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.

Help Wanted, Help Given

Here's a post from Gerard Ee, the executive director of Beyond Social Services. (The FSC I'm helping out at, Whampoa, is part of this network)

This evening, 6 secondary 2 students will be receiving tuition from some volunteers at a Residents’ Committee Centre. Nothing unusual but over the past month, these students started to ‘repay’ their volunteers with an hour of dance lessons after tuition ends at 8.30 pm. It was not something the volunteers had asked for but it was something these students knew that they could give.

For the past 6 months, these students have been dancing in the street near where they live and sharing their moves with children and others who cared join them.  Their energy and enthusiasm have added a vibrant vibe to their neighbourhood which is much appreciated.

Next month, as a gesture of appreciation to the Residents’ Committee for allowing them to use their premises for tuition, these students will be performing at an RC event. I wonder if they will eventually get the volunteers to be a part of their performance too.

"Don't Underestimate Kids"


Couple of weeks ago I downloaded a TED Conference speech by 12-year-old Adora Svitak. (Yes! She's 12, and she spoke at TED). It was for an exercise at the Whampoa Family Service Centre in which the kids would have to:

- do a word search puzzle based on the vocab in the speech (thank you free puzzle websites)
- discuss the meaning of the words and form sentences using them
- watch the speech, listen, and hopefully follow along with the transcript
- do an exercise in which they built an argument for, or against, a topic.

As context - Adora Svitak, an American who got her first book published at 7, talked about What Adults Can Learn from Kids. I wanted the kids to be inspired by someone their own age. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/adora_svitak.html.

Some of the volunteers, myself included, were worried at first. These were 9-12 year olds - most with a not-so-great command of English. Would the kids get it? Would they be bored? Lost? Start running around?

Musical Spaces



A 10-year-old said to me: "(tea)Cherrr! Today chaos har?"

It had to be true chaos if even the kids from the centre says it's chaotic. It was birthday cake day again (every last Saturday - cake donated by Classic Cakes). And we'd just blown the candles and this time I'd taken it into the staff room to cut and then distribute. The kids were outside clamouring for cake while the monthly awards were given out. Every month we also give out personalised notes written by the social workers and volunteers to the kids.

We were short of volunteers Saturday: 1 in Seramban, another 2 in school, one out sick. So the boys were having a field day with vols Simeon and Ben who, to their credit, did a terrific job. Quite honestly, I was glad to leave them to it, hopping over only when the boys were getting too rowdy.