Motivation is the product of success

... and it is not the other way around, suggests Glenn Doman of "How smart is your baby?"

If we are successful, we will be motivated to do even better. If we keep failing, we would not even want to do it again.

If we want our children to be motivated, they need to feel successful in whatever they are doing.

Have our Malay children taste enough success in their lives? Or once they start school, that's the beginning of their 'feel like a failure' journey because of the highly publicised fact that 'Malays are a failure at mathematics and/ or academic performance'?

How should parents make their child feel successful?

Does parents especially of low socio-economic status feel that they are already a failure at parenting or that their lives are already so pre-determined to be doomed that they are not motivated to believe that there are better futures?

Why do we often make parents feel like a failure for our underperformance in mathematics?

Because failure begets de-moralisation and de-motivation.

Just some random thoughts this week that are circling in my head.

Professionalizing the teachers

I saw the Malay news last night and read in Berita Harian this morning about the graduation of 24 madrasah teachers who have completed a professional diploma degree in education at NIE. MUIS, or the Islamic Council of Singapore, invested in these asatizahs so they are better equip and better able to teach their students using current pedagogy. As we all know, the madrasahs have to attain a certain standard in the PSLE exams for their students in order to continue its operations, and therefore an important aspect to achieving this is the professional development of its teaching personnel.

There you go, syabas MUIS for the investment! Mr Alami Musa, who is the head of MUIS, believes that pedagogy in the education sector is very dynamic and continually changing, and this professional development has to continually continue. And I totally agree with this.

May I suggest if MUIS could also look into the professional development of its preschool teachers in the mosque-based kindys? I know that MCYS is accountable to this, but I'm sure we want to do more to help our children attain better in education and maths, and one way is to invest in its teaching personnel in the preschools with current early childhood pedagogy especially in the area of mathematics. We have to start earlier and younger, right?

The T & T of things

A aquaintance once told me about what her teacher friend remarked, "I teach 40 kids in school but I neglect my own children."

And the reason given for the above neglect is that "teaching is a demanding job". This is because it is not true teachers only work from 7am - 2pm but definitely longer than that and it is not true that teachers can take on long holidays during the school holidays, they still have to come to school for meetings, plannings and so on.

It seems oxymoron when a teacher who is also a parent cannot even teach her own children. There are many other working parents out there, who are juggling work and parenthood, some with equally demanding careers if not more. If we could readily point fingers at some parents for our children underperformance in education, what can we say about parents who are teachers, and who are supposedly having the skills to teach. Now, the teacher parent says, "it is not the same teaching your own kids and other people's kids." But of course, this is only one example that I came across. Most of my teacher friends have well-educated children.

Are we to blame all parents for our Malay children low performance in mathematics, or at least analyse another possible cause - ie. the missing algebra - teachers and their teaching instruction, the T & T of things.

When I had to choose a primary school for my kid, I met with the principal of my intended school, and his first question is "Is your child able to read?" He went on to say that if your child is not reading by the time he comes to my school, he will struggle.

Now, now, now, what is he hinting at? What is the purpose of going to school, in the first place? Isn't it to give my child an education?

A colleague who is a professor said that "it is to get educated", and I do agree. But in real life and in Singapore's schools, we want children who come to primary one to be school-ready, to be well-prepared and are less forgiving if the child comes to school not knowing his ABCs and 123s.

The role of schools these days is not of educating the child, it seems, but of making the life of teachers easier teaching well-prepared kids and the status of the principals elevated because their students are achieving better all because some parents have fully prepared and educated their children at home, or paying exorbitant fees to private operators for pre-primary preparatory programs. But not all parents can afford the fees. And for some parents, who is like the teacher above, do at times find it a struggle to be working and then coming home and teaching their own kids. Now, if she, an educated parent, because she is a trained teacher but also has problems nurturing her own children, how do you make sense of all other parents especially those who are low income, low education, untrained in teacher training, lack many skills - parenting included, lack know-how to teach their children and/or struggling to make ends meet? Don't these parents find it a bigger struggle to teach their children at home?

Children in Finland attend school only at age 7 but they are ahead in Singapore as the top performing school systems in the world and the reason being, Finland recruit only the top 10% of graduates as compared to 30% in Singapore to become teachers and most have a master qualification (McKinsey,2007). The status of teaching and teacher is equitable to that of a doctor or lawyer and therefore qualified personnel are willing and want to be teachers in Finland.

I believe MOE and NIE are working towards growing a bigger pool of master-qualified teachers in years to come, but I'm more concerned about our preschools - the Malay- and mosque-based typed which I can safely say have very few highly qualified T and T. I do wonder what are the criterias for teacher recruitment and selection in our Malay- and mosque-based kindys as well as the teaching instructions in these schools?

We need quality and qualified teachers/principals in our preschools. We need teachers who think about their teaching - having the right skills and metacognition in teaching the right pedagogy of early childhood maths. And as much as we feel that our Malay children feel lowly and anxious about doing maths, do our preschool teachers also feel the same way when they teach maths? Do our teachers have maths-anxiety when it comes to teaching maths?

I recommend reading Constance Kamii Teachers need more knowledge of how children learn maths and many of her articles about how the young minds process numbers and think about numbers, and how teachers (or parents) should try to understand the way our young process maths and number, and therefore teachers need the skills, knowledge, pedagogy and metacognition of mathematical learning and thinking. And I have to reiterate this, as most community leaders think that maths is about practice, practice, practice but in the early years, it's about logical thinking. And Constance Kamii clearly expound teachers nurturing logical thinking to their students. How is it done? Well, teachers, you need to read to find out!

Solving Maths Problems: The Confidence Factor by Ng Swee Fong believes that teachers' confidence factor in maths will also influence the way they teach mathematics. If teachers themselves express high anxiety in solving maths, they may be doing a disservice to their students. Though the research is with primary teachers, it is applicable to all teachers. If some primary teachers have confidence issues, what's more preschool teachers - trained or untrained in early childhood education? What's more parents - with high education or low - since most of us are not trained teachers in the first place.

Another paper of interest to our community leaders should be the following "Do Chinese and Malay students report different ways of studying mathematics?" and therefore, if there are different ways of studying, should teachers have different ways and strategies of teaching the maths espcially if the Chinese kids get it, and the Malay kids don't. When the Malay kids don't, can we stop to think that perhaps we need to teach another way so that they get it. Again, T and T?

Get it?

Of "idols" and nurturing giftedness

Once upon a time, a parent told me that she thought her child is bad at mathematics, but his cousins, who could not solve the same problems, are in fact worst off than him. In that sense, she said, my child is not so bad after all.

Well, that's not much of a role model to be comparing with. In this family of low-attainers, where bright sparks do not run even in their closest relations, they don't get much inspiration and aspiration to succeed. With no role models to emulate, they don't even think that their children can be smart like other children. To this family, the smarts are the others, it could not be them.

Now, can we nurture a child to be smart, bright and of course, gifted? Or is giftedness a gift from God, and that a child's intelligence is predestined by the time he or she is born?

We all know the old adage that a child is like a white canvas and it is up to the parents to colour it. Colour it right, and you'll get a masterpiece. The problem is not all parents are great painters, but even if we are not great painters, we can create abstract art, isn't it? Abstract art is subjective, it may not be of value to one collector but it could fetch millions for another.


The "idol" number 2 that I'd like to introduce is Natasha Nabila. At the end of 2007's PSLE results, Natasha is a top PSLE scorer. She is also the nation's first student who held such an outstanding score of 294, short of 6 to make it a perfect score in PSLE's 17 year history. Natasha is Malay, and her success has made the Malay community very proud. We should make Natasha a great role model for our children.

Is Natasha naturally gifted or are there some things that her parents have done to nurture her giftedness? Perhaps, Natasha may have the smart genes, but her "A" level parents also gave her a headstart.

When her mother was pregnant with Natasha, she and her husband read fairy tale every night to unborn Natasha.

At 3 months old, her parents bought her an encyclopaedia. Even if Natasha cannot read, I'm sure her parents are reading the encyclopaedia to her.

At 2 years old, Natasha is already reading on her own.

And Natasha also plays the piano and violin and is in her primary school's Scrabble Club. This Gifted Education Programme student cited consistent work and love for reading as secrets of her success. Natasha also has good time management and a supportive home environment. Her mother, Zaharah Othman will switch off the tv when it is time to study, and they have special time dedicate just for reading which is usually before bedtime.

Even if Natasha is naturally gifted, her parents nurture her giftedness such that she achieved unprecedented performance in the PSLE's exams.

My 'idol' number 3 is Ainan Cawley, who at age 6 has taken his Chemistry exams at 'O' level, and is simply a genius at the subject. This child prodigy of mixed Malay and British parentage is unmistakably naturally gifted, but his parents do not simply let him be. They still strive to nurture his natural and exceptional abilities in the sciences and at the same time create the environment and opportunities to further hone his gifts.

Aren't we inspired by these 'idols' in our community? Don't we want to emulate them - the kids and the parents? Don't we want to nurture our own children to giftedness? Don't we want our own 'blood idols'?

Rather than think we can't, or the smarts are the others, we should think we can, and that our children can be one of the smarts. After all, trying something and persevering is better than not doing anything. Even if our child may not be academically gifted, he or she may be gifted in other areas, and we hope that he or she will be brilliant enough to sail smoothly through school and life, with some heardstart from us, parents.

We need "Idols"

... not of the Singapore or American Idol singing sensation type but "idols" or role models of successful Malays that our young children can look up to and emulate. So here is one "idol" or role model I'd like to introduce to inspire our children and our Malay community, and I hope he and his family do not mind the sharing. It is meant for a good cause.

Photo by Michael Clayton-Jones taken from this site.











A Berita Harian commentator mentioned him in his article as "Duta" (ambassador) for maths, but there was no profile of who or what this person pictured above is all about.

At the time the picture was taken in 2005, Adib Surani was only 17 years old but he was the top student in the whole of Victoria, Australia. Adib Surani is Malay, Muslim and hailed from Singapore. The Age, an Australian paper regarded him as a Maths whiz, and that he is one of the top brains in maths in Australia for a child his age. Currently he is an undergrad with the University of Melbourne majoring in pure mathematics.

While in Singapore, Adib attended Raffles Institution. You may think that he is naturally and highly gifted, but I also believe that it is nurture that help him achieve remarkable performance in maths. What little I know about his family is that his parents, pious and God-fearing, also practice Glenn Doman on their children.

Just google Glenn Doman, and you can read about him and his methods of teaching children. In fact, there are various Singapore websites dedicated to parents who practice GD, and other methods on their children.

I was first introduced to Glenn Doman about ten years back when a colleague at that time, Encik AR lend me the book "How to multiply your baby's intelligence" by Glenn Doman. He said it really worked because his wife, late Aunty Z, who is a homemaker, practiced GD on their only son, and their son is a scholar with an Ivy League university.

Another Malay/ Muslim family I met about five years back also practice GD on their children. Their eldest daughter is a PhD holder, and one of their sons at that time was in a gifted education programme with Rosyth School.

There are other methods in teaching our young effectively not only GD, but I am introducing GD because of what I have seen happening to some families like Adib who practices them. GD can be hardwork for the parents but if one perseveres, the rewards though not seen immediately will bear fruits later.

Though I was introduced to GD, I did not persevere and practice it fervently as at the time my first son was born, I was a working mother who work erratic hours and I simply could not do the three times a day flashing of cards, though I made some of the cards myself. However I improvised, and played some flashcard games with my son during the weekends with him. My method was not GD, but sort of GD-like. As parents, we have to get creative in teaching our children since I cannot follow through the strict principles behind GD.

My son is not in the gifted education programme but at primary four, I think he is doing alright in his studies and we keep working with him on his maths and other subjects.

Now, my question is, if GD methods really work, and could potentially benefit some families, why not "Glenn Domanised" some of our education programme for our community? If not all, perhaps our preschools could also use some of GD methods in their curriculum.

We should have workshops and seminars for parents on GD on a large scale. We should purchase or make the materials to be used for our "at risk of failing" families. We should do it now, and we should get parents to prepare even when their child is in the womb.

The revolution has to start now! Just look at Adib. I'm sure we want success stories like him.

The equation is missing an 'algebra'

According to Berita Harian, 20 December 2009, the cause of Malay students underperformance in mathematics is attributed to the following:-

Lack strong foundation + Lack Parental Support + Lack discipline = Underperformance in maths

Understandably, there is truth to this equation but I felt that it is missing an additional 'algebra'.

We are quick to point out that many of those who lack strong foundation are those kids that were not sent to preschool, thus it is definitely the parents to blame for having such a lackadaisical attitude and for not having the mindset that early years learning is super important. Thus, it has been reiterated many times, and by every community leaders and even the media that parental interest, support, motivation and ambition are extremely crucial in nurturing the basic foundation in maths.

Now, I am just wondering for those who did not do well or have failed maths in this year's PSLE results, how many of these children did go to preschool - at least 2 to 3 years of preschool education? I would really be interested to know the numbers, and if possible even the preschools they attended.

Why am I curious to know?

I read a report on the best-performing school systems in the world, and it cited that the best-performing school systems emphasised the quality of its teachers and instruction (McKinsey, 2007). In other words, for every child to perform outstandingly and to succeed, these countries which include Singapore, do not underestimate the qualification of its teachers and the way subjects are taught by them.

Based on the above report, Singapore has one of the best-performing school systems in the world. However, I'm just thinking, whether this best performance trickle down to the early years schools ie. preschools. Our preschools, though regulated by MOE, do not have to come under its direct administration. And furthermore, I believe, by and large, besides PCF kindergartens, most of our Malay children attend preschools by private Malay-owned, Malay voluntary organisations and mosque-based kindergartens. I do not want to make baseless assumptions but I am just questioning whether in our Malay and mosque-based preschools, do we have truly qualified teachers and excellent instruction?

There is some kind of regulation that in each preschool there is at least a minimum number of teachers with early childhood diploma amidst the certificates. However, do we have teachers who have degrees - bachelors and masters in our Malay and mosque-based kindys? Do these teachers have continual professional development to enhance their teaching?

All this relate to another thing. Again, $$$.

You see, the fees for many Malay and mosque-based kindys are in the range of $90 to $130 per month, and yet many Malay parents cannot afford or lament that it is still expensive. How much can you pay your teachers if your school fees are such? How qualified can your teachers be if you are not able to pay your teachers well? And if your school fees are such, do you have quality curriculum and materials?

Now, if raising the school fees is not an attractive option, what else can be done to improve the quality of teachers and instruction in our Malay and mosque based kindys?

This is one area that our community leaders could and should look into. Beside all that I have mentioned above, the community leaders should also look into whether the preschools have the right pedagogy to teach early childhood maths in an effective and efficient manner?

In this time and age, the buzz word in the education sector is professional development. We need teachers who are highly qualified who go through various professional development courses so as to deliver quality instruction. Even if the curriculum is below par, a teacher with high qualification and excellent knowledge, pedagogy, capacity and instruction will be able to take one more child up the learning ladder.

And I hope I have many who will agree with me on this.

Let's look at a case study reported on the same newspaper on the same day. The paper reported a girl who failed her PSLE maths last year and had to repeat her primary six again this year. The equation on the headline for her looks like this:-

Don't Understand + Not interested = Not Passing.

According to the news report, Girl, who is 12 and shy, admitted that she does not understand what her teachers taught her, and as a result she is not interested in the subject. She has not gotten more than 40 marks since primary 3, meaning she has been failing the subject since then.

According to girl's mom, she is not able to teach her maths, but is able to motivate her to practice. She also buys her workbooks and encourages her to practice at least one page a day. However, girl still don't quite understand how to do her worksheets. Mom added that she sends girl to tuition classes by Mendaki and AMP, and extra classes in school.

It is without a doubt that if you don't understand something, you will not have interest in it. And if you have no interest, your mind will drift away while in class and you just don't do well in it.

Whether or not this child go to preschool, we do not know, but what we know is that her basic foundation in maths is totally weak. Her mom admitted that she does not have the skills to teach her child maths, but if this child keeps saying that she does not understand maths, despite the tuition at Mendaki, AMP and extra classes in school, what should we do? Should we keep pressing her to practice, practice, and practice without understanding?

Let's face it. This child needs help beyond mere practicing and parental motivation. Does she have good teachers and good instruction in her preschool, school and tuition classes? Her teachers must not only teach but need to assess her strengths and weaknesses and come up with appropriate strategies and instruction for her so that she is able to learn efficiently and effectively and thus leads to understanding the math.

Her parents could have done more when the child is not performing at p1 and p2 rather than wait till p3. By now, it may seem a little too late, but before we lose hope, let's try another 'untested' avenue.

There are already many educational centres that claim accelerated learning and some even advertise how the students who enrol in their programme is able to turn an "F" grade into an "A" grade. We hope her parents will be able to send her to such a programme. Eventhough there is no guarantee, there is the hope - the hope of a higher grade and the hope that the low self-esteem in herself and maths is lifted and she will be more positive and believe that she can and will score in maths. If money is a problem to send her kid to such a program as the cost is quite high, please seek help from your MP, and the MP must give it a try - either offer her the financial aid or get the centre to sponsor the child in their programme.

We need this sort of rags to riches story - from an F to an A grade, to boost the morale of our community as well as to boost our statistics. Thus, both equations must not miss out on the importance of teachers' quality and their instructions as well as curriculum and materials in our preschools.

Whose problem is it?

When I was doing my master in early childhood education in the year 2004, I had to write a paper based on a research project that I did. The paper "How to teach low-income Malay parents mathematics to their K2 children" was an unpublished report, but I gave a copy to Mendaki, as Mendaki assisted me and my research partner by giving us four families to research on.

I don't know whether the paper was ever read, or made any significant impact to Mendaki. Having four case studies is definitely not a significant sample size, but it was enough to draw some interesting conclusions. In fact, the families that we had to work with were not really low-income. At that time, they were known as the "new poor", a term coined by our community leaders to reflect those breadwinners who have lost their job during the economic downturn.

In my report, I also reported some previous research done by Mendaki, AMP and Sinda especially in the 80s. Apart from the similar problems like low income, low education, big family size, small flat, Sinda also reported structural problems in our education system. The report by Sinda, if I can remember correctly, was spearheaded by Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam.

When Mr Tharman became the minister for education, I believed he made significant changes to the education policies. Perhaps it was his way of removing some of the structural problems that his team had identified in the report. I felt that during his reign, he actually created many new opportunities and paths for the diverse abilities and talents in Singapore. I believed he understood that "no one size fits all", and that not everyone is gifted academically and being talented in other areas like the arts and sports should be considered a gift as well. Now, by removing some of these structural problems in the education policies, Mr Tharman allowed low-attainers and low-scorers to have other avenues to move forward. He did not do it simply to create opportunities for his Indian community but for all low-achievers in this country. Now, the Indians have made significant progress in the range of 70% passes in mathematics but we have not. Why is that so?

Let's remove the racial categorisation for a while, and figure what should and could be done to these low-achievers. Isn't it a national problem rather than a racial problem eventhough the profile of these low-achievers are somewhat large in the Malay community? What should our ministry of education do to make the number of low-achievers small, and the drop-out rate even smaller?

Whose problem is it? A national or a racial one? Let's not even bother to point fingers but let's work on this education problem of the low-achievers together.

Let's think like Nadim

When I was a television producer some many years ago, I produced the drama series entitled 'Anak Metropolitan'. It's about our young who were involved in gangs.

This serie caused an unprecedented polemic in the Malay community. We were accused for airing our community's bobrok-ness publicly. It stirred our community leaders and our fellow Malay citizens and we were congratulated as well as fired for creating such a show. The show was not merely about our creativity but based on some research that we have done about our community. We showed what was really happening out there but our community could not accept the truth.

Now, sweeping things under the carpet is not going to solve the problem. And again, the hot news these days in the Malay press is about the state of bobrok-ness of some of our Malays. And it was not because of some television programmes, but the airing of grief by our minister for Malay/Muslim affairs, Dr Yaacob Ibrahim. He was grief-stricken at the tragic death of a young innocent child rotting near Kallang River and the bitter truth that our Malays are still underachieving in mathematics, and not sending their kids to preschools.

And of late, in order to balance the dirty linen of the community, Berita Harian has reported some news of success - like more Malay students going to post-secondary education and more Malay scientists in our midst. However, should we shout and rave about these? Are we still trying to mask our tragic shortcomings by proclaiming these minutiae successes as compared to the other races? I would probably rave about our Malay scientists but not about the higher rate of Malays in post-secondary education.

In the first place, when it is shown that there are more Malays in post-secondary education, what does this really mean? I may be wrong, but I think it meant there are more Malays who go to ITE instead of dropping out at secondary school. There is nothing wrong going to ITE but is this the kind of success that we should be really proud of when the other races have gone to secure higher than just bachelor degrees?

And also of late, another problem in the Malay community is the high incidences of dropping out at ITE.

Malays don't attend preschools, Malays drop-out at primary school, Malays drop-out at secondary schools and now dropping out at ITE. So what's the bottomline? Financial prblems? I dont think so. I believe some of these Malays are not resilient enough. Some of us just gave up too easily. And when the problems get tough, they blame it on the lack of money and what-have-you. Our leaders and self-help group are now dangling $$ to retain the ITE students in school, but I believe the problem is deeper than that. The problem is the mind.

We are not resilient enough. We are not kiasu enough. We believe that it is fate. We just don't think like Nadim.

This mindset is the cause of a lot of ills, and a lot of self-defeating beliefs in ourselves. We believe that we cannot do well in mathematics just because we are Malays. This has got to change, and it has to change really fast. We need a mental revolution! We need to brainwash and hynotize our Malays to revolutionise their thinking towards success. We need accelerated programs!

I've also read in the press about what community leaders planned to do - stepping up their efforts in tackling these issues. I don't want to seem cynical, but I would really like to know HOW are they planning to go about doing it. What does 'stepping up' their programs mean?

Because we have done it for over 20 years, and we have still not achieved the results that we wanted. Even if we don't compare ourselves with the Chinese who are way in front of us, but the Indians have done much better than us. What do we have to say to that? I'm sure they have similar resources but something is just not happening right with us.

Let's revolutionize our minds now!

Bobrok and goblok...

...are these words to define the state of some of our fellow Malays in our community? That is a tragedy indeed!

Dahlah bobrok with all the problems which used to be known as the triple D problems of the Malays - drugs, divorce and delinquency. These problems still existed though it was made known to us that statistically, the numbers have lowered but the problems have crept deeper into an almost bottomless pithole. The pithole that saw too many young marriages that were doomed to fail. And I can only guessed that perhaps these young marriages stemmed from the high incidences of teen sex, pregnancies and gangsterism prevalent among the 'unguided' young Malays, and the problems got deeper when innocent young children became victims of abuse and murder. Not to mention the "Orang Pantai" syndrome that mushroomed in East Coast and Changi beaches. With all these 'bobrok' issues, it is highly unsuspecting how 'goblok' some of our Malays are - 'goblok' in the area of education, specifically in the subject of mathematics (and also science, and the English language).

It could be that we are bobrok that's why we are goblok or it could be the other way around - we are goblok, that's why we are bobrok. And let me disclaim that it is not my intention to label or belittle the Malays. I am a Malay too and I'm saddened by this state of my own community.

Indeed, we have been in this state for a very long time. According to some, it started when we gave up our land to the British. But since I have no plan to research which history came first, it led me to think how far back our shortcomings began. This is the story of "Singapura Dilanggar Todak" where the Sultan of that time ordered the killing of the life of a young genius lad because of his own stupidity. In this fable or legend, I hope that this story is a fable instead, when Singapore's shores were attacked by swordfishes, the Sultan's so-called bright idea was to use the shin of his citizens to protect Singapore shores from the swordfishes. That led to the deaths of his many unquestioning and unthinking citizens. Then came a gifted and genius young lad by the name of Nadim who suggested to the Sultan to use the bark of a banana tree to line the shores so that the swordfishes got stuck to the bark instead. Unfortunately, the Sultan who listened to his evil adviser ordered the killing of Nadim.

What luck that this phenomenon existed still in this info- and nano-technology world that we lived today.

Are we still thinking like the Sultan?
Are we still thinking like his advisor?
Are we still thinking like his unquestioning and unthinking citizens?

Why can't we be thinking like Nadim?