Everyday Heroes

So, the kids had a really really cool children's party organised for them by a team at PSA. The games were engaging, the kids were constantly moving, doing stuff, running and laughing - 80% of the kids were terrific, polite, well-behaved.

Three of the kids were being a real pain - esp. on the way back, on the bus. They were rude, one of them had allegedly hit another kid with an empty plastic water bottle, and another one was mouthing off loudly - most of that seemed to be aimed at me as I was sitting right in front of him trying to get him to sit the heck down in the moving bus.

I honestly thought we'd made more progress than that. So, dejected and distressed, I texted the social worker I work with on the program, questioning the effectiveness and purpose of what we were doing. And she emailed me a note I'll refer to every time I'm losing the faith. (Names of kids have been changed)

"I know they still have a long way to go, but they’re slowly moving in the right direction yeah. And honestly, sometimes the work that we do, it’s like if we can save 1 out of every 20, that’s already a success. But that’s the jaded social worker speaking

Tiny Steps in Winning the Education Battle

Woke up this morning to two really cool education stories – one in the NY Times about how big dsn’t mean bad. Very VERY gratified to see that it was teachers who wanted to make the change that drove the change. So much for the excuse that the system’s too big for individuals to make a diff.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/education/28school.html?src=me&ref=homepage

Then another one on Mashable on USING Social Media to teach. Beats trying to do a lock down and preventing kids from going online – kids are gonna do what they’re gonna do. And they’re smarter than adults about technology and twice as determined. So there. As a Portland teacher, Elizabeth Delmatoff said, “Don’t fight the losing battle.”

http://mashable.com/2010/09/29/social-media-in-school/

Personally I’d rather go with the winners and have the kids learn something.

Learning a Thing or Two About Friendship
Followed the Whampoa kids on Beyond Social Services' Fundraiser Streetwise Run early July, and I learned a thing or two about friendship and determination.

There was the pre-run prep, where kids who showed up a the bus pick-up point early then walked to their friends' flats to make sure they were up and would be ready to leave on time. There were the older kids who were holding the younger kids' hand on the 5k walk - kids that I wouldn't have dreamed would even think of looking after other kids.

Things I'm Learning from People I'm Meeting


Funny how things in my work and personal life converge - or maybe they're converging because one's feeding off the other.

Here's what's taking up my time now:
- I'm working on building my own business, LINEA, in communications consulting and training. And meeting some really cool, independent businesspeople.
- I'm taking a REALLY great Travel Photography class with Eyes On Asia, and discovering that there are things to shoot in Singapore, and shooting with some really cool people,
- I'm working with volunteers to beef up the learning program at the Whampoa Family Service Centre and learning that diversity=different points of view=a stronger program.

I actually started off wanting to focus on PR for Very Small Businesses and Small/ Medium Businesses. But I quickly realised that businesses that small don't care about putting marketing disciplines in silos - they don't have the time or resources. They want everything linked together - something some larger companies see as a theoretical thing called Integrated Marketing. So I'm quickly finding other independent partners to work with to meet VSB needs.

A Step Forward!

The Saturday volunteers continue doing a FANTASTIC job at Whampoa's LIFE program. They're so energising and engaging they make everything fun.

The classes I took at the British Council help a great deal in lesson- planning, and we're building trust and learning about the kids as individuals. Yes, it gets tiring, hot, and humid, and we're getting real life lessons in classroom management and chaos, but it's worth it.

Now that I've left Lenovo, I've been helping out with Whampoa's after school program once or twice a week. Volunteers from SJI and CHIJ come in as part of their CCAs to help out.

Today, one of the 12-year-olds, (not the kid in the photo) who a year ago pretty much wouldn't give us the time of day or even come near us, sat down for two hours and did an English assessment paper including a composition. Then he played a grammar game on the BBC education website on my old work ThinkPad that I bought over and now bring to Whampoa with me. His progress has been a gradual process - thanks to the work of a whole slew of people, from social workers to volunteers.

Because he was so focused and engaged, I lent him my iPhone to play pinball in between doing his work. That seemed to work as reward and a break. So I guess I'll be downloading more games tonight. He's a really bright kid, but I'm worried about his PSLE's since three of his four subjects are in English. A teacher I met told me that with six months to go before his exams, it's "drill baby drill." It's now all about test-taking and not about building a foundation.

For all you teachers/ parents out there - what do you think? Can the two be combined? I'm not a big fan of drills, but if it has to be done, it has to be done.

Two Steps Back
After-school program at Whampoa program. Had the four boys. H, one of the boys I usually work with, was at school doing his fitness test but dropped by to say hi just before 5.

Did a writing exercise - correction - attempted to do a writing exercise using a Cartier-Bresson image of a group of boys playing near an abandoned building. Thought I'd try out the cool pre-writing collaboration exercises I learned in class.

They were outta control and we were all over the place. Did I pick the wrong content? Have bad classroom management? It wasn't even a classroom - just four boys. They finally settled down to do their mind-map with one-on-one attention from the other volunteers as well. Learning: plan the group work more carefully.

Later Li, a girl who's really good at Chinese, came over to get help researching content for English homework around advantages and disadvantages of the Internet. Of course, the first article that popped up, the P word appeared under Disadvantages. She asked "Should I include this? My teacher is a girl."

She also wanted to know how to score better in Comprehension, which seems to be a common weakness. Kids can process the stuff they read, but drawing inferences is another matter entirely. Will work on that in the next couple of weeks. See if I can put what I learned at the British Council to good, practical use.

Light!











We had one of our best Saturday sessions at Whampao last weekend.
As volunteers, we're finally getting to know the kids (it's taken us a year!), understand what floats their boats, realise that they have very different home, and probably school, environments than we ever did.

Most importantly, Saturday was the most engaged they've ever been. They're starting to trust us, and maybe realise that we care, and that learning isn't a drag.

We've started dividing the two hours into several sections:
- a warmer, to cater for the kids that are on time and to get them into it as they come in
- a lead-in, to get the kids to guess the topic and get into it and get them engaged
- puzzles, word searches, crosswords, mindmaps, in which the answers relate back to the topic. Sometime its more hands on, like making stuff. The kids get one-on-one attention from the volunteers here.
- a gameshow style quiz in which the answers come from the topic. The quiz REALLY gets their competitive spirit going.