Shameless pic of the banner with a pic taken by (me or Mich, can't remember) during orientation... looks like it but i can't remember
The year 3s, 4s, and 5s doing their part for the open house. The biggest problem I notice with students helping out is that their dark eyes circles and tired faces seem to be bad publicity for life in the school. But it shows that they are working hard. Right?! Unless they play too hard.
I won't say I'm well traveled but having been to a selected few (3 actually) of the shortlist of 21, I feel that Angkor is definitely more of a wonder than the Colosseum in Rome. Granted the Colosseum may be older than the Angkor, but it took a decade to build compared to centuries for the Angkor (or millennias for the Great Wall of China). The colosseum will take you at most half a day to explore but to do it for Angkor, it takes weeks (just for comparison, months for the Great Wall). The Romans or Italians may beg to differ but as an outsider who been to both, the Colosseum fails to leave a deep impression on me as much as the Angkor.
So I shall present in many parts, some of the pictures I took in my short 1 day adventure in Angkor, Cambodia.
For those who are curious, the other wonder in the shortlist that I have been to is the Eiffel tower of Paris.
Relatively small stone heads found in the south gate to Angkor Thom
Is this part of the moat? But nice view from the south gate to Angkor Thom
The stone head closed up. How the Khmer people built this in the past is to pile stones up to 6-7 storeys high and use soil/earth to fill the ground so they can do their craft on the stones. The process can take quite a while, that is why it is a great wonder
Blocks of stones clearly visible here. This stone head is found in Bayon temple of Angkor Thom
More stone heads of Bayon temple. These heads are almost as tall as the trees which are very tall tropical rain forest type.
Cravings on the walls of Bayon temple that records history. This, if I'm not wrong, is the Song Dynasty armies marching in to help the Khmer armies in the past.
The Bayon temple from far
Just week 2 of term 3 and so many things had happened. From common tests to CCA, external validation and back to class tests. All these things set me thinking about our students a bit more than I used to, and learned a lot more about our students, especially the year 3s. This is also the first time I spent considerable amount of time lecturing students for things that they have done and things that they have not done.
There were so many complains, worries, frustrations about the class tests but yet everybody did well and no one failed this time round. There were so much optimism, celebrations and smiles about the common tests but almost half couldn't even pass. Problem is, those who did well will not be satisfied, those who did badly may not be ready to face it.
Maybe the gifted education branch is right. If we don't attach marks/grades to all the assignments and tests, students could be more focus on the one important thing that they are suppose to do, learn. Then they won't target 90% for their tests, then they won't sulk when they fail, all they have to do is to improve next time, and not to make the same mistakes again. Of course, learning for the sake of learning, that's too idealistic. At the end of the day, we still have to decide who gets promoted and send a report card home.
I don't like tests.
I don't like tests that let students score more than 90%. That will give them the false image that they are very good and there is little room for improvement.
I don't like tests that let students score less than 80%. Because I will hear 101 reasons why they deserve more marks. Because I will hear 101 excuses why they couldn't do better.
I hope I like tests that let students score less than 50%. I hope that they will look beyond the marks, look beyond the pass, look beyond the grades and focus on their learning. I hope they will learn from their inadequacies, their weakness and their mistakes.
But I know I don't like tests that let students score less than 50%, the moment I hear them ask about moderation.
...
I remember during my 2nd semester in NIE, we have a module on assessments in Physics and the lecturer Prof Ho Boon Tiong let us debate on why have exams/tests. There were many answers. The typical answers like "to rank students, "to evaluate teacher's performance", "for answering to parents", "for promotions", "for their certificates", "for future empolyers", "ensure students revise" etc. I got fed up with the answers and contributed my thoughts
To facilitate learning
...
There are some things in school that teachers take for granted when we teach. One of them is that we don't teach students how to learn. We expect them to pick up these skills as they go along and we want them to become lifelong learners.
Learning to learn is very important in life. Maybe I should deal with this learning gap with my class and learn how to learn with them.
What's not to like about Aloha Changi Chalets?
You may be lucky and get an ocean view along with your stay
What's not to like about Aloha Changi Chalets? Yuxin may have something to say.
Her butt keeps falling between the cushions of these classic sofas
Yeah.. let's celebrate more photos being uploaded. This time is about taking photos and trying new things...
First up, you have me and sucre and me.And we have Sucre taking pictures of me taking pictures of her taking pictures of me.
And not forgetting other people taking pictures of the sun setting
And then a picture of a jet plane flying by causing water vapour to condense forming a cloud trail behind...
A picture of sunset at Labrador park jetty
Another picture of the jetty during sunset
Finally the sun sets behind PSA with some heads at the same level
Totally a worthwhile trip. Yeah..
Yada Yada... a picture speaks a thousand words., I have more than 10 000 words here.
Carnival as I see it, when I have the chance to walk around... was falling sick that day.. still a bit sick now...
The youths enjoying youth day celebrations. Yeah I know its the same few faces but aint gonna put other faces there cos there is no way I could ask their permission right. (I am politically very correct.. can be politician already.. lol)
Just 1 martial arts pic in the concert that I'm happy with. No lights on the stage it is tough to catch action shots
Posts
