Singapore Teachers

The following sections are included:

• Dedication
• Prologue
• Foreword: Inside Singapore Schools
• Introduction: Lives of Singapore Teachers — Narratives of Care, Hope and Commitment
• Contents

My journey as a teacher unofficially began in 2003, when I had left my job of four years as a Public Relations Consultant to join the world of education. It was not that I did not enjoy my previous job; I was working for a large multinational public relations consultancy, got to travel a fair bit and worked on numerous exciting, challenging projects. However, as I toiled through the years, working to please bosses, clients and media, I began to develop a sense of dissatisfaction and emptiness. I resented how “corporate” my scope of work and impact were; I often asked myself: Who am I benefitting? All this hard work … for what? To put more money into other people's pockets? I resented the fact that what I was doing was not benefitting the people who really needed help, hence my foray into teaching…

The following sections are included:

• Introduction: Gifted Students — “A Misunderstood Race”?
• Reflection and Discussion
• Conclusion
• References

The following sections are included:

• Teachers who Shaped Me…
• Experiences — As a Student
• Experiences — As a Teacher
• Experiences — Shaped Beliefs

Growing up at the time when the Singapore economy was rapidly expanding, choosing teaching as a career was viewed as a “safe” option with little prospect of achieving the 5 C's (Cash, Condominium, Car, Country Club and Credit Card) which were coveted by society as a measure of a person's success. Stated simply, the perception of teaching then was that it was an honest job which could provide a decent standard of living. Needlessly to say, choosing teaching as a career did not feature prominently among my peers. However, having performed reasonably well for the General Certificate of Education (GCE)“A”-Level examinations, I was faced with the prospect of being a financial burden to my family should I decide to continue my education at the local university. Not wanting to place unnecessary financial stress on my limited family savings, I reluctantly applied for a government scholarship to finance my university education. Fortunately for me, my application was successful and I was informed that I would be joining the Civil Service as a teacher upon my graduation. While glad that the scholarship would relieve me of my financial worries, it came at a price — the scholarship came with a five-year bond, which meant that I would be teaching for at least five years. I started my university education at the same time the economy was undergoing a financial crisis and was very grateful for the scholarship. It was truly a blessing as the worsening economy would have meant that my family would not have been able to finance my education…

The following sections are included:

• My Little Flame: Holding onto Beliefs
• Despair and Hope: The Real World
• My Professionalism Questioned
• Finding my Heart
• Holding Onto My Beliefs
• Ideals Challenged

There are countless memories that have been etched in my mind. The strongest and clearest ones are those of me as a teacher, spanning a period of 15 years. In many ways, these experiences have moulded me into what I am today, from a potent combination of events borne out of the classroom and the staff room. I would like to share some of these personal anecdotes that have paved my professional journey.

The following sections are included:

• Introduction
• Origins
• Comfortable Environment Equals Productivity
• Ups and Downs of Teacher Training
• The Importance of Having a Support Network
• Thoughts on Defiant Students
• Complexities of Power Relationships
• Politics at Play
• The Power of Negativity
• Of Stagnation and Illumination
• Conclusion

The following sections are included:

• My Belief and Philosophy of Leadership
• References

January 2008 was a memorable month for me, as I had become a teacher then. It took me tremendous courage to switch careers. Prior to teaching, I held a job as a mechanical design engineer in two local shipbuilding firms. I had selected mechanical engineering in University as there was a strong demand for engineers then. The career was deemed as highly respectable, with good future prospects and commanding quite a reasonable starting pay. Attracted by these perks, I entered Engineering without giving much thought to whether I would be interested in the job. Working in the marine industry was extremely tough. I had to juggle various demands and learn on the job quickly as I was thrown into various projects immediately after joining the company. The learning curve was undeniably steep. However, I learnt the ropes quickly and undertook a number of large projects. Being an engineer requires both analytical and negotiation skills, as we have to be involved in systems design, site inspections and meetings with both vendors and customers simultaneously. I also honed my skills in multi-tasking as time went by. With such a hectic lifestyle, long hours at work and constant pressure to deliver the product on time, I started asking myself if this was what I envisioned in a long term career. I did not see myself in this career for life as it was far too stressful, I had little time for my family and I found myself unable to spend time on my interests and hobbies. I was suffering from a mid-career crisis. It was after four years in Engineering that the thought of a career switch fleeted across my mind…

Looking back at my entire trajectory starting from 1994 till now, it is certainly nothing short of a never-ending string of changes and progressions. Along the way, the journey is of course interwoven with its fair share of ups and downs, tears and laughter, success and failure, just like everyone else's. For this chapter, I have anchored my narrative inquiry on one period of my career that was really etched in my memory. It is with this inquiry that I have finally uncovered the real lessons that this extraordinarily trying period is meant to teach me — about the impact of my egoistic self in framing the whole context of much of my sufferings then, as well as the shock of how a significant part of my personal beliefs has been proven to be wrong and irrelevant in reality…

In every box of assorted chocolates, there are some wrapped in gold foil, their contents unclear; only by removing the foil would you see what lies within. Others are not wrapped; their contents quite clear with the inner fillings delicately decorated on the outside. There are also others; plain-looking and without any hints of what may be inside. Life is like that too, isn't it? No one can really say for sure what the next moment might bring — a sweet milk chocolate or a bitter dark one…

My earliest recollection of being formally assessed was by my mother for my 12 times tables as she prepared dinner. I was about 5 or 6 and would sit on the kitchen floor memorising the times table while she cooked. My mother would then test me. I usually got every question right and would be rewarded with a smile and praise. Before the end of primary 1, I had mastered the 12 times table completely and always led my class in Mathematics tests and examinations and this continued up the levels. It gave me a sense of achievement and control which motivated me to strive to always excel in Mathematics. My parents' and teachers' approval, classmates' admiration and a sense of superiority whenever my classmates asked for help also played a part in stimulating and motivating my interest in Mathematics…

If I may turn back the clock, I would like to relive my happy past. Unfortunately, life is such that there are always ups and downs. I view myself as a seed planted in various fields waiting to germinate. When nurtured it would grow, mature and flower. Naturally, when ignored it would be stunted, would not sprout, would shrivel and remain lifeless…

Now, sitting in front of my computer, I cannot help but think of these two school leaders, so vastly different in their support for their staff. As I think about these events, I cannot help but realise that the support system for new managers at that time was really lacking and how this had actually affected my work–life balance…

The following sections are included:

• Prologue
• Chapter One: I Got the Book
• Chapter Two: The Journey
• Chapter Three: The Conflict
• Chapter Four: Twisted Tale
• Epilogue
• References

The end of this year would mark the end of five great years in service for me as a teacher. In all of these five years, one thing has never changed and that is my personal belief and conviction that teaching is a calling, a calling for me…

The following sections are included:

• The Novice
• A Chance to Reflect on My Practice
• Opening Up New Doors
• Engaging With and Confronting Problems
• Going to Class and Facilitating Learning
• The Certification Process
• Becoming a Staff Developer
• My Journey Thus Far
• References

The following sections are included:

• Synopsis
• References

The following sections are included:

• My Aspirations in Their Infancy
• Journey of Survival and Discovery: A Beginner Teacher
• Journey of Transformation: Head of Department
• Journey of Reality Check: School Leader
• Reference

I was brought down to earth by what I heard. It was clear that Mr. Harinam was in charge as he insisted that the Secondary Two class in the new accelerated programme comprise 24 students, and not 14 students as recommended by my team. After all, he was the owner and Director of the school and I, although the Principal, an employee. Although I had based my proposal on comprehensive assessments of student academic ability conducted by my team of teachers, it was evident that the financial viability, nay profitability, of the programme took precedence. We were at opposite ends of the meeting room and I could feel the tension in my veins as well as the now evident rift in our relationship, a bond which I once had felt was so durable and robust that it would stand the test of time. He had been my mentor and friend for close to four years now, and though we had disagreed, albeit amicably, on many an issue, this time it stirred a sense of bitterness inside me. As our eyes remained locked in an intense gaze, a barrage of thoughts flooded my mind as I contemplated the path our relationship had taken as well as my incredulous journey in the school thus far…

The following sections are included:

• Introduction
• Do Not Let Him Walk All Over You: A Beginning Teacher's Sense of Self as an Educator
• Relating and Interacting with Fellow Colleagues: On an Even Footing?
• Bridging the Gap between an Administrator and a Beginning Teacher: If I were in Your Shoes…
• Conclusion
• References

As I look back at my career history from the beginning to the present, be it in terms of history or trajectory, my career story is best summed up as the passing of a day and all that transpires in between…

The following sections are included:

• Introduction
• In the Beginning
• The Call to Adventure
• The Trials
• The Next Phase
• Conclusions
• References

In the most pensive of moods as I contemplate life and its meaning, the question — “Who am I?” surfaces often. I could define myself as a man, a son, a Singaporean, a Chinese; but none fits better than defining myself as a teacher. Yes, I am a teacher and proud of it! Of course, we know teachers teach subjects to students; I know I teach Physical Education (PE). But beneath the superficial features of what teachers do, who is a teacher? What does it really mean to be a teacher? What defines my identity as a teacher…

The following sections are included:

• Renewal and Reinvention of the Self in a New College
• Making Meaning out of Ordinary Challenges
• An Experiment in Mindfulness
• An Experiment in Slowing Down
• An Experiment in Appreciation
• Reassessment of my Obsession with Examination Preparation
• Redefining Professional History and Engagement

I must admit that preparing for this narrative inquiry was quite a harrowing experience for me. After countless nights reflecting on my teaching career, I struggled to come up with the “more memorable” experiences that I would use for the narrative inquiry. Not that I dislike the work, but in the build up to writing, I had concluded that my teaching career story, if ever translated into a book or a movie, would be a dull one. No intriguing and subtle first chapter to begin my story or suspense and drama in the middle of the story to keep readers glued to the story. No twists, no conspiracies and most definitely no scandals in my story as well. Just the one plain simple plot — I am a teacher and I want to do my job well…

When I first put serious thought into the writing for this assignment, I felt quite empty. I knew that I had to delve deep into my memory and emotions and identify some sort of turning point, or significant event that has either shaped me, or at least my teaching philosophy. I do not have any heart-wrenching, tear-jerking or hair-pulling classroom experiences to write about. However, my journey towards being a teacher was filled with a lot of unexpected twists and turns on the academic and professional front. Astonishingly, most of the reflections that I have about my early and present education are enriched and enlightened by my Master of Education (MEd) journey. It was only recently that I could understand why I learnt what I had learnt and why I learnt the way I had learnt. Through the readings of Eisner, Freire and Apple in curriculum theory, and the lectures of Professor Gopinathan in understanding the curriculum in Singapore, I managed to excavate my educational journey and connect the dots that outline my cultural and intellectual identity as a student and, simultaneously, a teacher…

The following sections are included:

• Introduction
• The Narrative
• The Passionate Teacher
• The Frustrated Graduate
• The Enthusiastic Specialist
• The Learning Leader
• The Inquiry
• Conclusions
• References

The following sections are included:

• My Pre-Service Days
• My Survival Stage
• My Discovery Stage — The Turning Point
• My Stabilisation Phase
• Stumbling Blocks to Stabilisation
• My Experimentation and Activism Stage
• My “Taking Stock” and Final Stabilisation
• Experimentation and the Future

As part of the requirements for our master's module on narrative inquiry, we formed groups of four to five in order to act as reflective agents for our teammates' narratives. In our team, there were five members with very varied backgrounds in terms of experience. There was one member who taught at primary school level, two secondary school Mother Tongue teachers, one mathematics and physical education teacher who had done a stint in an international school in Thailand, and the last being a junior college history and art teacher who had spent the last five years teaching in a polytechnic. Four of us had taught for 13 years and one had taught for six years by the time we took the course in 2012. Save for one, all had worked at managerial levels in their respective jobs. All had been involved in curriculum development…

Five different people came together under one roof through a course module that introduced using narrative inquiry for teacher learning and development in the graduate programme in Curriculum and Teaching at National Institute of Education, Singapore. Nanban, a Tamil Singaporean teaching Chemistry; Peng You, a Chinese Singaporean teaching Mathematics; Dost, an Indian Singaporean teaching Physics; Kawan, a Malay Singaporean teaching Art; and I, Mitr, an Indian living in Singapore and teaching English Language and Literature in an international school…

This chapter reports findings from analysis of 33 teacher narratives written by participants who attended our postgraduate course on curriculum, teaching and teacher learning through a narrative inquiry approach in 2011. This study focuses on the emotional work of individual teachers in managing teacher–student relationship in the social, cultural and institutional contexts of Singapore, a high performing and highly demanding education system. It also attempts to capture the emotional understanding that the teachers gained from those critical experiences as a result of learning more about themselves and their professional roles, particularly, in three key areas: grappling with the physical distances between teachers and students in the persistent pursuit of academic performance; finding hope and commitment by bridging the social–cultural differences with students; and deriving the ethical and moral meanings of teaching and understanding the nature of teacher–student nested knowing. The findings further suggest that building inquiry through sharing and writing life narratives can lead to deepening of self-understanding and personal practical knowledge that are critical to bring about continuous professional learning for teachers.

Part 1 includes the personal narratives of six teachers of events in their professional journeys. It points to the various reasons for which different individuals decided to join teaching. Their reasons may be myriad — for satisfaction, to accommodate finances and seek scholarship, to change the system, to fill the void in their lives, or in search of self — but while reading the stories in this section, one realises that their purposes converge on the wellbeing of their students (Grimmett & MacKinnon, 1992). Further, these purposes have been achieved through varied means, each of which has unveiled a hidden corner of the teaching world. However, in this entire process — a process of understanding, realisation, action, inaction, awakening and change — teachers are not the sole entity; they are but a part of a larger context — the school, the families of students, the society and the nation. The context has played a major part in shaping their teaching, their beliefs and their identity (Bruner, 1990; Connelly & Clandinin, 1990)…

Many, if not all, teachers enter the teaching profession with the ideals of the simplicity and pleasures of working with students in order to make a meaningful difference in their lives. Although working with students has its fair share of challenges given the myriad cultural, social and economic make-up of the students we teach, many a time, teachers who end up leaving the profession, or have at some point contemplated switching careers, do so due to challenging circumstances involving relationships or incidents with their peers and superiors such as a department head or even the Principal. Part 2 brings to light the significant role of collegial support in our work as teachers, and illuminates the strong emotions that are evoked, both positive and negative, in such interactions. This overview, interlaced with excerpts from the narratives presented in this section, draws attention to how the nature of collegial relationships influences teachers attitudes towards work at different stages of their career trajectories, as well as probable underlying factors that influence the nature of such relationships…

The forming of teacher identity is a complex yet vital issue in the educational development of the nation since “[t]eachers' perceptions of their own professional identity affect their efficacy and professional development as well as their willingness to cope with educational change and to implement innovations in their own teaching practice” (Beijaard et al., 2000, p. 750). Important as it is, teacher identity is formed through a dynamic process - it is neither fixed nor imposed from outside, but rather, as Sachs (2005) pointed out, “negotiated through experience and the sense that is made of that experience” (p. 15). The teacher narratives included in Part 3 of this book exactly demonstrate this dynamic process as part of their personal and professional growth, that is both emotional (Rodgers & Scott, 2008; Zembylas, 2003) and bound by the shaping factors that are context specific and sensitive to external environments, such as the social, cultural and political situations (Bruner, 1990). Examining these factors and the shaping processes of teacher identity are essential in understanding its formation and the implications for supporting the meaning making of teacher personal and professional lives…

Roles and practices are constructed socially (Goffman, 1959; Bourdieu, 1972/2002). One hallmark of a leader is the ability to collaborate with others. In a school setting, leadership ability grows as leaders learn and mature in their response to and execution of the roles and tasks and it also changes with interaction with teachers, staff and local communities (Gergen, 1971)…

While narratives in Part 3 are about teacher identity shaped dynamically by external factors (such as family upbringing, work assignments, colleagues and so on), narratives in Part 5 are concerned mainly with teacher identity examined from within the experiences of teachers themselves. Experience is central to narrative. As teachers looked inwardly in search of who they are, they do not only draw from their past experiences to make sense of their conceptions of teaching, their roles and responsibilities and their multi-faced selves, such as gendered and racial selves in the larger society. They also depend on the significance of their past in making decisions of what they want to be and assign meaning to their work and life (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990; Sachs, 2005). Needless to say, this inward gaze and the journey they travel on is deeply emotional (Johnson & Golombek, 2011), demanding courage to face, identify with and accept their other selves, which can often be darker and hidden or neglected…

Part 6 presents three studies on the narrative experiences of the teacher participants. The first two were written respectively by David and Sonia, members of the book's editorial team, who attended my postgraduate class in 2012 and 2013, respectively. They each provided a reflective narrative of the collaborative restorying experience in their Group Projects, a major course component requesting group members to read, provide feedback to each other's narratives and analyse them with a goal to identify patterns and make meaning in light of the course readings. (Refer to the Epilogue for more details about the Group Project.) The third chapter, an academic research paper, was written by the course instructors on the emotional work of teachers in interacting with their students based on analysis of the narratives written by a class of 33 participants in 2011. The authors took a step back and looked at the teachers' narrative experiences again from “outside in” to describe them and understand their importance to teacher learning and teachers' work in Singapore.

The following sections is included:

• Epilogue: Narrative Inquiry for Teacher Education and Professional Development — An Instructor's Journey
• Index