I like to do, while the dos emphasize the things I don't like to do. We are building a risk-averse culture that frowns on experimentation and avoids uncertainty. Too much top-down control, too many reminders about things that don't need doing and too little encouragement towards what does need doing.

Perhaps it has always been this way, and I've only just woken up and smelled real-world coffee?

Or perhaps I've just let inconsequential things get in the way of what I love? Elsa from 'Frozen' may be right about some distance lending perspective to one's situation. A couple of days away from campus to attend iCTLT 2014 has brought me back in touch with other people who are visionaries in education, at the forefront of education reform and yet are juggling with old-school expectations and strictures, and rising above it to tell their stories to us who are supposed to be at the pinnacle of global education success.

It's great to hear how although we've done some things right, there are a lot of important things that we are doing wrong. I'll want to compile and digest what people here have been saying in another post, but for now it feels good not to be the lone voice crying out in the wilderness and that there are those who have waded through the same muck and have moved forward to where we want to go, even if some of us have to be dragged kicking and screaming to get there.

Double bill

To truly appreciate being Singaporean is to accept the transience of our existence as a people. On the one hand, there is the desperate longing to capture a sense of permanence, but the reality is that life moves us not just from location to location but also through time -- from the here-and-now to the "will we be remembered?" and "will we have meant something?" when the realisation of our mortality finally dawns.

In the two plays in Play Out: A Double Bill featured in the NUS Arts Festival 2014, this theme carries strongly in the slice-of-life family drama, "Wai?" and in the more abstract movement piece, "Candlelight".

In "Wai?" an elderly couple frets over the fate of their son when television news reports a terrorist attack in the country he is residing in. Their anxiety over the possible reasons why the son is not picking up his phone escalates into a blame-game that dredges up the couple's past history, and their deteriorating relationship with each other and their son.

The presentation is realistic and made-for-TV, the stage set up in a typical dining room-living room suite familiar to HDB-dwellers. The dialogue is chronological and easy to follow, as the couple reveals their attempts to cope with raising a child whom they hope will live a much better life than them, yet regretting not being able to hold on to that child when he does fulfill their dreams for him.

Veteran actors, Gerald Chew and Judy Ngo are obviously playing characters older than themselves, but have a good sense of timing in delivering the kind of verbal fencing that elderly couples (like my own grandparents) are wont to do. There is some humour and poignancy in the jabs that they trade... predictable, yet true-to-life at the same time. At one point, I wanted to rush the stage as their son to reassure them that I was all right, but since I was in a box seat a floor above, I exercised a little restraint and the urge went away.

"Candlelight" was visually arresting in the movement choreography of the chorus whose members also portrayed specific characters in the play. Some movement could have been trimmed for brevity and the lurking presence of Grandpa's, um, ghost(?) seemed superfluous, at least until closer towards the end when its appearance could have been more impactful. As such, this play took a while to warm up, but when it did, there was quite an interesting story to follow about a dyslexic man tasked with recording his family history. Of course, not being able to read and write puts a bit of a damper on his efforts to do so.

The man remembers his grandfather's stories, verbally passing them on to his daughters as a way to keep the memory of "Ah Kong" alive. Despite initial resistance, at least elder daughter, Jadene, learns from her linguistic heritage to become her own person with her own brand of storytelling.

The script is quite linguistically clever, although it tends to bounce a lot between internal reverie and family interaction. Snatches of memories do not necessarily connect with other real-time incidents, but rather make linguistic and philosophical connections with the characters they involve -- dad and daughter, in particular. This piece is clearly harder to follow than the previous one, but at its core it is pretty substantial. It just makes the brain work harder to get at it.

Overall, a satisfying double bill. A nice contrasts of styles, well-executed in presentation make for a decent evening at the theatre.

The Graduate

What better way to celebrate the beginning of spring break with a little graduation ceremony? The dog is finally certified 'obedience trained' meaning she can go off-leash in a dog run. As with the driving licence, as my driving instructor told me ages ago, acquiring certification means that the training continues, but without necessitating the supervision of a qualified instructor. Anyway, good girl, Tasha!

And now a group shot with classmates. L-R; Hershey, Tasha, Captain, Daisy, Gigi. Congrats, everyone! And thumbs up to the positive training methods from Pup Pup 'n' Away. A happy, disciplined dog is the best kind to have.

Keeping it going

It's been a tiring, taxing, draining week. Never let it be said that JC1 was a walk in the park. Haven't had much time to post entries since term began, and am feeling too pooped to add much more in this one. A couple of pix then?

The dog's still undergoing basic obedience training; there's been no rain for a while; and the grass is brown. Everywhere.

I succumbed to the evil empire today and finally got my very own iDevice. Of course, I'd think twice about shelling out for it if it weren't heavily subsidised by a mysterious, unnamed benefactor; and having a retail membership discount making it an even sweeter deal. Also, ageing eyes needs a bigger screen to look at. There. I said it.

Tainted honour

It's hard not to get all emotional about the charges laid against the NSF who blew the whistle upon witnessing animal cruelty in his army camp. His dad is apparently so upset, he posted his outrage against the army for disciplining his son for what should be seen as a heroic act. "There was no honour [Facebook login required] in the way this situation was handled by the Singapore Armed Forces", he complains bitterly to the online community.

While I am against animal cruelty (barring the cruelty done to animals that provide nice, juicy steaks; sausages; bacon and other yummy stuff, the origins of which we'd rather remain blissfully ignorant of) this entry is not about that. It's about how the concept of 'honour' has been twisted into a bad argument posted by the distraught dad above in commenting on his son's plight.

The boy is being charged on two counts: shooting photographic images in a location that prohibits photography; and providing information to a party who has no privilege of access to such information.

Security of information is a key protocol which the military will rabidly uphold. Wars are won and lost over control of information. Dad's argument is that the content of the information provided by his son would not have compromised military security and therefore should not constitute a breach of security protocol in both the acquisition and the delivery of said information to the third party.

Dad is wrong on both counts. The law prohibits the action regardless of the sensitivity of the information breached. The charge is therefore against the action, and only in deliberating mitigating circumstances will the content of the information in question be considered. Hence the organization is not conducting itself dishonourably in prosecuting someone who has clearly broken the law.

But on the other hand, did the son act honourably in doing what he did? There is honour in standing up for one's convictions. His act was noble in intent, and for that he deserves credit. But an individual's honour goes deeper than that. Honour is in upholding the law of the land first and foremost. If one's personal convictions necessitates the breaking of the law, that does not absolve one from facing the consequences of one's actions. Given this untenable situation, the honourable thing for the son to do is to acknowledge that in order to do the right thing, he had to do the wrong thing, and accept the punishment for it. Colloquially, he did the crime, so he must do the time. In principle, two wrongs do not make a right.

The other factor to consider is if the son's actions were, in fact, necessary. Did he have to shoot video, and did he have to pass the video on to a third party, and did he know she would likely have politicized it the way she did? Was it his intention, in the first place, to politicize the information he passed on? The video is now for public viewing here [also requires Facebook login]. What it shows is a dog tied up by its neck, its head suspended by the tautness of the rope. Its weight is supported by the floor, so while it may look uncomfortable, it isn't being deliberately strangled unless it struggles against its bonds.

Clearly the boy had already decided to disobey orders by shooting video and distributing it through unauthorized channels. If he was going to disobey orders, then wouldn't it have been more necessary at the time to place the dog in a more comfortable position by re-tying the rope that held it? Did he leave the dog that way the whole night after he shot the video? In other words, if he wanted to alleviate the suffering of the dog, there were more immediate and practical options than turn to his phone-camera for a more sensational solution.

Of course, this is the army we're talking about. This is the kind of social organization that makes a business out of treating people worse than animals, so its approach to perceived threats to its operational capability usually leans towards the brutally effective. If the boy intended to instigate an investigation and force a change in tactics by eliciting public awareness and opinion, he's done a great job. The strays will probably be treated better now. So he should complete his honourable act by taking his punishment like a man. Much respect if he does; no respect if he attempts to squirm his way out of it.

And, Dad, your son's actually a grown man. He made a mature decision, so stop embarrassing him with your overprotective indignation. You should be proud of what he did, and not undermine his heroism by sending the wrong message that whistleblowers should be exempted from prosecution if in blowing their whistle they break the law.

Bright side

So now we're letting someone with a bad mouth set our benchmarks to meet their unreasonable demands?

Maybe we need someone like that to shake us out of our complacency with a kick to the butt every now and then. Just sayin'.

Good food on 4 legs

Found a new place to eat with dog. The 4 Legged on Jalan Leban.

Apart from providing food, there are also other boarding and day-care services available for dog.

This handsome fellow is one of three samoyed residents who comprise the welcome wagon upon entry. There's lots of floor space for the 4-legged ones to run, play and socialize while the people eat. Nice.

The menu items bear cutesy names, but are quite normal where it matters. There is a mix of simple western dishes like this pasta carbonara, and other local favourites as well.

While the carbonara was done with the right touch of creaminess and bacon-ness, I'm not so wild about the fish and chips. Not sure what it was, but I thought the fish had too much MSG. Don't know if that is an accurate diagnosis, but that's what it tasted like.

The pet menu looks appetizing too, with a generous mix of veggies, meat on brown rice. We ordered pork balls for the dog, but the kitchen counter-proposed pork stew instead. Good choice, and healthy too.

Brownie and ice-cream to follow. I like places like these where the food coming out of the kitchen could have come from the kitchen at home. Simple, functional fare, reasonably priced. Comfort food.

Dinner was quite a different affair. We had guests arriving from overseas so we took them to PS Cafe at Ann Siang Hill. A dignified, sit-down joint where a sign at the front door advises diners to please leave their kids elsewhere. Gutsy policy, much appreciated. Steak must be enjoyed with focus. Slow chews, releasing savory juices to dance on the surface of the tongue. And no chaotic neighbouring table issuing outbursts of random energy to distract from the experience. This particular experience was worth savoring, the meat done to the right degree of rare, so juicy and tender. The fusion elements of the kai-lan stalk and Japanese mushrooms added some interesting textures that complemented the striploin nicely.

Satisfied? Yes, very.

V-day dinner company

Valentine's Day and we're passed out on the living room carpet semi-watching yet another HK lawyer drama serial. It's been a long, busy week for both of us and to be able to just do that is luxury enough.

Now that she's working for a charity NGO, she's starting to involve me with some of her work. Earlier this evening, we took a little time out to eat a simple dinner with the old ladies boarding there. For a treat, she got me to bring over a couple of tubs of Neapolitan ice-cream for them. They seldom get ice-cream, so they were quite appreciative of her thoughtfulness.

All-in-all, this V-day has been quite special. No gifts to each other, but a small token that didn't cost much given to others from the both of us. Dinner was hardly romantic, but there was a different kind of warmth around the table for more than two. Special, indeed.

Sitting on the high chair

It feels good to throw a hissy-fit once in a while. Rather than having meetings in which everyone just nods and agrees with decrees from on-high, this committee is full of queries; questions; counter-points; objections; and obtuse arguments. Sitting in on such sessions is an emotional roller-coaster, especially for the one chairing.

Since yours truly was chairing the last couple of sessions, it was quite draining. After arriving at an agreement, work got done, only to be undone at the next meeting when consensus was broken by someone who didn't say anything at the previous meeting, but felt strongly enough to voice it at this one.

On my part, I have no problem chopping and changing, and having to reinvent the wheel from scratch repeatedly. But with every revision I should feel like improvements are being made. Instead, with every new version of this plan, the wheel seemed to be getting increasingly square. Not a good sign.

Last meeting, I let my inner kid out. I became pouty, grouchy, emo and snappy -- the remaining four dwarves Snow White does not ever want to talk about. Someone else had to be the adult, I'd had enough.

With all the whinin' and bitchin' (mostly coming from the corner with the short people) an amazing thing happened. Every concerned party put their cards on the table and patiently explained their position and their concerns without reservation.

Then in a moment of clarity, a viable alternative that met everyone's objectives appeared. This time, it looks like the agreement will hold. It's back to the ol' drawing board again, but now it's for a product everyone should be happy with.

Definitely one of the most productive meetings ever attended.

Narrow line

I'd like to think that consistently writing opinion articles gives me some credibility in teaching others to write opinion articles. However, I'm currently at a stage in which I'm doubting this belief as being too simplistic. Lately, I've been doubting myself. A lot.

Perhaps a little humility would be good for the character? The line between superhero and super-villain is an extremely narrow one. Gotta figure out which side I'm on.

The Snape approach to exam success

The new J1s have arrived fresh and squeaky clean from the 'O's. This year's crop is overall the best scoring we've ever had to date. They are probably used to being straight A students, but there will be a few who would be celebrating unexpectedly good results. Yay for them all.

But, no, this will not do. The leap in standard that these kids are taking is quite a tremendous gulf to bridge between secondary school and college undergrad. Because they are undergoing a major skills upgrade, they must get used to failure. Repeated failure. It is only in failure that learning takes place. Fail once, change technique. Fail twice, change approach. Fail a third time, change something else. Trial and error until something clicks. When that happens, they would have learned something new and I would have finally been successful at teaching them something new.

Does it have to be that way? Can a straight A student continue maintaining straight As throughout the course? It's possible, but at least initially that's not recommended. Fresh off the success boat, and as horrible as I sound, they have to be humbled if they are going to become teachable again.

What of their morale and self-esteem as we modern educators seem bound to pander to? The 'A' Levels is a long-term goal. We reassure the kids that they are constantly failing, not because there is anything wrong with them per se, but because we are always raising the bar. But no matter how badly they fail -- as long as they don't give up, and as long as they help each other along -- they would have learned so much by the end of first year that they will barely scrape through their promotional exams. The promo, after all, is not a high-stakes exam but a formative one. The barest minimal pass is sufficient for advancement, hence there is no pressure to Ace it.

Our long-term goal only comes into sight around the prelim exam in the October of the following year, which is the summative exam as far as our local jurisdiction goes. By then, they are ready to gather their own resources and Ace that. Some kids need a good result on the prelim in order to apply for early enrollment in some universities. If they don't want early enrollment, then the summative is the 'A's in November. This is the only result that counts, hence this is our target for high scoring achievement.

Once we have a perspective on what is going on at the 'A's, we realize that not every test or exam or assessment requires every student to achieve an A grade. A failing or near-failing grade is more par for the course. It's only when we can convince the kids (and middle-management) not to expect high scores in every little assessment that we can take the pressure off the kids' education experience and focus them back on real learning. And we will see a stratospheric improvement in grades all round -- but only at the end of second year.

Building bridges

Important insight gained from the PE Dept's staff sharing on the low-elements team-building facilities today: although safety is the #1 priority in team-building activities, the participants also share in the responsibility of keeping themselves and their fellow participants safe. By personally experiencing some element of danger, as a group they develop a sense of concern and look out for each other, especially when it is made clear to them that success is team-dependent and cannot be accomplished solo.

A case in point is the 'river crossing' activity in which a series of blocks are set in a pattern on the ground between crossing points. A team uses the blocks as supports for a bridge they build with a limited number of planks to get from the starting point to the ending point on the opposite side. It would be so much safer if the play area was bulldozed flat, but the ground is left in its natural state with grass and soil, bumps and dips, making the traverse unsteady and the risk of falling off is quite real. So apart from just focusing on the goal of getting from point A to point B, the participants are also figuring out how to utilize their limited resources most effectively; how to stabilize the bridge while they are building it; and how to support each other to avoid falling into the 'river' until all are safely across to the other side.

This kind of affective learning the kids are getting from the PE Dept needs to continue in the classroom. We academics tend to focus on getting our kids from exam to exam and all the work we do is intended to bulldoze the way smooth for them. Content packages; skills packages; parent support network; remedial classes; personal consultations... with every need catered to, there is no incentive to reach out to their fellow learners and support each other through their journey. So instead of teaching three or four classes a year we each have effectively taken on the responsibility of teaching 70-90 individual students per year -- and we wonder why the burnout rate in the education industry is so high.

At this level of study, success is a team game. Individual effort is important, of course, but our job isn't just to groom a handful of brilliant scholars but to work on raising levels for the entire cohort. That means the kids themselves must bear the responsibility of helping one another because the individual teacher alone cannot possibly build the bridge AND carry the entire lot of kids kicking and screaming across from point A to point B.

Horrid hybrid

Of exams, there are two types: the formative and the summative.

The formative type functions as a student's learning tool. It allows the student to do a bit of self-learning and evaluation as to the progress made in learning so far. These exams are usually simple and occasionally even fun -- if you can call pop quizzes and essay writing fun. They may also take the form of 'alternative assessments' or self-directed projects that make use of the skills and content learnt and mashes them up in the crafting of a non-traditional artefact for assessment: a video, a poster, or something as creative and colourful. There is more flexibility in submission deadlines, consultation and advice from the assessor, and collaboration with peers. As such, they are low-stakes assessments because the objective is skewed more towards the learning process than the assessment results.

The summative type is the assessment of what the student has already learned, not what the student is in the process of learning. In order to gauge the student's learning fairly, the assessment would put the student in an unfamiliar position or situation  and see how the student is able to draw on the skills and knowledge already acquired and use them to effectively carry out the assessment requirements.

In our tribal past, a novice may be learning from a master how to make a drum or a canoe. During the instruction period, the novice may be called upon to assist in various parts of the process and observe others. There may be mini-tests along the way, but the results would have little serious consequence to the final product. The master would always be there to praise competent work or repair any damage done, but the learning experience would have served its purpose. These tests are formative in nature.

The summative assessment occurs when the novice has to build the whole item from scratch for the first time. With the learning scaffolds removed, the novice would encounter real life obstacles, difficulties, or unforseen circumstances that could not have been prepared for beforehand (the master made it look so easy!). The novice may have the knowledge and skill, but to do well must also be able to utilize some personal ingenuity, insight, quick critical thinking and improvise a solution on the spot. Here the assessment is high-stakes as the end-user (not the master!) depends on the quality of the work produced. Good work results in a satisfied customer, poor work results in a waste of time, resources and probably a reprimand and retraining for the goofball who screwed up.

Jumping back to the present age, assessments have become a source of unnecessary stress for the students of today. That's because assessments perform neither formative nor summative functions, but rather have become a horrid hybrid of both. What should be formative assessments are over-studied and over-prepared for as what should be low stakes have become high stakes. The actual high-stakes final exams (of which there aren't really that many) are taken as formative in nature as every student feels inadequate taking them without being hand-held all the way to the last full-stop.

If every assessment is taken as high stakes, and if every result is viewed as more important than the process, little real learning is taking place. If the assessment meant to be summative is prepared for like a formative one, there is little opportunity for practicing independent thought. What we get is a generation of students that don't know how to tackle questions unless they are told the answers beforehand. The problem is, we can't teach them all the answers because no one knows all the questions.

Our efforts to teach to the exam may bring results, but also undue stress to everyone involved and a very warped picture of what exams are and what they are meant to accomplish. Let's go back to when formative assessments were easy and the answers accessible to a diligent student; and summative assessments challenged a student with unfamiliar, off-the-wall questions that cannot be easily prepared for. Less stress, more learning, better results all round.

C'mon in! The bandwagon's just fine!

Darn it! Got suckered into making a promise based on a faulty argument. I cannot believe I caved into the old "I don't think it's fair that..." It's a classic chestnut to guilt schoolchildren with over tardy assignments, and I should have known better. The premise is that since everybody's done it, you should too... and hurry up with it! A simple bandwagon fallacy.

If I am to do something, I have to be convinced that it is the right thing to do and that time and energy are not being wasted on a project that serves no purpose other than create its own existence. I wasn't convinced in the first place and I am not convinced now, but I gave my promise without thinking it through. Then again, it was phrased like it was not my decision to make, anyway. I just wish I had capitulated to a more logical argument rather than a transparently manipulative emotional hair-trigger.