Thank goodness I'm a bochap parent. Because if I were a kiasu parent, I surely would have suffered a heart attack today when Tai Pi showed me her mid year results. Just 6 months ago, she was graded Band 1 for English and Chinese, and Band 2 for Math. And now? Band 2 for English and Math, and Band 4 for Chinese!!! Band 4!!! I think that means she flunked Chinese. And she didn't do so well in English either, although she's actually pretty strong in English.
Me: Do you know Malay or Indian?
Tai Pi: No.
Me: Well, you're no good in Chinese and your English is also not so good now. So you know some other language or what?!!
Sigh... I'm not surprised really. Her results are very much reflective of the amount of effort we have put in. I guess you reap what you sow. What Tai Pi lacks is discipline and what's worse is that I'm also lacking in discipline!!! Although she has a home timetable, she doesn't follow it and I don't bother to enforce it. Nearing the exams, KK and I did get her to do some Math practice papers, but I dreaded it because once she was done, I had to mark them and then she had to do the corrections and then I had to check her corrections and then she had to do corrections on the corrections and then I had to.....what a pain.
I did try something easier, something requiring less effort on my part. I resorted to threats.
Me: If you do badly in Math, I'm going to have to get you a tutor and I can't afford to get a tutor so I'm going to have to cancel your Taekwondo class and use the money for a Math tutor and you will be a yellow tip belt forever.
Tai Pi: Nooooooo.......
It didn't help that we only had some idea of how badly she was doing in Chinese just a couple of weeks before the exams. Great. Now I have to worry about her Math AND Chinese. We knew her Chinese was rotten but she somehow still managed a Band 1 last year so how bad could it get, we thought. Then just before the exams, we were told by her teacher that she had to attend a weekly remedial class for Chinese. The others at the class have a good excuse for their poor standard of Chinese - one is European, another is a girl with an Indian name who claims to be Taiwanese, couple of Indonesians, etc. You know it's bad news when you get grouped with this bunch for Chinese remedial.
So now I'm thinking I really really have to instill some discipline into Tai Pi and myself or face the prospect of all her grades sliding to Band 4 by year's end. We'll start tomorrow. Or maybe day after.... or day after.....
8 comments:
Hey Fuzzoo,
We have the same problem of falling grades here, too! His teacher said, there's a 'dip' in English and Chinese. Hmmm... more than 20 marks is not just a 'dip'.
My friend and I were talking about the 'other kids' who get 90+ or 100 marks for math and she said, 'You want him to get 90+, you make him do maths assessment every day, lah!'
You want to do that? I'm not going to.
Why panic? What's there to panic about? Kids' grades of all subjects are just like prices of shares in the stock market in that they fluctuate all the time, up and down, and up again and down again. That's what makes life more interesting. Without all the constant changes of everything around us, life becomes a bore! Imagine if you can, everything becomes so predictable (because they don't change), we get the same lousy salary every month, year in and year out, the same miserable progress package of a few hundred dollars, the same good results of our children's tests and exams, always band 1 in every subject, sunshine in the morning, shower early afternoon and cool in the evening everyday.
Even though i agree totally with the Buddha on the non-permenance of all things, I must agree with you that discipline needs to be instill in all kids.
Sometimes, I blame myself for not being there help my grandchildren. After all, I was well trained and qualified to deal with all their schoolwork problems. Makes me wonder if I should stay in S'pore until all three girls have graduated or at least enter university.
Anyway, I still want to give you some professional advice. Children develope at different ages and at differnet rates. Some are early bloomers and some blossom later,so don't worry too much. Keep telling her that everyone has a duty to perform and her one and only duty is to learn what she's taught in school and to learn well. It's expected of her by all of us.
household name: My daughter's chinese grade didn't just take a 'dip', it took a 'dive'!
I know I can't stand to mark maths assessment everyday so no point in trying to be as ambitious as some other parents. Anyway I'm sure my daughter has better things to do than maths assessment.
kongkong: I can do without this kind of excitement. Well, the only fluctuating my primary school grades did was fluctuate between 90 and 100 or is primary school so different now.
But great advice. I'm going to try that - tell Tai Pi that it is her "job" to do her best in school just as it is my job to put a roof over her head. Thanks!
Wait a minute! Is there something wrong with the assessment system in the schools or what? A good assessment method should be one that reflects, as accurately as possible, a child's level of performance, not how well she did on that particular day. Is this the mid-year exam you're talking about? Exams are usually not accurate in assessing how much a child is achieving. Don't rely on them, oh puurleese.
Yes. it's the mid year exams. Of course it would be better that they look at the students' performance in their everyday work but no, it's still just based on CA and exams. Strange that she didn't seem to have CA.
Let me tell you why my father (your grandfather) never said anything to us about our fluctuating grades. He just looked at our report books, signed them without any emotions. Grades took a dive (like Tai Pi's), no comments, no reproaches, no questions asked. I had been topping my class (and cohort)exam after exam, year after year in the primary school,also no comments, not a word of praise or encouragement, not even a smile. Finally, my eldest sister and brother and I couldn't contain ourselves anymore when we old enough (sec. 4, all 3 of us same year)and asked him why he had never reprimanded or praise us for our results. He said, "I never believe in exam results. Don't expect me to accept them as they (the results) were obtained at 1 or 2 sittings. They are not fair because you may not be feeling well, lacking in concentration, feeling hungry/thirsty, uncomfortable in the exam room, etc. Too many factors to affect exam. grades, therefore, results INVALID." Of course, those words were as close to what he had said as possible. Perhaps because of my father's attitude towards exam grades that I, too, had never taken them seriously.
Er...u making it sound quite scary for me. I think I'll skip this one.
Sigh - my boy passed the worrying stage. His school (ACSI) not exactly well-known for Chinese. They arranged special intensive classes for the Chinese O-level and he wanted to skip for some ECA until I insisted. Weekend b4 exam he was already in hol mood. When I asked him how come he was not preparing for his exam, he replied, "Chinese how to study?".
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