The Raffles JC controversy

[psyche]

What do you think about the recent case of the student taking a short video of the RJC teacher reprimanding and tearing another student's book? Who do you empathize more? What should have been done or not done?

I didn't know such things still happen today. I thot it only happend back in the 80's, where as a student, you can't imagnine then the kinds of treatment we had to go thru, eg: Teachers pinching, pulling, slapping girls' cheeks till they were red (and of cos they were tearing like crazy), using canes to beat the legs and bottoms, throwing exercise books from 1 end of the classroom to the other, standing on tables and chairs bcos of too much noise, etc etc...

For me, given my maturity now, and lack of fear for techers, I'd walked over and given her a good piece of advice: "I'm sure there's a better way to sort this out! Now put that book down!"

Please do share yor experiences as a student, present and past!!!

 

[gnail]

I guess for today's standards...the teacher was a bit too much. but then, we r only hearing from one point of view...maybe e student was really too much to handle??

i grew up in the 80s as well...and i remember being caned on the palm with rulers, ears pulled and wat not...since i was in PAP kindergarten till primary school. it didnt help dat i was in a chinese pri sch....which was damn strict. and i wasn't really naughty or anything...;p just didn't do my work or listen. the naughty ones had it worse.

times r different now i guess...if u'r a teacher and u lay a finger on a student, u could be fired the next day. its not like 15 years ago when parents would hit or pinch their kids in front of their teachers and ask them to discipline their kids in watever way they want!

 

[cyke]

We should hear the teacher's side of the story.

I have some teacher friends and sometimes I feel sorry for them after hearing their stories of terror students. Some students can be real brats, even in the good schools (some of you who are more prejudiced would probably say that's not surprising but that's another story ). Students who don't make an effort in their weak subjects, treat teachers with disrespect, you get the hint.

 

[espn]

Reprimending and scolding are necessary to keep a child's path straight and correct. Drift and let go a bit, the path will steer.

As a teacher I'm sure her conviction was to educate and guide the children on the right path. What wrong was she in to scold the student? Tearing of the book however was uncalled for. I can understand that the teacher has reached the end of her tether.

Punishments are not sadist. I believe standing on chairs, tables, outside of classrooms serves as a warning to all students alike. Parents are the ones spoiling the children. If the children do not learn discipline now, next time they are the ones to suffer.

Looking back now at the new coporals in my unit as I'm in reservist now. All are crybabies and guys that behave like gu-niang. They cannot take the lightest scolding/screwing. Even the CO also have to side with them. The learn nothing on their trainings, they're the ones going to get screwed when they go on duties next time.

Just like the PTEs, the students now don't learn it once, learn it good. Next time, they're the ones to suffer.

Maturity and lack of fear for teachers come over time as you grow. I don't say fear for teachers, let's just say respect for teachers cause you to 'fear' them.

I've seen once my friend in class had his tutorial question sheet thrown from the front to the back of the class. The tutor was unhappy he didn't attempt any questions. What I was unhappy was that my friend being the smart kind, was well known to answer questions with or without prior preparation. I think my tutor should have discovered and understood that before throwing his question paper to the back. My friend's reply was "Hey, I paid for the photostating of the paper." He's now a Captain in the Navy.

I can only say students nowadays have it coming to them. Gone are the days when students are dilligent and hardworking. Respecting the teachers have been long passe. Now the teachers have to respect the students.

Parents are grostequely over protective. They expect their child to be the cream of the crop with no reprimending/rebuking and when things goes wrong they push on the teacher.

Is it fair? I guess not. I would stand on the teacher's side in this case. A student with a PDA + camera. I can't even afford that now that I'm working. What's less a student? Can see how pampered they are. The poor teacher has to handle such stress.

Primary students eat during lunch at pizza huts, carry MMS phones. Goes out after classes, watch movies, arcades. How they learn to study and respect teachers?

I'm fortunately not a teacher myself, if I ever become one. I'll head for a lecturer position instead.

 

[Goldmember]

the teacher must have done it again and again for many times. that's why the student are prepared to captured it as evidence. i hereby salute to bravery. if the teacher have good reasons for doing so, she would have explained it long time ago. guess keeping her mouth shut is wiser. Afterall, this is a school, how can student tolerate such babaric actions from an educator.

My primary school is a communist school, there's never a chance explain. teachers use all kind of violence. forget to bring bring your book->rotan. read a word wrongly->rotan. i got rotan every day. try that on me now and i will kill you.

 

[jeff chen]

This is certainly an interesting topic. As a former student in the 80s too, I had to endure "cruel and unusual" treatment in school too. Then, when I was in NS, similar treatment from some sadistic instructors.

I guess it had done me some good as I am mostly law abiding and respectful to teachers having been through such a system.

I think the teacher has the right to "scold" the student if the student's attitude and work is poor. But, the tone was not very appropriate IMO. Perhaps she should have taken him aside to counsel him and tell him what is required of him, even though she may have done it numerous time. At the end, we are all human and we have our ugly side or bad days, I guess that was it for the teacher.

As for the student who recorded the whole incident and put it on the net, he deserves to be reprimanded. If he had recorded the incident and had then show it in private to the school authorities as a case of "teacher mistreatment", then it may be acceptable as it merely serves as recorded testimony. He was absolutely wrong to have posted it on the net. It has serious implications as that certainly erodes the authority of teachers in a classroom setting.

I guess at the end of the day, civilised behaviour should be expected of both teachers and students alike. Teachers should be respected in a classroom setting as they are the authority but they should not overstep the fine line of respect accorded.

 

[Goldmember]

the student was punished i think because the reputation of RJC was damaged to certain extent; by his deeds. as for how the student was 'punished' i dare not imagine, just hope is not something against human right. The teacher on the other hand was only councelled because the schools probably did not want to admit that the teacher/school was wrong. bear in mind, the student is still a teenager in the process of learning. if he had not release the evidence, we would not have talk about it in the forst place.

 

[yaoxing]

According to my colleagues, that teacher is described as one too "mild" to have done such a thing. I do believe that the students must have driven her to the limit. Not just GP, even computing and physics (or any subject which PRC Scholars are known to take) teachers have been frustrated by the way PRC Scholars answer their questions.

Personally, the experience of marking their scripts is an ordeal itself. Some would present sentences containing words that resemble English but having grammar that's far from it, while others will even try to use words which we have not seen before.

In one of the common tests, one of the sections like that of the Physics Paper 2 where dotted lines are given for students to write their qualitative answers. It was already emphasised in the question "WITHOUT sketching or making further calculations, describe how the graph of ..... would look." Then there was this PRC joker, who, went sketching a graph on the dotted lines...

Now, ask yourselves. Do you know what exactly are written in the book which the teacher tore? If you are the teacher, and the student, out of boredom, or resentment, wrote lewd comments or insults in the book targetted at you, upon discovering the content of the book, how will you react?

I suspect that PRC student might have set her up together with the rest of the class... (I don't teach in RJC by the way.)

 

[Goldmember]

Originally posted by yaoxing
It was already emphasised in the question "WITHOUT sketching or making further calculations, describe how the graph of ..... would look." Then there was this PRC joker, who, went sketching a graph on the dotted lines...

i too, have a habit for not reading question during examination. but that does not make me a "joker" right? your so call joker may be someone unique, a person who think other wise, having ideas that people dun see. his real potential may not be realise. now i know how teacher see things. thanks.

if the teachers are insulted in anyway in the book, keep them as an evidence for punish. why destroy evidence leh?

 

[yaoxing]

Originally posted by Goldmember
i too, have a habit for not reading question during examination. but that does not make me a "joker" right? your so call joker may be someone unique, a person who think other wise, having ideas that people dun see. his real potential may not be realise. now i know how teacher see things. thanks.

He is a joker because he always writes out of point, or totally irrelevant answers and then later approach me to claim marks by saying "it's the same! it's the same!" and when asked to explain why it's the same (I did give him chances to explain), he can't explain why. All he can say is "it's the same!"

Don't try to defend him by mocking at "how teacher see things". It is not a shame to blame the school system, but please don't try to flame all teachers just because you had been ill-treated by your teachers before.

I also had been caned in primary school for a minor offence before. So what? Life will just go on and I don't hate anybody. It's just an unpleasant memory.

 

[yaoxing]

Originally posted by Goldmember
if the teachers are insulted in anyway in the book, keep them as an evidence for punish. why destroy evidence leh?

Evidence for what? Court? You think the court cares? It's not a crime to scold teachers. Neither can the school do anything to the student, even if that book really containts foul remarks about teachers, you know? MOE nowadays is overprotective towards students. Try becoming a teacher if you think the job is easy now.

 

[Goldmember]

i can tell that you already lost you patience, thats you weakness. You call your student a joker, why not question the your ability as a teacher, to make him better person. of course i am not flaming all teachers they ain't no enemies to me. somtime i just wish my teachers could have understand me better, that's all. There are teachers whom i respect so much. they are just different from other teachers who resort to unnecessary violence.

 

[E1g3]

didn't watch the video, got link or not?

 

[yaoxing]

Originally posted by Goldmember
i can tell that you already lost you patience, thats you weakness. You call your student a joker, why not question the your ability as a teacher, to make him better person. of course i am not flaming all teachers they ain't no enemies to me. somtime i just wish my teachers could have understand me better, that's all. There are teachers whom i respect so much. they are just different from other teachers who resort to unnecessary violence.

I can also tell that your intention here is to humiliate all teachers. Whether me losing my patience here has nothing to do with my weaknesses. Don't comment as if you're some expert assessing a teacher's ability. You have not even seen me personally and you're already claiming impatience as my weakness. Likewise I won't brand as you a joker because of that since I know you might have some resentment against teachers.

Like I said, if you think you can stand those nonsense from the students, trying teaching for a few years. Don't be so confident. If you think you won't do it, for whatever reasons, then it's better that you look at this matter as an outsider.

"the teacher must have done it again and again for many times. that's why the student are prepared to captured it as evidence."

What makes you so sure that the teacher has done it again and again? Are you involved in this incident?

"My primary school is a communist school, there's never a chance explain. teachers use all kind of violence. forget to bring bring your book->rotan. read a word wrongly->rotan. i got rotan every day. try that on me now and i will kill you."

If a rotan on you now makes you want to kill the teacher, then aren't you also resorting to a worse violence?

Think before you answer. I'm not trying to make things worse. I'm just showing you how rational we can be. If things can be thought out properly, all problems can be solved. I'm just afraid there may be some out there who have their own ways of doing things and always trying to "test the teachers", perhaps that PRC scholar might have done just so. Possible?

 

[yaoxing]

Originally posted by E1g3
didn't watch the video, got link or not?

It was posted onto http://www.spug.net for a while, but taken off. You can try asking for it in IRC.

 

[VincentLin]

Well, I wanted to be a teacher when I was younger. My dad cured me of that though.

You see, my dad's a teacher for about thirty-two years and has undergone numerous changes in the ministry. He was a chinese-educated teacher, learnt English in the ministry and taught students from primary schools to secondary schools.

He works hard everyday. Putting up with students through the years. As the years went by, his comments about students became even more and more unpleasant.

He loves teaching. The problem is that he cannot cope with the newer generation of students.

They want to be entertained. They don't really want to learn. They think they know it all (with advent of the Internet, maybe that is so). They have a really short attention span.

Not to mention hooligans and disruptive students.

In the end, my dad had to seek treatment for severe mental stress and had to request for early retirement (and draw his pension - he was the one of the last few batches of teachers who are under the pension scheme).

Now, he is so much happier. He has turned to teaching art at community centres, art colleges and secondary schools (as extra curriculum). The students he is teaching are attentive and obedient - students who are interested.

Of course, he is happier because I decided not to teach and end up emotionally and mentally disturbed.

I salute teachers. They will always be my idols.

And don't you dare to say that I never experience those "80s" education system. My primary school was real strict. My secondary school was horrible - mainly because ALL the teachers there know my father (yes, I entered a secondary school where I call my teachers Uncle so-and-so and Aunty so-and-so during gatherings.

I wouldn't mention my polytechnic days and army days.

 

[yaoxing]

Originally posted by VincentLin
I wouldn't mention my polytechnic days and army days.

If you have undergone strict discipline in your childhood days, it is less likely that you will lead an aimless life. Your polytechnic days and army days should be quite ok I guess.

Teenagers whose lives have been trouble-free tend to take things for granted. Those who have never been through hardships usually find it hard to motivate themselves because they sometimes don't see the need to work hard.

 

[VincentLin]

Originally posted by yaoxing
If you have undergone strict discipline in your childhood days, it is less likely that you will lead an aimless life. Your polytechnic days and army days should be quite ok I guess.

Teenagers whose lives have been trouble-free tend to take things for granted. Those who have never been through hardships usually find it hard to motivate themselves because they sometimes don't see the need to work hard.

My poly days were fine. My classmates were horrible.

My army days were fine. Just a bit disappointed to have a broken shoulder and a foot. My army buddies are the best!!!! We've been through hell and back.

My life is not trouble-free.

My family was really poor. Teachers don't earn much back then. I remembered eating rice with soya sauce.

Now, I work hard and earn as much as I can to provide a living for my family and my wife. Not well-to-do, but I can say I'm middle-class!

 

[yaoxing]

Originally posted by VincentLin
Just a bit disappointed to have a broken shoulder and a foot. My army buddies are the best!!!! We've been through hell and back.

Hmmm, ....Commando or Engineer.... ? ;p

 

[VincentLin]

Originally posted by yaoxing
Hmmm, ....Commando or Engineer.... ? ;p

I come from a place where people sit in ovens that has wheels, shoot at infantry with these funny things that go boom and spray them with metal bits and maybe sometimes fire this big honky tube on wheels which you can hear from miles away when it farts.

Don't get me started on how dangerous to have an oven overturn on you.

"Beware! Ovens x-ing!"