Can we meet the teachers without meeting the parents?

I dislike Meet-the-Parent sessions. No, it's not because I'm adverse to seeing my kids' teachers. On the contrary, I see great value in hearing feedback about my kids straight from the teachers' mouths. Especially for Andre. I don't know if he's got HUH? syndrome or MAD malady (refer to this post for more elaboration on these disorders) but apparently, he has being attributing words to his teacher that she claims she has never said, as I discovered today.

I dislike Meet-the-Parent sessions because quite inevitably, I will be extremely irritated by some parents who think they are entitled to hog the teachers' time at the expense of other parents. Like today, I was waiting to see Lesley-Anne's English teacher, behind a parent who was grousing for 45 minutes about how the teacher was not making a special effort for her son. I didn't eavesdrop but I caught some bits by accident when I decided to stand conspicuously behind her so as to hint at my impatience.

In fact, other parents soon caught my cue and started queueing behind me. Much good that did. At one point, I dropped my decorum and interrupted the session to let the teacher know I had another teacher's appointment in 15 minutes. That parent didn't bat an eyelid and continued - unabated and unabashed. Another mum in the queue whispered to me, "Basic courtesy, right?"

Of course she eventually left (maybe her parking coupon was up). The teacher, understandably, looked tired and upset, so I felt I had to say some encouraging words to her.

Why do some parents do this? I mean, feel that teachers owe them the earth and sky? I don't know that child in question but you've got to wonder if the parent's attitude is a clue to the child's problems.

Ok, I've done enough grousing of my own. Luckily I've got a scapegoat - I'm blaming my low threshold for inconsiderate behaviour on the stress of the DSA process.

The myth of the perfect kid

I know a mother who seems to have the child every parent dreams of having. He's extraordinarily bright - scored 270 for PSLE and got into a top secondary school. He's also an impressive all-rounder - head prefect of his primary school, represented the school in his CCA and is now in the water polo team of his secondary school. Added to that, he's a very upright, unassuming and down to earth kid. When I expressed admiration to his mother, she confided in me that he is a procrastinator and she has to nag at him to do his homework.

Have you ever encountered this? We meet kids who appear so bright, motivated, charismatic and 100 other superlatives compared to our own. Yet when we speak to their parents, they often seem surprised and have some criticism to offer about their kids. I find it happens with me too. Eg, Lilian always admires Lesley-Anne and I, on the other hand, think her Brian is a mother's dream.

Could it be that there's an epidemic of false modesty? Sure, some parents are transparently fake - they pretend to dismiss their kids' achievements but they're actually loving the attention. But I know that's not true of the mother I cited above, she's a very genuine person. I offer an alternative reason for this behaviour, ie we have come to pitch our standards against those of the imaginary perfect kid.

As parents, we see our kids everyday and we know that they dwaddle when it comes to revision. We have to remind them to do the simplest tasks like wash their hands or brush their teeth. They don't put their things away, they bicker endlessly with their siblings, etc. We see all their annoying little faults and therefore feel that any admiration for them is unjustified. Whereas with other kids, we generally only see the best parts that are on display in public, and we assume that they are the paragons of virtue at all times. So our own flawed kids inevitably fall short when measured against those ideal beings.

Here's the crux of the matter: the perfect kid is a myth, there's no such thing. Just as there are no perfect parents. A diamond is still a diamond, even if it is encrusted in dirt. So instead of wishing that the stone we have is as sparkling as the one in the showroom, let's work on polishing that diamond we have on our hands. And be grateful that we are blessed with such a gem.

DSA or how to bring forward PSLE stress

Some parents have asked me to expound on the Direct School Admission (DSA) exercise. Since Lesley-Anne is undergoing the process now, it won't be prudent for me to share her progress and my thoughts in detail until after. However, I can share the factual information and mechanics of DSA. You can get a good overview of DSA from the MOE website here.

I first heard of DSA only when Lesley-Anne was in p4 and even up to last year, I had a hazy idea of what it entailed. It is essentially an advanced booking for a school, to put it bluntly. Remember back in our generation when we had schoolmates who may not have made the cut-off point to our school but managed to get in via their prodigious violin playing or Michael Jordan-esque basketball skills or something like that? Well, DSA is similar except it's no longer considered the "back door", it's now a mainstream MOE process.

To me, the two biggest advantages of DSA are:

1. Schools have an offical channel to recognise and admit talents in both academic and non-academic areas.
2. By giving a place in advance, you drastically reduce the stress of PSLE as the make or break exam.

Individual schools offer DSA through one or more of the following areas:

• Academic - can be special ability in one particular subject or overall high ability academically. GEP students apply under this category.
• Arts - special ability in performing or visual arts. Usually requires a minimum level of certification and/or performance at the school or national level.
• Sports - special ability in a particular sport. Usually requires a record of achievement at the school or national level.

This year, 74 secondary schools are offering DSA so the availability is quite extensive. Once again, I highly recommend you visit the school you're interested in. The fit of the school is very important. When I mentioned I had changed my mind about a school for Lesley-Anne after visiting it, I was so tickled to get all these emails from concerned *coughkaypoh* parents asking me what school it was! I'm going to go out on a limb and say that when I visited yet another school, I also had a 180 degree change of heart, this time in the other direction. From not being on my radar, the school now has become a real contender because Lesley-Anne, Kenneth and I all loved its ethos.

And this time, I will state upfront: don't email me to ask me what school it is because I won't tell you! I'm not being a tease, I'm just getting concerned that some people are taking my word so seriously that they let it influence their own choices. What matters to me and fits my child may not fit yours, so do visit the schools and get a sense of their cultures.

This is the DSA process (different schools have varying dates but these are the general time-frames):

May-July: You apply for DSA to the school(s) of your choice. Many apply for more than one school but I don't recommend the buffet mentality as the DSA process itself can be very stressful for the child. In my opinion, two is ideal, three tops.

June-August: Selection process. Some schools require you to sit for written tests and attend interviews (usually for academic domain). For the arts and sports domains, auditions and trials are often required.

Late August/early September: Release of DSA results. You will receive the results for each of your DSA applications, which is either Confirmed (yay!), Waiting List (hmm...) or Rejected (sob). I'll probably need a Valium on that day.

Late October: If you have at least one Confirmed or Waiting List result, you will be given a School Preference Form to indicate your choices. If you list a Confirmed offer as one of your choices, you are GUARANTEED a spot in that school. How great is that??

Late November: You will be given your DSA school allocation results on the same day as the PSLE results. If you are successful in DSA, you can proceed to do fun things like buy your new school uniforms. If you are not, then look at your PSLE results, hopefully you don't faint, and then decide which secondary school you want to apply for under the annual centralised S1 Posting Exercise (where the majority of p6 kids choose their schools).

I will be praying very hard that Lesley-Anne is successful in her DSA because I know that if she has to rely on PSLE, I'll probably keel over from the stress...

"My tree bag is too heavy!"

Andre's SA1 results have been a hodge podge mixed bag. First, the good parts - he did well for his maths and English papers. In fact, he actually nearly gave me a heart attack for maths, coming home after his exam and wailing "so hard! I'm going to fail!" I was so concerned as maths is his best subject. False alarm, he scored 92/100, second highest in class. Woohoo! He did quite well for his English as well, except for composition. For doing well in these two subjects, he earned a McDonalds Happy Meal from his very generous form teacher.

Then the not so good parts. He missed his target of 80/100 for science. We were quite forgiving since this was the first time he'd sat for a science exam, but when I saw his paper, I was just baffled by some of the mistakes he made. Like this 3-mark giveaway question where he just had to look at the picture and fill in the labels:

When I asked Andre incredulously, "how is it you couldn't see that Plant A was IN the water, not floating on the water?", he replied, "I thought it was floating under water." Like huh?

But the subject that he scored lowest in was Chinese. I'm not sure if he even managed a Band 2. I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised, even though he came home and told me the paper was "a little bit easy" (he's completely off in his approximation!) He speaks Mandarin like an ang moh, the intonation seemingly random even for the simplest of words and phrases. For instance, instead of "吃鱼" (eat fish), he'll say "吃雨" (eat rain). My kids watch the Channel 8 Chinese drama 书包太重 but Andre will habitually say "树包", prompting me to ask, "what? you carry a tree bag?"

I was quite hopeful when he told me he got third for Chinese listening comprehension. He had scored 8/10.

"You mean no one scored 10/10?" I asked
"Have, some got 10."
"Huh? Then how did you get third?"
"Some got 10, some got 9. I'm the only one who got 8. One other boy got 7."
(Sound of me slapping forehead) "Alamak, so you didn't get third lah! You got second last!!"

During Chinese tuition, I've seen Andre place his head on the table like he's totally weary or stare gloomily at his book. His Chinese tutor is one of the nicest and most patient human beings I've ever met but lately, I've noticed that an edge sometimes creeps into her voice, possibly when she's explaining something to Andre for the thousandth time.

I don't envy her job. She's currently in China for a holiday, I think I'll spare her the bad news of Andre's results until she returns.

Choosing a school for your child

Recently, I went to attend a DSA briefing at a secondary school which has a great reputation. This was a school that we had initially thought would be a good choice for one of Lesley-Anne's DSA applications. To my own utter surprise, after the briefing and having walked around the school, I returned from the session with a 180 degree change of heart. In fact, I was pretty sure that I did not want my daughter to study there because its values were not quite in sync with ours.

Choosing a school is serious business. Whether it's a primary school, secondary school or higher, our kids will spend a good part of their waking hours there - it will influence their thoughts, their behaviour, greatly. Some parents think the school with the best academic results is automatically the best. Not true! You need to select a school that's best for your child.

A mum whose child will be entering p1 soon had written to me asking my views on choosing schools. Since it's time for p1 registration soon, I thought I'd share some of the thoughts I shared with her. These are based on my own experiences in choosing a primary school.

To me, there are three important aspects to consider: 1) distance 2) coed or single sex 3) culture.

No 1) is a practical reason. You really don’t want your kids spending so much time travelling. In lower primary, they’re entering the formal school system for the first time - it can be very tiring. If they have to spend an hour on the road travelling home, lunch (or dinner, depending on whether morning or afternoon session) will be very late and they’ll be ravenous by then. This can really wreak havoc to their systems. I know some parents resort to getting their kids to eat in the car.

In upper primary, the kids will usually have to stay back at school quite often, for remedial, extra lessons, CCAs etc. Again, it's not conducive to spend a lot of time travelling. This can really take a toll on the energy levels of the kids in the long run.

No 2) for me was also a practical reason. I chose a coed school to cut the hassle of registration for Andre since he would be a shoo-in following his sister's school. But pragmatics aside, I've come to notice that there are other pros and cons of coed vs single sex schools. I have relatives and friends with kids in single sex schools and the advantage is that the teachers tend to be more adept at catering to the learning styles of boys/girls (since boys and girls tend to learn and socialise differently). In a coed school, if the teacher is more suited to teach boys, the girls in the class will be disadvantaged and vice versa. I also find that if you have a very quiet girl content to be a wallflower, she might end up being overshadowed by her noisier, attention-seeking male classmates, so she might thrive better in a girls' school.

But what I like about a coed school is that being around boys has helped Lesley-Anne learn not to be so siao jie and being around girls has toned down Andre's boisterousness. Basically they balance each other out. Whereas I find that boys learn to be more aggressive and rowdy when they enter a boys' school (to keep up with the raging testosterone, I guess!) And some girls, when they go to a girls' school end up very "girly", if you know what I mean.

No 3) is very important. Eg if you are a very English educated family with questionable Chinese standards, doesn't take a genius to figure out that your child will probably be miserable in a SAP school where most of his classmates will be chattering away in Mandarin! If your child loves dance, for instance, it might make sense to join a school with dance as a niche activity.

Personally, we wanted a mission school as we’re Christians and we feel that mission schools place more focus on values. Since the Singapore system is already so academically-focused, we wanted a good balance. One of Lesley-Anne's teachers, during a DSA briefing, encouraged us to visit the schools we're interested in and walk around to get a feel of the school. I didn't realise how important this was until I visited the school I mentioned earlier. From walking around, reading the notice-boards, looking at the kids, you can actually get quite a good sense of the school's culture. If you can, visit the school you're interested in (some of them have open houses) before you decide. Trust your instincts - will you child fit in here? Or will she be like a fish out of water?

Notice that among my three criteria, I didn't include academic performance. Many parents want their kids to be in schools with top academic ratings because they think that their kids will perform better there. I don't subscribe to that. To me, it's cyclical - schools with high focus on academics attract high ability kids. These kids are bright to begin with, so they're more likely to do well in national exams, contributing to the high academic scores of the school.

If your child is not academically inclined to begin with, he might not thrive in an environment where everyone is a top scorer. In fact, I've heard that some of these so-called "top" schools do less teaching because they expect the kids to learn on their own and supplement with tuition at home. In contrast, neighbourhood schools tend to "teach" more, which benefits kids who need such nurturing. When you look at the national exams, you'll find that kids from neighbourhood schools can also churn out top scorers and there will be kids from "top" schools who don't do so well.

But having said that, I prefer my kids to go to schools with a reasonable academic standard (though not necessarily the top), not because I believe the teaching is superior in any way, but because my experience tells me that these schools tend to have fewer “pai kias” or kids who don’t like studying, and I don’t want my kids to be influenced or make wrong friends at this impressionable age. Of course this is a generalisation but when you're in a school/class where the kids are motivated to study, there's a higher chance you will be the same. Similarly, if your classmates treat school as a chore and are trying to play truant half the time, you might be influenced. Never underestimate peer pressure at this age.

I've been very, very pleased with Lesley-Anne and Andre's primary school - it has played an integral part in shaping their characters. I hope and pray that we can make an equally wise decision for their secondary schools.

English composition part2

For the first time yesterday, I learnt from Lesley-Anne that they are only given 1 hr 10 mins to write both the situational writing and continuous writing compositions in an exam (I know, I know, sotong mum again). I was astounded. No wonder she seems to make an abundance of punctuation and spelling mistakes because once again, there's a time crunch. Let's say they take 15 mins to do the situational writing piece, then they're left with under an hour, during which time they're expected to think of a story, plan, write it out in a coherent and interesting manner, and check? Wow.

Anyway, as promised, I'm posting one of the compositions Lesley-Anne did this year. This composition is Lesley-Anne's best (in terms of marks) to date. She came home and told me excitedly that she had gotten 30/40 - it was significant to her because it was the first time she had hit the 30 mark threshold. Up to that point, I had hardly read her compositions *blush* so when I read this one, I was pleasantly surprised and immediately struck by the fact that her use of the English language had become more sophisticated compared to a year ago.

This was the picture, followed by the composition (again, reproduced in its original form with mistakes):


My Mischevious Side

As I walked into the barber's with my Mom to wait for my turn for a haircut, I had a flashback to the day where I showed my mischevious side. No doubt I was given a tongue-lashing and was punished after that incident. No, it is not an elaborate prank I performed. It only involved a pair of scissors.

That school day, I walked into class to find a huge crowd gathering around Jane, my classmate. I guessed that she was probably showing off again as usual. I was right. When it comes to this kind of things, I usually am.

I really hated Jane. She is just a show-off. I recalled an incident where she was the only person in the class who got an 'A' for her essay. During recess, she walked around the class showing every single person her essay. Not only that, she passed off comments like "See? I'm the only person to get an 'A'. Then again, it's nothing out of the ordinary when I'm gifted with good looks and of course, smarts".

My thoughts were interuppted when the school bell rang, signalling the start of lessons. By the way, if you are wondering what Jane was bragging about this morning, it was her new haircut which supposedly was done by the best hairdresser in town.

At this moment, Mr Eng, our art teacher, came in. After the class settled down, he started teaching us how to make a collaige. Soon, everyone was lining up to get the art materials provided. As I was lining up, I saw Jane strutting down the classroom with her art materials, flicking her inky, black hair in the process. Seriously, why does she do that? She is just plain irritating.

When we all had our art materials, we got down to work. Jane, who sat beside me, starting cutting her white paper neatly into strips. As I looked at my black piece of paper, I imagined Jane flicking her hair about but shook the image out of my mind. When I was about to cut it, a mischevious idea came into my mind.

I picked up my scissors and... "Snip!" This was followed by an ear-piercing scream echoing throughout the class. As I looked at that thick lock of hair on the ground, I grinned.

However, my grin was wiped of my face when the teacher approached. "What happened?" he asked in a worried tone. Before I could even open my mouth to explain, Jane shouted "This horrid boy cut off my hair! Oh my beautiful hair! It had to be cut off by this monster!"

The expression on the teacher's face changed. My, my! If looks could kill, I would be lying in a coffin right now.

Now, it is obvious what happened next. I was given a harsh scolding and a long lecture. Even when I mentioned how vain Jane was, the teacher gave me another long lecture about tolerance. However, I gave in and even felt repentent. I apologised to Jane, not expecting her to forgive me. This was one rare occasion when I was wrong.

I was shocked. "Why?" I said, my eyes growing as big as dinner plates. She replied "You can't expect a good girl like me who has all the character traits in the world to not be forgiving? Won't Mom be proud! I even forgave a monster like you!"

Sigh. Looks like she was still vain Jane. I wanted to shout that she lacked the character trait called humility, but I controlled myself. However, being an optimist, I found a silver lining in this cloud. I had learnt about thinking before I act and I learnt to be tolerant.

I came back to earth as I heard the barber call my name. I walked over to him, the events of that day still lingering in my mind.


In p6, there is no evaluation form attached with the composition. Instead, the teacher writes her comments at the end of the compositions. Here's what she wrote for this particular one:

• gd! Consistent use of characterisation to drive the plot
• gd to see you using foreshadowing and building suspense
• some apt use of vocabulary but continue to work on use of expressions
• where possible, paragraph dialogue
• gd use of paragraphing
• watch spelling
• gd effort!

Again, the comments refer to the specific use of literary elements, which is constructive. Thereafter, the kids have to write a reflection after, detailing both their strengths and where they can improve in terms of plot, use of language and characterisation.

English composition part1

This is a two-part post on English composition, at the request of Lilian. She had been asking me for tips on improving English writing for a while now but I couldn't really advise her as I struggle with the same issue for Andre.

I started looking through Lesley-Anne's English files. In p5, I notice she was given quite extensive exercises on plot development, what makes a good story and the elements of different genres of writing, such as mysteries and persuasive writing. She also has a list of literary elements that can be used in writing, such as theme, imagery, dramatic irony, characterisation and hyperbole. Obviously the kids don't have to use everything but Lesley-Anne tells me the teachers do go through some of them and give examples of how they are used.

This once again reinforced my belief that composition can be taught. Just because I don't know the techniques doesn't mean there aren't any. Lesley-Anne's file had worksheets and exercises that they do to strengthen their skills in specific writing elements. This is more concrete than just "practising" because without being equipped with know-how, you'll keep writing the same thing in the same style, with the same mistakes, over and over.

Then I looked at her p6 file and comparing her p6 and p5 compositions, I realised that her writing had improved noticeable towards the end of p5 and especially in p6. Lesley-Anne's reading has not increased significantly during this period, which tells me that either the way composition is taught in her class is very effective or she had matured on her own, or both.

I thought I would share a couple of samples of her writing to show her growth in this area. This is one of the early compositions she wrote in p5, she garnered 26/40, which was the best mark she received for composition in the entire year (in GEP, anything from 25 above is considered good, rarely do kids score above 30). It's based on the picture below and I reproduced it wholesale, mistakes and all:

Just because of a kite

"Mom, please let us go to the park. I want to fly my new kite!" said Tim. "Okay. But you have to let Henry have a go too." Mom replied. "I will", said Tim.

It was the perfect day to go to the park. The sun was shining and there was an occasional breeze. They even saw a duck or two in the pond. When there was a breeze, Tim started flying his kite. It was a lovely sight. The kite's yellow and orange tail stood out against the pale blue sky and the picture of an eagle on the kite looked as if it was really flying.

"My turn, my turn!" shouted Henry. "Not yet, not yet!" said Tim. "But you have flown it for five minutes already!"

"Well, it is my kite."

"Mom said to share!"

So, an argument began. Both of them were arguing so badly that they did not notice the kite being blown towards a tree. When they finally noticed, the kite was already tangled up in the tree's branches.

"Here is the deal", said Tim, "the first person to untangle the kite gets to fly it for the whole day." "Okay!" said Henry as he climbed up the tree while Tim tried to pull the kite down from below. Then, as Henry was about to reach for the kite, he lost his balance.

He fell of the tree, landed on the grass and rolled into the lake. "Help!" said Henry, "I'm going to drown!" "But you can swim. I can't help you because I cannot swim", said Tim. "I can't swim either with a sprained ankle. It hurts," said Henry.

Luckily, a passer-by stopped by to help. He jumped into the lake and saved Henry. "T.. Thank you", said Henry. "My pleasure!" said the kind passer-by. He even dropped the boys home. Henry's mother was told about the situation. She was too relieved to be angry and thanked the passer-by.

From that day on, Tim took up swimming lessons and Henry never climbed another tree. As for the kite, it is still stuck up there to this day!

I must confess that I have never read other p5 or p6 kids' compositions so I can't compare, but my gut feel tells me that this composition is ok but does not particularly stand out. Her language use is quite ordinary.

There was an evaluation form attached with the composition. I'm not sure if this is done also for mainstream students but I find this very constructive. Instead of just a score, the child is given a detailed breakdown on what she had done well and what was lacking. This evaluation form was given for every composition in p5 and also includes the child's own reflections on the areas of improvement.

This was the form for the composition above:

I know it's blurry. Here are the teacher's comments (in red):

Plot/Story Structure: Good, clear plot. Well planned.
Setting: More can be detailed here
Characterisation Feelings/Emotions: Deal with the feelings of both the boys
Dialogue: You need to know how to handle a dialogue
Story Idea Climax: Good storyline. Well done!
Grammar & Usage Vocabulary: Use better words and expressions.
Punctuation/ Capitalisation: Errors in both these areas. Errors in full-stops, commas and capital letters.
Spelling: No errors. Great.
Handwriting Neatness: Neat

I will post Lesley-Anne's p6 composition tomorrow.

Studying about the environment

This post is a follow up to the one I wrote on GEP Social Studies. Apart from learning about Singapore's history, the kids also study other modules like one on Man and the Environment in p5.

They really go into detail, from discussing how energy needs cause environmental problems to renewable resources, from climate change and global warming to how cities are working on green efforts for more sustainable development.

The biggest takeaway from this module I find is the lesson that human beings' actions have consequences on the environment. This raises awareness of the interdependence between the physical and human environments, and promotes environmental conservation efforts which I guess they hope these kids will carry through to adulthood.

This is a worksheet that they had to do (after reading a story), underscoring the cause and effect relationship between humans and the environment.


Reproduced here: (Lesley-Anne's answers are in blue)

The Greatest Environmental Crisis Ever for Humanity

Using what you have learnt from the story, complete the worksheet to illustrate how a particular generalization is true.

1. "An effect can be the result of multiple causes with different degrees of influence". Identify the causes of climate change.

- Deforestation --> climate change
- Large scale burning of fossil fuels --> greenhouse effect --> global warming

2. "Causes can trigger simple effects or chain of related effects". Give an example of a simple effect and a chain of related effects of climate change.

- global temperature increase --> melting of glaciers (simple effect)
- eractic weather --> increase frequency of draughts and floods --> destroy agriculture --> disruption of global food supplies (chain effects)

3. "Causes may have predictable and unpredictable effects". Give an example of a predictable effect and an unpredictable effect of climate change.

- global temperature increase --> spread of infectious disease to higher latitutes (predictable effect)
- climate change --> social and political conflict --> environmental refugees (unpredictable effect)

4. "Causes have short-term and long-term effects". Give an example of a short-term effect and long-term effect of climate change.

- climate change --> destroy natural habitat (short-term effect)
- climate change --> extinction of animal and plant species (long-term effect)

Exams are over!

Yesterday was the last day of my kids' SA1 exams. Woohoo! Since I had a meeting to attend, I wasn't able to be there to greet them when they returned home from school, so I decided to leave a couple of silly notes for them:

When I came home from my meeting, I found this note on my desk:

This boy just cracks me up.

Sustainable revision... or how to stay sane

Recently, I met up with a friend who has two daughters in p4 and p5. During the course of our discussion on revisions, she asked astonished, “you mean you let Lesley-Anne revise her work on her own?” It turns out that she and her hubby sit down to do revision with their kids for a couple of hours every night after dinner, conscientiously going through what was taught in school that day. This excludes homework, which would have been done earlier in the day! Gosh, my jaw dropped when I heard this. And I think SHE nearly fainted when she found out that half the time, I don't know what my kids are learning in school LOL!

Feeling terribly guilty for being a slacker mum, that day when I returned home, here's what I did in the space of 2 hours after dinner: Took Andre his spelling. Set maths paper for Lesley-Anne. Coached Andre in oral (with lots of yelling). Coached Andre in dictation and editing. Marked Lesley-Anne’s paper. Went through paper (more yelling). Gave lecture and pep talk.

I went to bed mentally and physically exhausted. I don't know how my friend does it! (By the next day, I'd regressed to my old ways).

Anyway, the point I'm making in this post is that we all have different methods for helping our kids academically. My friend's is the steady-pom-pee-pee style. Mine is the laissez-faire-last-minute-chiong style, meaning I just nag at my kids to do their homework, help them only when they approach me with something they don't understand, occasionally set some extra work, and then rev up to 4th gear nearer the exams.

I know I don't have the stamina or patience to do what my friend does. If I forced myself to, what would likely happen is that the daily sessions would degenerate into shouting matches, making them counter productive. For my friend, I think if she adopted my style, she would keel over from the anxiety. In other words, it's not about what works, but rather what works for you.

In the corporate world, the current buzzword is sustainable development. Well, I'm advocating sustainable revision, defined as "a revision process that can be maintained over the long term (and keep parents sane)."

Of course you also need to take into consideration the learning style of your kids. If leaving them alone means they'll toss their school work out of the window, then you probably need to hand-hold a little more. But in general, I believe that parents need to work around what they feel comfortable with, otherwise the revision process will be a dreaded chore and it's hard to motivate someone else when you're unmotivated yourself.

So there you have it - sustainable revision. I wonder if I can patent the concept...