I
started teaching in a government school in 1995. After a couple of years, I
felt that there was something wrong with our education system and I knew if I
had stayed on with the job for a few more years, I would become too afraid to
leave the stable job. Anyway, I left the service and started my own tuition
centre in Ang Mo Kio. Although I had the freedom to craft my lessons the way I
wanted to, at that time, I felt I was stuck in a myopic education system and a
debilitating education culture.
So
what happened? The idealist I was, I left the tuition industry, even with my
Comprehension books selling well and strangers contacting me for tuition
services. “No,” I told myself, “real education cannot be found in tuition
centres and our National schools.” I left the tuition industry and became
involved in so many other facets of the education industry that, on hindsight,
I see it as a special crash course on education in the 21st century which
lasted a full decade. It was only after I experienced this insightful journey
that my sight became clearer and I realised that our National schools are
indeed good schools generally. We may have a lot to improve at, but compared to
our neighbouring countries, our schools stand high. Our schools are amongst the
best equipped and our teachers are amongst the best trained in Southeast Asia.
Though
this may be true, there are many, many things we Singaporeans have missed. But
I have learnt through the years some wisdom; one of the realizations is that
our country can only be transformed top-down. Since I am a bottom-up person, I
do not envision the day I will be able to revolutionise the education system in
Singapore with the new insights I have gained in the last 2 decades. So I am
not even going to try. However, I have set myself a simple goal for me to achieve
in Singapore. Transformative education. Transformative learning can take place
anywhere – in schools, tuition centres, universities and at home. That is what
I offer with my tuition services – a positive, transformative experience for my
tuition students.
What
do I mean? Well, let’s be frank. There is so much of money to be made from the
tuition industry. I can see many centres propagating this and that about their
tuition services to clients who perhaps do not need tuition at all. This was an
aspect of the industry that turned me away from doing tuition some time ago. I
was disgusted by it and could not bring myself to teach anymore just for money.
A couple of times I tried to return to the tuition industry but I could not
convince myself that I was genuinely doing a good thing.
The
changes to how I viewed the tuition industry came a little at a time until I
became fully convinced that I did such a foolish thing to have avoided it for
so long. In fact, I now believe that God has ordained it for me and it is I who
have been a fool to run away from it for so long. However, I sincerely that the
adventures I had gone on in the education world was a necessary for me, and so,
I don’t feel so foolish after all. Had I not taken a detour, I would not have
been enlightened about the state of education in our world.
There
are many students that I have met, taught and some I had even turned away in
the last 2 decades who were in true need of tuition services, individual or
group. In my view, these are real clients of the tuition industry. It baffles
me how some centres can charge exorbitant fees to A-scoring students so that
they follow a tuition programme which guarantees they do not slacken in their
grades. (They are no guarantees, my friends.) What about the thousands of
students who are weak academically, failing miserably at their tests and
believing that they are not intelligent? What about them, you may ask. Well,
tuition providers should concentrate the weak ones and not good ones. Of
course, people can argue otherwise. So to each his own.
I
have long known that weak students face a difficult journey. Few people
empathise with them on the invisible hurdles and negative mindsets they have to
overcome. These students are the ones I love tutoring most. They give me the
most satisfaction in tutoring. And so, when some centres reject them because
they perform too poorly, I embrace them with enthusiasm. It is my hope to tutor
as many of such students as possible for the next 2 decades, God willing.
