We are in the same boat , you are speaking up my mind. I always seek knowladge through readings and my challenges are to patch the bridge too.I am a working mom and I have 2 wonderfull kids going to Beaconhouse Sri Inai.Thank you for sharing your thought as it inspiries me in many ways.I will catch up with you in your next posting. Bye.

Selvaa

From Ghita: Thank you so much indeed for your kind comment, feedback and encouragement, which I very much appreciate I love writing about topics that interest me, but my challenge is finding the time to write. Self development has been an interest and passion of mine since my early teens and today there are quite a lot of information and materials available to delve in to and the challenge is to limit myself and focus on a few chosen ones at a time, because I realised that through the many books I have read and the materials I have obtained and the programs I have bought online over the years, I actually do have what I need to begin patching the bridges, but for years I kept searching for more information, but I never got around to use the materials in-depth and do the exercises required, and that is really what it takes to reach my goals. Information alone doesn’t get us anywhere. We need to apply the information we have and take action consistently in order to achieve what we want. Currently I am inspired by John Assaraf, who wrote the book The Answer. Take care and happy holidays and seasonal greetings!

From Ghita: I am afraid that I can’t help you much, as I don’t know that many who offers such activities, but for nature related activities you may want to check out Malaysian Nature Society at http://www.mns.my and http://www.skytrex-adventure.com/ for more information. And if your children are interested in the performing arts, you could check out http://www.fusionacademy.com.my/. Good luck and happy holidays!

Your blog is really nice. Hope to see more updates about TIS.

Thank you

Rahimah

From Ghita: Dear Jina, it hurts me too to hear about your child and that noone seems to care. I understand that the situation seems unbearable and if only someone was willing to listen and see the situation from your and your child’s side and point of view, it would ease the pain a little bit. When children are acting out it’s because there is a reason for it. If only adults and in this case the teachers were willing to see the other side of the coin and try to understand why your child is reacting, it would be easier to resolve. Many people have a tendency to only look for the bad in a situation instead of looking for the positive. For instance if a child comes late for class, instead of punishing the child, the teacher should find out the reason they are late, instead of just assuming that it’s because the child has no respect and comes late on purpose. Most of the time this is not the case, and if only the adult was willing to listen to their reason, the teacher would discover that the child indeed had a valid reason for being late, and it should be the job of the adult to help the child figure out how to make better decisions and prioritise some things over other things. Maybe the child came late because he was helping another child find a lost item, which was an act of compassion and helpfulness, which is a good thing, and hence he shouldn’t be punished, but the child just needs to learn that while in some circumstances it’s the right thing to help, in other circumstances there might be another solution where he can help and come to class on time as well. The same with a child that gets into a fight with another child, stop up and listen without judgments and help the children through the conflict by giving then tips on how to resolve the conflict in a non violent way and with the intention of understanding each other and to create a win win situation. I am sorry I can’t be of more help, but I sincerely hope you will find a way to resolve the issue peacefully and always know that you have the right to tell your side of the story. All the best to you and your child.

When we went to submit the application, they said they will call the kids for assessment in June 201. Will the assessment be really hard or simple and easy? Because my kids are very shy and they don’t talk too much in front of strangers. But when they are at home they are really naughty.and they will also check pencil grip during assessment. So I am really worried.

Hope you can advice me on this regard.

Thank you

Regards

Rahimah

From Ghita: Dear Rahimah, the languages they teach at TIS are English, Bahasa Malaysia, Mandarin and French, but your children are still small, so I wouldn’t worry about it. As long as your children do the expected classwork and homework, when they get to that age, they will do fine. I don’t think you need to worry about the assessment test, at that age it’s a test to assess their level of ability, but it’s not an exam. What you could do to prepare your children and reduce your worry about the assessment is to talk with them about it, in a simple language of course since they are so small, about what might happen during the assessment, role play with them about the situation to teach them to sit still and concentrate on a simple task, but don’t expect too much from them, as they are still very small, and the school understands small children and what they are and are not capable of at that age. To help you with ideas and to prepare yourself, you can call the school and ask them what they will be doing for the assessment. It’s very normal that your children are naughty at home and shy outside, if they stay like that, it’s a good thing, because if they behave in school, things will be easier for them. And don’t worry they will learn to overcome their shyness, especially in an international school, where the teachers understand them and will help and support their development. Good luck!

Many thanks for your comments and feedback, which I appreciate very much. I totally agree with you, and luckily the teachers at Tenby have treated my son a lot better than his previous school, and only a few teachers over the last 2 years have not been suitable for him, but he is now really happy with all his teachers and he enjoys school so much that he never wants to miss a day and that is the way education should be, fun, exciting, motivating, positive and progressive.

All the best to you.

Kind regards,

Ghits

I am very sorry that I only respond to and post your comment now, but I have not been checking my blog for a while, until today. Thank you so much for sharing your story and I sincerely hope that your son will be fine with reading in school. As you know I completely agree that the style of teaching and the way the teacher approaches the child are very important ingredients for a successful learning situation and outcomd. My son is now in year 10 and it’s very clear that his results in any subject corresponds directly with the way his teacher is. When his teacher is positive, accommodating, friendly, encouraging and emphasize on his positive attributes, he will perform well and achieve good results, but the moment his teacher has a style which is based on scolding to try and motivate him, his performance and grades are immediately affected negatively. Of course a student all of a sudden cannot get worse at a subject, they have been good at earlier, so there is no doubt in my mind that it’s the teacher’s approach that is vital to a student’s success. In my opinion it’s the responsibility of a teacher to ask themselves whether the student would respond better and learn faster, if they changed their approach to teaching and allowed the children to learn in a safe and comfortable environment where the teachers are supportive, friendly, gentle and encouraging. It makes a huge difference, and I would encourage all parents to talk with the child’s teachers and explain to them how best your child learn, because you know best how your child learns and responds to instructions.

By the way if your child finds it difficult to learn through phonics, because some children cannot learn that way, you may want to look for alternative ways such as mental imagery and visual learning methods, which works very well for children who are learning to spell. I only came across such techniques recently, which I tested on my son and found out it worked. The problem is that my son has learnt spelling his own way, as phonics never really worked for him, and it would take time for him to learn how to spell in a different way, but a younger child would quickly catch on and become an excellent speller. The technique is quite simple. When you teach your child a new word, you need to break the word in to smaller parts, let the child see the word and say the letters out loud and then ask the child to close his eyes and to look up to the left still with his eyes closed and ask him to create a mental picture of the word broken in to the parts you agreed on and ask him to tell you the letters he sees in his mind’s eye backwards and forward by focusing on the parts e.g. the word Malaysia, he should see and say; ais – yal – am and ma – lay – sia. The moment the child has a mental picture of the word, and is able to spell the word in this way, he will remember it permanently and can recall the mental image of the word anytime he needs to and the more he uses the word, soon he won’t even need to see the mental image of the word anymore, but it will be second nature to him to know how to spell the word.

The problem with phonics is that sometimes we just can’t hear how a word is spelt, but we need to know it and memorize it, but some children find it difficult to remember how a word is spelt purely on auditory memory, because they don’t have a mental image to connect it to and the ability to create mental pictures of the words makes the difference between good spellers and bad spellers, so why not improve children’s ability to spell by implementing techniques which have been proven to work better, that’s what I would have done if my children were just beginning to learn how to spell.

I wish you and your son the best of luck and hope your son’s teacher will improve her approach and teaching style.

Kind regards,

Ghita

I am so sorry I haven’t checked my blog for a long time, hence didn’t see your enquiry before now. I probably wouldn’t have been so positive either if I had answered earlier, as it has been a year with a number of issues to be looked in to, but luckily for us parents who stayed put, things are now moving in the right direction and new developments are on the way and currently being implemented based on a survey the school conducted in the last term. Anyways it’s probably too late now, which I apologize for.

I wish you the best of luck in future and hopefully your son will do well in his studies in the school he attends.

Best regards

Ghita

I believe that such arbitrary turnabouts are quite common in Malaysia and many people in the role of educators do not realize the damage they do by the flippant remarks they make. In fact, many of them like to say: “They are kids. They’ll adapt.” As if this justifies the rather insensitive way they treat kids and young people. I feel quite sad for our children sometimes.