OLive Run 2009

Today's OLive Run was held at ECP. Quite a good turnout, saw teachers from KCP, SRJC and also WRS. I met alot of people, it almost felt like a networking session. Me, Eliza and Kumar ran for NIE but we couldnt group together as a team. Kumar got 7th for 5km, Eliza 5th for 5km and I got 10th for 10km.. with a time of 46mins.. Not too shabby. My only gripe was that there was no plain water throughout the route.. only h20.. that's not good... Made me thirstier..Dr Bala say 10km dont need to drink.. (Sigh) and looked at my timing with disgust.. HAHA..


Getting medal from MOS of Education.

All the 10km male runners.

With the classmates.. After the run went for breakfast!

To the mentor: If you ran, im sure it would have been fun for you also!

Anyway, school's been bad for me because of the timetable.. But i'll look at the positives!

Enjoy the weekend =)

2nd Week Sch Exp + OEA Symposium

School Experience@ WRS 2009
My time at WRS this week can be summarised with one word: Fantabulastic!
The school has been really supportive in that the management truly believed that they wanted us to experience the school through oberving the diverse levels and even different subjects.

The school bases itself on one word and one word alone: VALUES!
Governed by 3 simple values: Respect, Responsibility and Resilience. From School Leaders to teachers and right down to every student. They all sing to the same tune. Such consistency is rarely, or never, seen in any school usually.I have nothing but praise for the way the school is run and every trainee agreed the school was orderly,efficient and students were disciplined.The PE dept: Physical Education here is still taking steps to establish itself as an integral part of the school's curriculum. They adapted the Sports Ed Prog from Zhenghua and to see it in the flesh was a really humbling experience. They tied it in with Character Education and each student has a booklet for the events, programmes and most importantly, REFLECTIONS! They review their activities and students are guided to find their learning points.


Discipline Dept (Student Behaviour Management): Its refreshing to find that they approach it with a values-based discpline other than rules-based discipline. The 3 "Rs" are always their point of reference and parents would usually find it hard to refute the fact that they dont want their children to have values. The HOD also makes an effort to ensure the school's surroundings are free of any punks/hooligans that will harrass the kids so that it gives them a conducive environment to study so they dont have to fear that thos gangsters area waiting for them outside of school. The HOD knows his stuff, he asks us: What does the word Discipline mean? Well.. for the uninitiated, it means to make a disciple of somebody. So the key issue here is: Are you a teacher worth making a disciple out of? You must embody the values before somebody wants to make you their master. So it was truly insightful. And he does the restorative practices in the SEL component so as to mend and heal relations between students.


The Character Education Dept: Another pillar of the school. In fact, the dept is so strong that most of its progs are done in-house and only few of it are subcon out to vendors. What it does is to infuse its CE progs into a lesson each week. On top of that, they try to integrate with PE (Like the SEP) and also ART. The HOD is also a learned person who is into child behaviour studies and reads lots about writer like Thomas Lickona who writes about ed pyschology too.

People that I meet (Fellow NIE Trainees): Above was with Abang Rizal Hida, the girl that really clicked from day one. I gave her HELL everyday. Disturbing her to the maximum. I think i gave her a week to remember =pThe 3 MOE Scholars: Eunice from Shanghai University. Hazi and Wee Keong from NUS. Both going on exchange. Hazi going for a whole year! how cool is that.. Wee keong going to Toronto.

All the trainees! I think this bunch of people are really nice and could click with Sasi, Rizal, Hida.

The contact time was no joke. A whopping 3 and half hours. We had to read the handouts, discuss and then present on our points! But the session was good and i think i really learnt alot!

So the one week stint was really eventful and enriching. I thank God for this opportunity. When i first saw the posting i was like what?! I havent heard about the school before and I thought i was just another school in the neighbourhood. So this really changed my perception of the school.

OEA Symposium

I went in feeling really sleepy. But the keynote speech was not bad. The icebreakers were fun and I even bought a book about propless games which I think it was useful in future!

Had a good catch-up with yong hui. Learnt quite a fair bit from him. Think his circle of contacts damn big. He knows most people at the conference itself. I got to know new people as well, such as the christchurch teachers who climbed EBC, TPJC teachers. Then I also met Jeremy and Veron from campHA, as well as the CCAB peeps who I met at the outdoor camp.

Chat with Cindy today, and we were recounting the times in the camp. Think she really found us a fun-loving group.

In essence, the sessions werent really informative, me and YH felt that we didnt really get much out of it and were kinda disappointed. But the horte park walk was not bad, got to see plants and pluck fruits to eat. By the way the meals were good. We KEPT eating and eating.. Dinner was romantic.. we ate at the globe, with tribal lights and tables with groundsheets. Presentation of EBC was done whilst dinner.. It was truly a humbling experience to see what they had gone thru. Its really no joke seeing 15-16 yr olds climbing such a high altitude in those conditions.

In short, the symposium was good but hoped to have better sessions in future!

Going to Cameron Highlands plus KL tmr! Cant wait!

1st Week of School Experience

So the first week of school experience just flew by with the blink of an eye. In fact, it wasnt even a full week. It was merely four days and it did open my eyes to the difference in culture that a mega school has. I was posted to C primary school, a prestigous school that has strong culture and a good environment.

I went in with a rather nonchalant attitude, knowing that eventually I would be teaching in a secondary school instead. I set the tone of just going there to have fun and enjoy myself. I think I went one step further. I even networked while having fun. Seeing the other trainees stressing themselves out, I felt a tad guilty for being slack and having fun.


I taught right from the first day, first period. Not really a shock though, it invoked many beautiful memories of my time at E primary and I just loved to see the smiles on the kids' face. To really see them enjoy the lesson and learning something out of it made my day. On top of that, C primary has an awesome spanking new indoor sports hall which I went there many times during my short 4 days.


I want to thank God for posting me here to really appreciate what I had at E primary. Though it was small, I really was able to carry out the activities that I loved. In fact, I think i would dread C primary coz they were really pro-academic over sports. And as E primary is small, it was more cosy and I got to know almost all the staff with a relative degree of familiarity.



It was great to hear my friends rave about their experiences, this being their firsthand interaction with students. Many are full of aspirations, fully charged by this experience to want to change the world and do their best to make a difference in the kids' lives. Well that is GREAT, really! But my word of caution is four days is too short a period to judge. I suggest after a longer duration then they get a fairer picture of what is going on in the schools.


Passion and calling are two words that are severely overused and cheapened by alot of people. Especially so in the education industry where young aspiring people mouth them as part of their slogans. With the best intentions of their hearts, most if not all people do have those two feelings in them, but it probably eroded over the years due to many different circumstances.


For me, I think the word is purpose. Purpose encompasses both passion and calling. But beyond that, it is the knowing of why that individual is in that profession when times are tough. It is when passion is waning and calling seems doubtful that purpose will be able to transcend all these negative thoughts that lingers in the head. It is really tough in this line these days because you do not just give of your academic brain and knowledge. You give your heart and soul to it because you sincerely want to involve your life with those under your charge. I truly hope my friends are able to see the purpose in the job and know what they are in for.

To the subject of being a PE teacher: Well I feel we are like the Swiss-Army knife. We are usually used by the school to fix multiple issues and activities. We are like gym trainers and event managers and also life-skills coach all rolled into one.

The things that PE teachers handle this days are really appalling:

1. Day-to-day PE lessons

2. NAPFA Tests

3. Events Manager (Cross-Country, Sports Day)

4. Outdoor Camps (Level camps, OBS)

5. Discipline

6. Character Development

7. CCA overall in charge (Ususally sports or UG)

8. TAF programme (now called HHF)

9. Cherish Award

I think the perception of PE teachers as slackers amongst the teaching profession is as old as any other myth or urban legend out there. We are often perceived as a bunch of jocks that do not do anything else. But nothing could really be further from the truth. We get out in the sun, we set up courses for our PE lessons. We deal with discipline. We send kids for competitions, we train the kids, we organise camps and sports day and cross country.

So I really dont see why we are SLACKERS. Seriously, to all the detractors of the PE profession, if you are envious of us, dont beat us, come join us! But if you're still cynical, then why not come try and do it for a few weeks and see if shouting in open space, sweating it out, keeping and setting equipment is as easy as you make it out to be.

A firm believer of PE, it really teaches the kids the motor skills, coordination and really social skills of working and playing in a team setting. I really envy Seng Kang Primary, they have PE every day! How cool is that?

Well, I hope I would have more insights next week on my experience at W secondary school. Its not that I dont show my excitement, rather its that I know why im doing there and what im doing there. There's a calm knowing of thats my purpose. And I hope all teachers find theirs too.

NTU ODAC ATC 09

My long-awaited comeback!

This post is rather overdue as well.. Just got the pictures from of our ATC race that we did on 7th June. We did rather well.. and got interviewed by Jade Seah too! At first the race was supposed to be featured on Channel 5's Sports@sg. Well, it did. But they cut off the sections where we got interviewed! DARN!

Race -wise, this was a rather easy race but terrain was good and the sections were fun too! We adopted a rather slow-and-steady approach and by virtue of being in detail one, we lead all the way from the starting horn right to the finish line. It was good pacing and navigation. One regret was the climbing section which i didnt complete coz it was really tough due to the insufficient amount of tiles and i was smearing all over the place.

Running and kayaking was easy for us. Managed to build a healthy lead, the bike section was short too.. Albeit irritating coz of the sandy terrain.. had to push quite alot.. Then abit of river-crossing here and there.. quite fun..

This is the horrible wall which i didnt expect to flop it! I was already at the top but super no strength coz I had to take a clue that wasnt mean for me.. I was virtually crimping every grip.. No TILES!!

Thank God for the race! It was a true blessing I would say! Most importantly i enjoyed this race more.. Being in control was damn shiok! Kudos to Eve for being such a strong teammate and one who really pushed and encouraged me as well! Many more races together!

X-Physique 2009

Its been eons since I blogged and what way to return and blog about the blast that I had today!
We joined the X-physique race inter-varsity category and emerged Champions! It was a great team effort by the entire team!

Stage 1: (2nd Detail) Run and Kayak

Start point was Marina Square and we ran to Oasis at Kallang for kayaking. 4km loop kallang basin. The run was okay, slightly fast and then we picked up our boats.. Somehow we couldnt do our normal strokes.. intensity was there but the efficiency wasnt coz we didnt dip our blades fully. Nonetheless we whacked and maintained good position. At this point in time, the 2nd team (ferrari) was hot on our heels and the mind games began. After which we ran to the bike point opposite the cage and I was lagging behind due to stitches.. Felt horrible to pull the team down. upon reaching bike point we could rest as the bike leg was not counted.

Stage 2: Biking

The bike leg was really redundant but it gave us good time to recover.. then CP4 was to do with some ninja-warrior like station. we had to climb this cargo net over a frame constructed by poles. After which we headed to SOTA.. we took a longer loop, then ferrari reached earlier than us.. we were shocked.. But we knew where we heading and they set off upon seeing us leave immediately. So we head to kampong glam park. This was the most shagged part man. They really followed us so closely.. it was a battle of mental strength. At CP 5 where we did the balance pole with rope. That was damn shiok! We did so fast with teamwork and coordination that we overtook ferrari. At the same time, team ironman(Bekky) just arrived. and they are from detail one.. so we knew we were first...

Stage 3: Mt Emily and Chinatown Abseil

After the park we headed for Mt Emily with the shortest route. Our topo was superb! Going up the hill was no joke.. every step was a torture. and we reached CP6 and had to use ropes to transport a barrel out of a zone.. then the next treacherous phase.. From Mt Emily to Chinatown.. We ran non-stop through dhoby ghaut and clemenceau ave.. it was really crazy.. I was hoping the traffic lights would turn red so i could rest. BUT NO! it was green all the way.. Really died.. Reached block 531 abseil. That one did quite fast! But cramp.. as usual.. coz must climb railings and all..

End point at Marina Square:

From Chinatown, it was cramp-fest all the way through clarke quay, supreme court, I couldnt control my legs.. they were cramping involuntarily.. even with deep heat...I reached Adelphi and there was this step that was quite high and I fell coz my leg cramped! There were cisco guards asking if i need help.. Chengwei helped to stretch abit.. and I got up to keep going coz i knew we were finishing. we cut through padang, esplanade and Viola! back at Marina Square.. the last flight of stairs were crazy.. but as we reached.. it was damn high!!! Shiok ah!

We congratulated each other.. thank each other for the teamwork! But at the prize presentation there was a slight glitch. The prizes were given out to the wrong team due to mis-calculation. Luckily we appealed and manage to sort it out. Nonetheless.. like to give a little tribute to my classmates..

Kumar: Great job pushing us with one heck of a pace!

Eliza: Thanks for the encouragements!

Chengwei: You kept the faith in the team! And all the clue-solving abilities!

Team Terror.
X-Physique 2009 Inter-Varsity Champions

Silly things with the King

Part 1: We went biking.. No we didnt go to Caesars ! Haha.. Stopped over at Bugis for desserts

Part 2: This was after service on sunday.. We saw a funny little clamp that looks like a toy.. But it could really be used to clamp a bike!

We fled immediately after taking as we were afraid later the owner run out!

Going for PESS outdoor residential camp! More updates when I am back!

"Taken"

Just caught the movie "Taken" and man! I was quite happy with this action-filled thriller! Its about an ex-intel officer whose daughter has been kidnapped and he goes on a mission to save her. The resourcefulness of agents/spies are really amazing and I was left with a sudden urge to be an agent for the force!

I know it sounds absurd.. Considering my vehement protests when I got my posting 2 years back.. But looking back at my time in spf, it was really fun and though I didnt do things as exciting as what secret agents do, I did get to interact with some of them and it was really cool to catch a glimpse of the lifestyle they have. Not one that I yearn for though, being young and brash I really thought having a high-octane, criminal-chasing life was really fun. But the regulars often brought me back to earth. Singapore's so safe.. nothing much to catch or do as well.. (im not complaining)

Anyway, this week has been filled with revelations. Im discovering more and more about myself! And I think the holidays are the best time for self-discovery when we are not buried in a myriad of activities during term time.

This week had lots of cycling, ultimate, dinners and movies. Quite the usual suspects on the schedule but through some pockets of time I am discovering at this phase of my life, what do I really want to do about it? The question brings about a staggering amount of thought into what is worth doing and what should actually be done.

I think I need to start my coaching. I miss the interaction with kids. I want to be able to teach something, value-add something and get involved in people's lives'. I have been reading some Outdoor Education books to seek some strategies and pedagogical tools to teach the various skills needed for AR.

Anyway, I have woken from my state of melancholy. I think there are more important issues to address. Being at this age, how do I see myself? How can I improve? How can I reach that certain level of hardcore-ness to be the best in my field? Now those are the questions worth pondering about. I want to work towards it. Not just building up knowledge. I want to experience, learn and pick things up off the book. How to think in a different way and approach issues with different angles? That's really crucial. I believe outdoor educators are not just about brawn, its instinct coupled with sound knowledge and experience that makes you trulty an asset and you value-add the kids.

I know I am not there yet, but its definitely worth a shot.