Three lessons from my 20s

Sat, 3 May 2014
4 min read
2 Comments

About 10 days ago, a new and younger friend asked me what the 10 most important lessons I learnt in my 20s were.

We were walking to the train station from Empress Place, so I only managed to come up with three lessons before we parted ways.

While sitting on the train on the way home, I realised I really only needed three lessons for two reasons:

  1. These are the fundamentals; you need to work on getting the basics right before working on the rest.

  2. Cognitive load, yo. We can only remember so much, so two to three lessons, objectives, etc. is optimal.

I wish I had known these three things earlier, or at least have someone tell me what to do and how to do it – then I wouldn’t have felt like I was floundering at some points in time in my 20s.

But, hey – better late than never, and I’d like everyone to benefit from this too.

So, ladies and gentlemen, the three most important life lessons I learnt in my 20s:

  1. Value yourself
  2. Set boundaries
  3. Let go

If you have the time, here they are, fleshed out in detail:

  1. Value yourself.
    This is the most important. Read about it in detail here and here.

    If you can’t value yourself, figure out what’s stopping you from loving yourself.

    Perhaps you’re a manic-depressive or you lack self-confidence. Then talk to a mental health professional. It’s OK to not be OK, but it’s not OK to not help yourself.

    Let me reframe this for you: We visit doctors whenever we’re physically unwell, so there’s no shame in visiting a counseller if you’re mentally unwell. Figuratively speaking, they’re both mechanics – but for different things.

    Feeling fat? Exercise and lose weight.

    Friends are messing you up? Stop hanging out with them. Cut them off or don’t meet with them so much. Join activities where you can make new friends who’ll be healthier for you.

    Ultimately, you don’t need toxic people or people who don’t add value to your life to bring you down.

  2. Set boundaries.
    Don’t know how to do it? Google is your friend.

    Your boss is making you work on weekends without compensation (time off, overtime pay, etc.)? Tell your boss you don’t do weekends, and stick to it.

    Or find a new job that values your skill and pays you more, without you having to spend precious “you” time doing work that should be done on weekdays.

    Most importantly, learn to say “no”.

    Again, if you value yourself enough, this will come easily; you’ll be less inclined to commit yourself to emotional vampires or productivity thieves – things or people who steal precious time and energy from you.

  3. Let go.

    4. Stop hoarding that shit already, yo!

    But how do I go about doing that?, you ask. Well, ask yourself the difficult questions you’ve been shying away from all these years, such as:

    • Do I really need to maintain contact with that friend or family member?
    • Do I really need to keep that mug?
    • Do I really need to file away that lesson plan?

    But how do I find the answers to that?, you ask. Well, use this litmus test:

    1. If I really needed it, I’d have used it already (or, in the case of human beings: made contact with that person/benefited from that person’s presence).
    2. If I haven’t already used it, I’m never gonna use it (or, in the case of human beings: contacted/made contact with that person/benefited from that person’s presence).
    3. If in doubt, throw it out.

    So that friend or family member who adds completely no value to your life? Cut her or him off.

    That mug which you haven’t drank from and which you probably won’t use because you have five other mugs like it? Chuck it out.

    That lesson p- What are you doing keeping hard copies of lesson plans when they should be in soft copy and filed away in the folder system GP>2009>Term 3>Week 4>Lesson 1?

Again, there were other lessons I learnt too, such as why it’s important to:

  • Always be closing;
  • Have good role models; and
  • Have a good grasp on financial matters, among others.

But as I’ve always maintained: Focus on the fundamentals and work on the root problems first, before going on to improve the other things.

Hence, remember to always value yourself, set boundaries and let go.

(Background music: “Nothing Better” by The Postal Service)

Focus on fundamentals: teach teachers to teach well

Tue, 8 Oct 2013
3 min read
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Dear Madam/Sir,

In “MOE reviewing policy allowing teachers to give private tuition” (Oct 5), it is clear that the Ministry of Education (MOE) – as always – has its heart in the right place.

This time round, however, the MOE needs to focus on fixing the core issue of why the tuition industry is thriving despite the internationally-recognised quality of the Singapore education system.

It is not the supply of tutors that creates demand for tutoring; rather, it has always been the demand for quality education that has created a supply of tutors to satiate that desire.

Hence, the issue is not about whether teachers should be allowed to give private tuition. It is more complex than that.

It involves two fundamental questions:

  1. Is the system preparing all teachers it produces to teach well?
  2. Does the reality at each school support the daily execution of good teaching?

By teaching well, I am referring to a teacher’s ability to deliver lessons effectively and efficiently.

This requires a good understanding of learning objectives, educational psychology, content knowledge, educational pedagogy, classroom management and time management.

While everyone is responsible for their own professional growth, the Ministry and schools must acknowledge that leadership and coaching is the main game-changer when it comes to training and developing teachers who can teach well.

The Ministry, the National Institute of Education, Singapore (NIE) and schools alike have developed good policies and strategies for implementing training and development programmes.

On the ground, however, these efforts are sometimes stymied by leaders of schools and subject departments who have everyone’s best interests at heart, but are so caught up in maintaining their “fiefdoms” that they forget about the core objective of making sure their teachers can teach well.

Over at the NIE, there are occurrences where teacher training is misaligned with real-world needs.

An example: the NIE trained many in my cohort to teach English Language and Literature in English at the secondary school level.

However, a minority of us were thrust into junior colleges with minimal training. We were then expected to teach the General Paper, English Literature and Project Work almost from the get-go.

Changing the above-mentioned mindsets and re-aligning training with the teachers’ needs will require a Gordon-Ramsay-like intervention at many levels à la Kitchen Nightmares.

This is a television show in which Ramsay travels to floundering restaurants and provides astute suggestions to modify behaviours – from those of the owners, to the chefs and even the servers – so the core problems of the business can be addressed and bottom-lines, improved.

Ramsay’s ideas work because he provides expert insight in a muddled situation, much like the Chinese proverb (当局者迷，旁观者清 – dang ju zhe mi, pang guan zhe qing), where one who is personally involved is unable to see as clearly as one who is not.

The MOE, the NIE and schools should review the coaching and guidance given to teachers; they can consider employing “Gordon Ramsays” – expert educational consultants to provide much-needed organisational clarity to leaders of schools and subject departments.

Though this move may not halt the demand for private tutoring, it will address the fundamental issue of training and developing teachers to teach well.

Ultimately, this will help resolve the “classroom nightmares” that lead students and parents to look to private tutors as a necessary vehicle for achieving academic gratification.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,
Laremy LEE (Mr)

(Published as “Focus on training teachers to teach well” on 8 Oct 2013 in TODAY.)

A Farewell to Astrid

Tue, 18 Jun 2013
2 min read
2 Comments

Yahoo Acquires Astrid, Hints at Shutdown (But We've Got Alternatives)

I’ve been using Astrid, a to-do list manager, for a while but it’s gonna be shut down in a bit, no thanks to Yahoo!’s acquisition of the app.

I’ve been searching for a new task management app to use but I haven’t found anything as user-friendly and as intuitive as Astrid.

Seriously, Astrid is one of the best apps I’ve ever used, which is why I’m pretty pissed with Yahoo! for making such a stupid decision to take-over the app.

Why it was a stupid decision:

  • Bad PR for Yahoo!.
    Astrid users are pissed that Yahoo! has gone and killed a good thing (check out Astrid’s Facebook Page).

    There’s quite a bit of unhappy murmuring going on, so the bad press means no one’s gonna be inclined to use Yahoo! products now.
     
  • No one’s using Yahoo!.
    Furthermore – and I’m calling this right here and now – Yahoo! is going and will go the way of the dinosaur.

    Even if Yahoo! develops its own task-management app based on Astrid, no one’s going to use it because there isn’t any faith in Yahoo’s continuity and longevity.
     
  • Customers won’t return.
    Even if Yahoo! reverses its decision i.e. it keeps Astrid alive, no one is going to use it!

    Everyone has migrated to other platforms in droves; even I’ve moved to Todoist, after a long and lengthy search for an Astrid replacement.

    So users will need damn good reason to return – either that, or a miracle.

Anyway, if I had the skills, I’d build an app to manage my tasks the way Astrid has been doing so, and as a bonus, design it such that it can be synced with Google Calendar to help me organise my schedule.