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KIDDIE POLLOCK


The image in this post was the work of one of my colleague's kids from a recent Lenovo Kidz@Work day. (Yes, ALL parents survived thank you, and no conference calls were hurt during the event)

It was a terrific day by all accounts. It was especially amusing to see kids come to their parents desks during break - and if their parents were not there the kids would put on their parent's headsets and pretend to be doing conference calls. Although one little girl did say she didn't want to be like her mum when she grew up because "who wants to be on calls all the time?"

The kids at the Family Service Centre are on holiday break. Last Saturday was the last one for the year, so we had a chocolate cake party. Charles supplied the cake. Before the cake, there was still work to be done.

The two "L" brothers were running around, wouldn't sit still, and one of the other volunteers had them this time. I had a table with five girls aged 7-11, and a teeange volunteer from the uni helping me out. (I love her - she's a brilliant, cool, young woman and she'll do great things when she graduates). We were doing the Human Body - reading about what makes up blood, how long it takes for blood to circulate, sticking femurs, biceps, triceps onto this gigantic sticker book. One of the girls got bored and said she couldn't read without her glasses and left. The others were really engaged. And smart. And I think it took the "L" brothers, who were in another room, a long time to get UNbored.

Their younger sister, who's 7, was in my group, and I have to admit I had REALLY low expectations of her - having worked with her brothers. Dumb prejudice. She totally held her own - she's a really smart kid. So were the other girls who stuck around. So I said to the social worker maybe I should just focus on this group of girls from now. They're interested and they're smart. And I'll know my time's well used.

And she said, in a nice way "well...that's the thing about the education system here. Everyone wants to focus on the smart ones - and who's going to help those who are not?"

Sigh - food for thought. Should I expend my energy chasing the kids around the room who want to be playing with their yo-yo's and bothering the other kids? Or focus on those who are interested in learning something and find it fun? Jury's still out for me.

Saturday's Kids

Last weekend a bunch of the older kids (P4-6) were lucky enough to be sent to camp. Looking forward seeing the kids again to hear about it.

So, two kids, who weren't at camp, came in. I got to spend some one on one time with Shakila and Samir (not their real names). We read about Africa from the Disney Geography book and then the kids wrote a bit, and then we played Scrabble.

Shakila wants to be an astronaut when she grows up. How do you tell a kid that - well, in the real world - you can't really be whatever you want to be. You don't. You can only believe that they can be better than where they are now and help them believe in themselves too. I think.

So, I asked her what she needed to be good at to get there. And she said Science and Math. I added English - which she said was her weak subject. We went and got a book about Science (NOT a textbook - they're the most boring things ever invented). Someone had donated a really good Science BOOK several days ago. Lots of colourful pictures and decent sized typeface. And so we read about blood cells. Then Shakila checked out a Science book from the bookshelf to bring home - along with a worn, yellowed, Secret Seven novel.

I happened to be at Parkway on Sunday and found some really good phonics books for the younger kids. It bugs me that 7-year-olds can't write their names and no one at home's helping them to. It also bugs me that parents don't see to it that their kids are at the centre every weekend, and that many of them think it doesn't really matter whether they show up or not. Where's the sense of ownership and responsibility?

Anyway, back to the Parkway book sale. Found a REALLY cool book on the human body. Comes with re-useable stickers. So, the kids can do a session on anatomy and the digestive system etc one weekend. (Next week they're doing the Water Cycle and weather.) Psyched about finding the sticker book, but still really bothered about the parents. How do we break this cycle for the kids? How do we help the parents help the kids?

Green shoots of interest?

I emailed several of my friends to get help at the Family Service Centre while the regular student volunteers were away for exams. I got a terrific response. A couple of them will be staying on to volunteer every other week. Yay! And thank you!

We also had a group from a JC come in to speak about and demo traditional games like chaptek, sepak takraw, and gasing (a spinny, top-like thing like playing with a yo-yo on the ground.) The kids weren't so keen on the powerpoint lecture - but they were more than happy to play the games out on the void deck.

The routine for the past three weeks has been like this: we start with some kind of word game followed by reading - all on the same subject matter. Last week it was The Pharaohs - from a really cool, colourful, history/ activity book aimed at kids. Then the kids write 5-10 sentences about something related to the subject. A couple of the kids wrote about being soldiers or wanting to be soldiers. One of the kids made himself a Pharaoh: King Nashruddin anyone? Ambition is always good.

So, at the end of the session, I asked the kids what they wanted to read about next. "Soccer" was the overwhelming winner. Medieval history didn't quite make it. Wonder why.

Cheryl, one of two social workers there, told me later that one of the boys, who'd never shown interest in books before, took a book on soccer from the bookshelf and asked if he could borrow it to read over the week. She was surprised - and happy.

Last Saturday, the younger kids (ages 6-8) who gave a mini-performance and a bunch of the older (9-12) ones watched. There were rhymes, some singing - one of the songs was Old MacDonald- where the kids would spell out the animal. At one point in the performance, the kids were singing "and on his farm he had a d-u-c-k". And the 9-year-old sitting next to me turns to me and says "Teacher, I know F- *-*-*"

An hour later, as the kids are getting ready to go home, I turn around to see one of older boys, WJ, doing an imitation of a lion tamer, holding out a chair and glaring at someone. Only he wasn't pretending or fooling around. There'd been some sort of argument and on of the volunteers was holding on to him while another volunteer was restraining another boy.

In another room, another boy, S, was staying back doing homework having asked a volunteer for help with geometry, and out in the main area, an 8-year-old was doing the same with English. A contrast.

I wonder about what help they get at home (or not). I wonder what it would take to get boys like WJ interested - and have WJ focus and engaged instead of disruptive. A male volunteer who'll give him some one-on-one time on a subject matter he enjoys? A long term mentor? I'm still thinking. Would love to hear your ideas.

Busted!

Saturday at the Family Service Centre, the kids in my group played Monopoly - loudly and enthusiastically - and in Singlish, especially when it came to collecting rent. As in "you never pay me my $600," or "you go to jail where got take rent."

So, I'd say to them, "Can you say that again in proper English? I know you can." And mostly, they could.

And after that they read Red Dot, a newspaper for kids. Lots of graphics and maps and big print. There was a global round-up - what happened where this week. So they each picked a country, and discussed current events, and then the kids looked up the country in the Disney Atlas for kids (I kid you not - it exists) and discussed population, capitals...

When it came time to write about what they learned that day, one of the kids wrote:

"I learned not to be a spendthrift" (He was buying lots of property during the Monopoly game and hit a credit crunch)
"I learned that English matters a lot in life."
"This tuition was FUN." (OK, so it's not meant to be tuition, but fine)
"Next week I want to learn about history."

And when the kids were writing, he kept looking at what the boy next to him was writing and telling him to capitalise this, or change that.
So I told him "Focus on your own work and stop kay-pohing him."

And he looked up at me, grinned, and said "That's not English! You said to speak good English."

Busted.

PS. We're looking for volunteers to help out b/t 10am and noon for the next 3 Saturdays: Aug 8, 15, 22. A whole bunch of the regular volunteers, from Ngee Ann Poly, need to take a break to study for exams. Interested? Questions? Please let me know.

It’s been a couple of months since I’ve started volunteering at the Family Service Centre. And I think I’m finally starting to find my way around.

I’m working with a program aimed at teaching English and social skills to primary school age kids living in one room and rented flats. These are things that I pretty much took for granted as a kid: the ability to use phonics to piece syllables together to make words, understanding grammar, looking people in the eye when speaking, reading, speaking audibly. Come to think of it, these are things I pretty much take for granted in my friends’ kids.

These are smart kids – not kids with IQ issues by any means. Except – I’m pretty sure no one reads to them at night (at least not in English), no one sits with them at the dining table going through homework and explaining why the plural of mouse isn’t mouses, or why we say “an apple” and not “a apple” and that “learn” isn’t spelled “lern”.

Sometimes several siblings come to the centre together. “Why don’t the older siblings teach the younger siblings and make them do their homework?” said a friend of mine whose parents stressed education and faith above all. And who herself was the perfect oldest sister – kind, patient, sensible – if over-idealistic.

Why don’t they? Well, there’s a 10-year-old who comes to the centre with her 2-year-old brother literally clinging to her skirt all the time. She feeds him, minds him, caters to his every whim. Their 7-year-old sister, who will be going to Pr 1 next year, speaks almost no English. They speak Tamil at home. In between making sure the sibs are behaving, doing housework, and getting the time to do her own homework, I’m not sure giving tuition to the younger kids is a high priority. I know it was never mine.

I’ve been helping out with the kids in the K through P3 English enrichment classes. There’s a great group of girls from Ngee Ann Poly who help out there too.

So this week I switched and started helping with the P4s and P5s for the first time. We played Scrabble and Hangman. As the words appeared on the tiles, we talked about the meaning of the words – like “fig,” “fate,” “pate”. The boys got an interesting reaction when one of the girls placed her tiles on the board to spell c-o-c-k. One of the boys started sniggering.

“It means chicken,” I said.
“I’m bored,” he said. “Can I play Monopoly?”

I tried to get them to make up stories from photographs - couldn’t get them to sit still long enough to do that. Instead, they wanted Hangman. OK fine – still a word game, still English.

“Teacher – next week can play Mono-pole-y?”

Fine – this week spelling, next week – real estate.

Shedding Light on Twilight Years?

The New York Times today did a story on 90+ -year-olds who are totally lucid. The one in 200 people above 90 who don't have dementia.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/health/research/22brain.html?em

These people are mentally engaged - a lot. Reading, playing bridge (especially), having lots of social contact, doing crosswords. Bridge especially, because it requires players be sharp, quick, and keep track of the hands that've been played. Make a slip and you risk your partner's irritation or worse - a request for you to downgrade to a more casual bridge group.

Now that my parents are pushing 70, (and my grandmother turning 100) I've been thinking about that a lot. How can my sibs and I make it easier for them to be more active? Do we take turns making sure they spend an hour or two in the gym? Right now it's just golf. Do we go get grown-up, "mental gym" books for them? I'd like to get them to the real gym too, or learn a new language, meet new people.

Staying vigorous requires having strong social interaction, exercise, and mental stimulation, studies say. Right now one of my parents is occupied daily with technical analysis charts and minding a stock portfolio, and is planning on restarting piano lessons. I'm really glad. How about my other parent? Will reading the International Herald Trib and news mags constantly, and playing golf weekly, be enough? Well, they're currently on a cruise in Eastern Europe with their friends. And I'd just brought my dad to Funan to get a new IdeaPad netbook so he could go to Internet Cafes while he's on holiday to stay connected. So I guess we're OK for now.

Still, I find myself thinking - are they slowing down? Are they hangin' out with friends enough? Should I try to get them to meet new people?

These are things govts and institutions are going to be thinking about as our populations get greyer and greyer. The Singapore Ministry of Health is gearing up for the Silver Tsunami. More nursing homes, more healthcare training, insurance and savings programs. Great, infrastructure stuff.

While the government builds up the hardware - perhaps there's a place for private enterprise to deal with the software: set up for-profit businesses for the Silver Set. Kind of like a physical, rather than virtual, social network so they're able to continue meeting new people, do and learn new things, exercise. Because I'd really, really to be able to continue talking to my parents about politics and stocks, go out to try new restaurants, travel with them, and listen to them talk about their golf game - in twenty years.

Turning Into A Pumpkin in The Big Apple.

Downturn or not, New York is still buzzing along.

New Yawkas walk just this much faster and with more intent. And they never, EVER take up the entire pavement - uh - I mean, sidewalk, by walking shoulder to shoulder with their pals and family like they do elsewhere. And woe betide you if you do. (Wanna heah a really cranky tri-state accent? Try blocking the other pedestrians)

Restaurant reservations are STILL hard to get. Per Se's booked up while I'm here, and I'm having problems adding more people to my reservations at Nougatine. But, Chelsea is still humming with really cool stuff. Humming, but less crowded. The really good shows - and I'm not talking Shrek, the Musical - are still really packed.

The Yayoi Kusama show at the Gagosian really wowed me. The three giant Pumpkins outdoors were cute, and the art inside was cool, but her installation, Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity, really floored me. You on in to this cube-like structure, and all around you are glittering lights reflected in the mirrors around you, and water below you. http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/2009-04-16_yayoi-kusama/

Worth the trek to Chelsea just for that. Also in Chelsea, a European "street food" fast food place that New York Mag rated as best Take Out. The nicest counter staff I've ever seen in any fast food place. I had the lobster and crab roll, but shoulda skipped the fries.

Saw Nathan Lane and John Goodman in Waiting for Godot last night. WOW. What great performances. Beckett was never this interesting in High School in Vancouver. And tonight - Mahler at the Carnegie Hall? Or Britten and Brahmns at St Ignatius?

And then there's jazz which starts at 10 30pm. But I've got timezone issues and I've been getting up at 5am every morning. Will I be able to stay up?

Weekend in Hong Kong

The Asian city that never sleeps still doesn't need any sleep. Causeway Bay was bustling, the tramcars (now partly French owned) were teeming with people, and the salespeople in stores are incredibly helpful and friendly. Even my mother was so impressed she wanted to write a letter to the Straits Times - and 20 years ago she'd be saying that this is the city with the crankiest service.

Went to Hong Kong with the parents for my friend Hedy's baptism. Great running! Ran in Victoria Park on Friday - watched the little old ladies do their tai chi, the kids playing basketball, saw a couple of other runners, "do not litter" signs in English, Chinese, Tagalog and Bahasa Indonesian (anyone guess why?)

Visited a relative I had last seen when I was in college and she was still in San Francisco and driving me around to see Coit Tower and finding me great dimsum. She's in a wheelchair now and at a Home. Her other rellies came to visit that day as well and we went for lunch. I'll never take pork chop rice or mobility for granted again.

Went to Stanley, where the shopkeepers were saying there are fewer visitors while I'm squeezing my way around supersized Midwesterners and still chic-in-the-crowd French ones. Drove around Repulse Bay and had serious real estate envy. Hedy brought my parents and I to Times Square then we had Szechuan food at a private dining place and numbed my tongue and stomach for hours.

Ran 5k along the Harbour, listening to an NPR story on the Guys and Dolls revival, went to Tea House in Hedy's neighborhood for a "pineapple bun" and found out there's really no pineapple in them. Hedy's Baptism Mass at St Margaret's was great, although the air-con was extra hardworking and freezing. Her priest was from Brooklyn. Of course.

Everyone's "been" to Hongkong if they're from around here. Kinda like everyone's been to NY and London. But Hong Kong's like Madonna, the great re-inventor. Always the costume change, never dull.

Neighbourhoods

Who says Singapore has no character?

Here's Joo Chiat Road on a Sunday afternoon. Hotel 81 in a conservation shophouse. room by the hour anyone? And who needs a hotel bar when you have a karaoke lounge right downstairs?

All those indie stores - old and dusty bike shop, old fashioned bakery, Chinese medicine shop with meds on a rattan shelf straight from the 70s. Don't know how it'll stay that way. But I'm planning on hangin' out there and shooting a lot before it all changes.

And of course, the food at the kopi tiams there are great. What a bonus.

In Praise of the Staycation
Here's what weekend aren't anymore: shopping sprees, chi-chi restaurants, spa trips to the Banyan Tree, frequent short holidays around the region. Well, not too much anyway.

So, last Saturday, I decided to go take one of the free Walking Tours the National Library organised in conjunction with the Society of Tourist Guides in Singapore. Did a 45 minute tour around the Middle Road, Purvis Street, Beach Road area, learned about the Hainanese (and why they make such good pork chop) and then I had chicken rice at Yet Con on Purvis - the guy still uses the abacus when he does the bills. Picked up lots of great trivia, and even went to the library to borrow a couple of books. (Yep, less of Borders for me, but that's another story.

One of the books I brought home was Discover Singapore on Foot. It's a coupla years out of date, but fun nonetheless. And it came in useful when I took a photo class on Sunday around the Joo Chiat area. Four hours circling four streets: East Coast Road at the Junction of Marshall Road, then Joo Chiat, to Koon Seng and Tembeling, and then back to Marshall.

There's a ton of restoration that's been going on. OK, so the shophouses aren't as luxe as the ones on Neil Road, but they've still got more character in a 1 sq km area than most parts of the rest of the island. Art Galleries next to bars. And get this: a Temptations bakery next to a girly bar called I Love You. Of course there are the peranakan restaurants - where a couple of months ago you could walk in and get a table for dinner with no problem, but thanks to the Little Nyonya, reservations are now required.

I'm definitely going to be spending more time doing some neighborhooding on weekends. And Joo Chiat still has no Starbucks, no chainstores, no Gap, no Zara. Long live independant businesses and 'hoods with character.

Ipoh Kway Teow

Am in Ipoh for five days for the Chinese New Year. I don't think I've spent this much time here since I was in secondary school and didn't mind not being out and about.

But this is fine. My grandmother's in her 90s and still has the best smile ever. And the food's still the best.

Ipoh looks like the 70s came here and never left. Although Starbucks has arrived. Otherwise, it's narrow streets, grey shophouses, nice sized bungalows built from old money in town, wood and corrugated iron huts on the outskirts. And still better hawker food than anywhere else I know.

The best prawn mee hor fun I've had: Restoran New Hollywood at Canning Garden.

Best wonton mee: In Greentown, at the block of shophouses across from New Town White Coffee.

More food tomorrow. But, for now, I've hocked my privacy in return for WiFi at Starbucks - I mean - do they REALLY need to know my gender, race, country of origin, income and the some? I'm OK to watch that 70 second ad at log-in, but really. Then again, there's no broadband at my grandmother's.

Five days in Ipoh. I'm hoping to get a lot of reading done. I've got The Economist and four books. I've just finished Towelhead, and I'm starting on Slumdog Millionaire. And my iPod is getting lots and lots of use. God bless Steve.