Singapore

Chinese Garden

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One of my Singapore Bucket List items was (note the use of past tense!) to visit the Chinese Garden in Jurong Lake. I didn’t even know it existed until it showed up as the banner photo on my bank’s website. The website has gorgeous photos of Singapore and they’re helpfully all labeled with the location! A stunning sunset photo of the Twin Pagodas at the Singapore Chinese Garden shows up fairly often in my online banking experiences. I expected the pagodas to be massive because that’s how they look in the photo but that actually wasn’t the case at all. You can see for yourself in the gallery below.

The Chinese Garden is out west on the East-West Line, which is a pretty far MRT ride from where I live, which is towards the northern end of the North-East Line. Without a friend, I would have brought a book but I was lucky enough to have a friend! Jamie and I headed there mostly to take pictures. It rained a bit but we were delighted to find the park almost completely empty. It was quiet and serene even though we could see the city and its construction all around us. There were a group of people playing cricket on a pitch nearby, but we saw relatively few people otherwise.

The Japanese Garden is part of the same park, but we only visited the Bonsai Garden there. Pretty helpful sign posts and the occasional map showed us around. It’s quite a large park, so there would be more to see if I ever went back. Looking at the amount of time I have left here, though, that’s unfortunately unlikely. (Insert sad face emoji here.)

Enjoy the photos and head there for a visit!

 

On My Mind

Yom HaShoah

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Yom HaShoah is Israel’s commemoration of the Holocaust. Shoah, the Hebrew word to describe the Holocaust, literally means “catastrophe.” Most Jewish communities follow suit and also hold ceremonies of remembrance on the 27th of Nissan. The Jewish calendar (and Muslim calendar!) is a lunar calendar so the Gregorian date changes each year. According to the Gregorian calendar, a new day begins at midnight. On the Jewish calendar, however, a new day begins at sundown. In 2016, Yom HaShoah began at sundown on May 4 and will end at sundown on May 5.

This has always been a day that leads me to think about the state of the present world. Today’s world is violent, full of anger and fear and hate, and in desperate need of peace. There are surely a million and one reasons why we are where we are, but I prefer to think about moving forward. Dwelling on the past has brought us our present. I have bigger dreams for the future.

Whenever I’ve taught about the Holocaust, I’ve focused heavily on the roles of bystanders and upstanders (rescuers). Writer Cynthia Ozick highlights the issue of indifference, which I address with my students.

“Indifference is not so much a gesture of looking away – of choosing to be passive – as it is an active disinclination to feel. Indifference shuts down the humane, and does it deliberately, with all the strength deliberateness demands. Indifference is as determined – and as forcefully muscular – as any blow.”

We need to care. We need to care about everyone in the world simply because they are human. We all are human.

I don’t write poetry anymore, but I wrote a poem last night.

I Remember

Today is Yom HaShoah.
Holocaust Remembrance Day.

We must remember because if we do not
who will?

On this day when we choose to remember
let us not talk
of numbers
but instead commemorate
lives.

I remember the people
lost
the dreams
whispered
the hope
undeterred.

I remember the people with stories
songs
books
picture frames.

I remember the people who
helped
hid
harbored.

I remember
Armenia
Bosnia
Cambodia
Darfur
Rwanda.

I remember pain
and anguish.
I remember hate
and horror.

I remember the tears.
I remember the countless trails of tears.

I remember the lives
while I mourn the deaths.
I honor the lives
while I lay the victims to rest.

I remember the lives they cherished.
I remember their fight to preserve
those lives.

Let us talk not only of the past
but of the hope for the future.
Let us not talk of wishes
but let us take action.

For on this day
on every day
it is not enough to remember.

We’ve promised never again
and we’ve remembered
again
and again
and again.

So let us not only talk of the past.
Let us embrace, build, demand
peace
for the future.

There is clearly work to be done.

Education

A Good Teacher

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I recently solicited feedback from friends about this blog and how I can improve it. Sure, taking travel photos is fun and I love writing about where I’ve been and what I’ve seen, but there’s a lot more to me than weekends out of town.

Most of my hours are spent teaching and learning, thinking about teaching and learning, and reading about teaching and learning. I do quite a lot of personal writing about it as well, so a friend’s recommendation to blog about education seems only natural. There is now an education category up in the menu bar. The posts currently there are old, but I think still relevant to my constantly evolving thoughts on what education is and should be.

Now that I’m making a concerted effort to write publicly about education, I think it makes sense to begin by discussing what I see as being a good teacher. This will also help you, my wonderful readers, understand who and what I strive to be. I do acknowledge that good is a tricky word, and it is precisely for that reason that I want to explain how I define “good” in terms of teachers and teaching.

The way I see it, good teachers possess deep content knowledge and pedagogical understanding. They take risks by trying new ideas that are not crafted out of nowhere, but constructed out of research and sound practice. This means that teachers should make a point to remain current in research and actively seek out discussion with colleagues. Good teachers constantly reflect on their practice and make changes in their instruction based on students’ successes, failures, and needs.

Ultimately, good teachers act as role models for students, both in teaching and learning. Good teachers learn along with their students and are explicit in doing so. It is crucial that students see their teachers as actively and deliberately working to improve and accomplish relevant, meaningful goals. Learning is a process, and we need to spend substantial time addressing that process in our classrooms.

Additionally, I believe that good teachers establish a strong rapport with their students based on trust, genuine caring, a shared vision for the classroom community, and mutual respect. They need to value the unique experiences, backgrounds, and needs of their students to create environments that are inclusive for all. This means that good teachers and their students actively work for social justice.

Good teachers build their classrooms around what is best for students. To do so, teachers need to hear and listen to (yes, those are different!) the voices of their students. Good teachers believe that students have agency and they need to provide space for students to act and make choices.

This does not mean, however, that any individual should be all-powerful or completely powerless in a good teacher’s classroom. I am coming to believe that the central element of good teaching is to approach education with the goal of building peace in the classroom, in the community, and in the world. With that in mind, good teachers should work with their students and schools to develop environments in which dialogue, discussion, and consensus-building are the norm. Whenever possible, the emphasis in curricula should highlight the key concepts of peace and social justice.

Twenty-first century education is complicated because society has not come to a conclusion about education’s purpose. For fun, I typed “purpose of education” into Google’s search bar and got “about 975,000,000 results.” (By contrast, “why is the sky blue” yields only “about 179,000,000 results.” We have clearly come to a decision on that one.) While I don’t advocate a step-by-step formula for education, quite the opposite, I do think it’s important to be aware that education means a lot of things to a lot of people. Every single person on this planet is a stakeholder in terms of education. That’s a lot of people, and therefore a lot of ideas.

I’m looking forward to sharing my ideas and would really love to hear yours! Dialogue only works if people are willing to talk and that’s what the comments section is for! I’m always looking to grow and develop as both a teacher and a learner. Therefore, I hope that this blog, in addition to providing a platform for communication, will help me (and you!) in efforts to do so.

 

Photos, travels, musings, and ideas on education by someone trying to make the world a better and more peaceful place