A different kind of school ...

I have been doing relief teaching this week in a school where every student has a macbook and their textbooks are all stored in their macbooks. So they only bring one ultra light laptop to school instead of a stack of textbooks. They answer the e-book questions in their e-journals and draw graphs using software. At the same time, they are able to access the internet for more info to do their classroom projects. Every morning, because i’m a relief teacher, i have to borrow a macbook from the IT dept to take class attendance and to show science videos on the internet. I don’t go from classroom to classroom to teach Science; I sit in a dedicated Science lab surrounded by scientific apparatus and prepare for students to arrive. And these students are not college students; they are just 12 to 13 year-olds.

Wouldn’t it be great if every school in Singapore is like this, where teachers have dedicated subject rooms and technology is heavily utilised, from primary schools to junior colleges? All schools, instead of just some elite independent schools? Students sit around me instead of facing me. Students sit in groups facing one another instead of sitting individually facing the whiteboard. All classrooms are air-conditioned for comfort and the class sizes are between 20 to 24 (it seems that the school believes that every child is Gifted).

Ilyasa