In context

Tue, 3 Jan 2012
3 min read
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Do-it-yourself ministers gaining notice

So! I was quoted in an article in today’s Straits Times.

This is a snippet from the article, including my quote:

Education Minister Heng Swee Keat was a guest at the Pre-University Seminar last June but chose to sit unnoticed at the back of a hall for more than an hour, to listen to students’ presentations.

He said he prefers not to disrupt proceedings or affect the candour of discussions.

He also stressed that it is his belief in working together with educators at the front line and with the community that “shapes my interaction, rather than a reaction after the [General Election]”.

Mr Heng also does not believe in making unannounced visits to schools to try and catch educators out.

That is not helpful in generating trust between educators and those at the ministry’s headquarters, and trust is what matters in the long run, he said.

Project manager and parent of two, Mr Tan Gin Tat, 40, gave a thumbs up to Mr Heng’s school visits.

However, he added: “If Mr Heng is walking down the school corridors, I hope he doesn’t just talk to the top people but chats with teachers on the problems they are facing on imparting knowledge to kids.”

Teacher Laremy Lee, 28, however, wants more unannounced visits to be made. Schools and teachers sometimes “stage a show” for office-holders on planned visits, he said.

I realise that I may sound as though I want Heng Swee Keat to catch educators out, so I thought I’d share the actual quote I gave in its entirety:

Question: Heng Swee Keat has been making it a point to visit schools of all levels and strengths to find out more about what’s going on the ground and to gauge the prevalence of parents’ feedback. A few of these visits were unannounced. How do you feel about this move by Mr Heng? Are you in favour of it or do you feel it’s just “wayang”?

Answer: Unfortunately, I don’t have a bird’s eye view of things, so it’d be difficult for me to correlate the visits with efforts such as the recent Character and Citizenship Education initiative. If the visits have led to the understanding that parents are as responsible as teachers for instilling values in the youth of today, for example, then yes, I am in favour of more visits like these.

With specific regard to unannounced visits, I think it’s great. When announced visits are made, what happens is that schools and teachers will stage a show for the visiting office-holders. So office-holders end up going off with the impression that everything is fine and dandy, when in actual fact, there are many problems that have been swept under the carpet, only to resurface after the visiting office-holders leave. So there should be more unannounced visits.

The point I was trying to make was that there should be more unannounced visits so that office-holders get a good sense of the realities of the situation as opposed to an artificial view of what is going on.

Absent with apologies.

Mon, 24 Oct 2011
3 min read
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Principles of design, the Mr Laremy way.

A long time ago, a friend asked why we write ‘Absent with Apologies’ on minutes.

“If it were me, I’d write it as ‘Absent with Glee’ instead,” she said, “because I’d much rather be absent from a meeting than in it!”

Thenceforth, I decided that if I were to ever run a company or an organisation, my first mandate would be to instruct my minute-taking minions to only ever write ‘Absent with Glee’ instead of ‘Absent with Apologies’.

Otherwise, they’d find themselves the next ones listed under the ‘Absent with Apologies’ column at the next meeting.

*

‘Absent with Apologies’ makes sense, because it’s much more polite than just being plain ‘Absent’.

But I’ve been absent from this space with both apologies and some degree of glee, because I’ve been busy, mainly with work.

On that note, I thought I’d share with everyone something that transpired in the classroom today – this is one of those things that has resulted in my absence.

If I can refer you to the picture above again, you can see I’ve listed out some principles for good idea design, especially ideas involving getting human beings to carry out things you want them to do.

I decided to write this down today because:

  • I found myself repeating stuff I had said before yet again because the kids hadn’t really understood what I was telling them. Or perhaps what I was telling wasn’t making sense.
  • This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and I think this is one of the easiest ways to understand what makes ideas work.

For those of you without image suppork, what is written on the board in the pig-ture is as follows:

Mr Laremy’s Principles for GI = EE.

  1. Human beings are animals (piglets) – regulations/processes are needed (DON’T ASSUME THEY WILL DO IT).
  2. Human beings are like currents – they follow the path of least resistance (MAKE IT EASY FOR THEM TO DO IT).

From (1) and (2): [Create] INCENTIVE [for them to do what you want them to do].

If you [yourself] won’t carry out the idea, don’t suggest it!

I hope there’s some kind of ‘meta’ element to this i.e. I hope what I wrote on the board fulfills those two principles.

In any case, the juxtaposition of the student and the ideas on the board is quite unfortunate, but you have it on good authority that this is her default look… LOL.

What is with this excessive tree-pruning obsession?

Sat, 30 Jul 2011
2 min read
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The excessive pruning of trees - disapprove.

I’m not against the pruning of trees, because pruning does help at times in terms of improving the aesthetics or safety of a place.

What I’m against is the excessive pruning of trees all over Singapore that takes place on a regular basis.

(At the same time, I do wish more trees could be planted in Singapore, but that’s another battle for another time).

That tree gave some much-needed shade to Pooters – something I appreciate because I hate sitting on an over-heated seat and I hate knowing Pooters is exposed to the elements.

There are other benefits to trees in our urban environment too: carbon sequestration, reduction in ambient temperatures, etc. Read more here.

That’s why trees are especially important in a place like sunny Singapore and in a world stricken by global warming.

However, I’ve always felt that whoever makes decision like these – e.g. to prune trees excessively – do so in the right spirit: to neaten and hence beautify the place, to prevent tree branches from falling and killing people during a gale or a storm, etc.

Unfortunately, these decisions seem to always be made in a vacuum, without consideration of other important factors like the ones I mentioned above: shade, shelter, preventing global warming, etc.

Why?

I think this has to do with encouraging critical thinking and providing these people with an actual knowledge of circumstances in our world today.

And that’s why it has never been more important for us to move away from subjects taught in the traditional curriculum, to teaching slightly more multidisciplinary and ‘real-world’ subjects like biodiversity or environmental ethics now.