RECIPE FOR A GREAT TEAM by Chris Chua

Ingredients
At least 2 persons (regardless of race, language or religion)
A lot of tolerance
A lot of respect for others
A willingness to let others lead.
A seed of trust
Some amount of prejudice
A big heart
A willingness to contribute
Some amount of selfishness
Mouthfuls of praises
A positive attitude
A lot of pleases and thank yous
An axis of fairness
A lot of consensus.
A willingness to learn
A desire to cooperate
A lot of encouragement

Goal: To work seamlessly as a great team!

Steps

1. Form a team of at least 2 members (regardless of sex, race, religion or language)
2. Throw away all the prejudice.
3. Plant the seed of trust by putting in the willingness to learn and contribute, and the desire to cooperate.
4. Add in a lot of tolerance and respect for others.
5. Water it with a lot of pleases and thank yous everyday.
6. Take all the selfishness and crush it with a big heart.
7. Allow the crushed selfishness to be blown away by the wind.
8. Seek for consensus in decision and not just what majority decides.
9. Each time work is accomplished add in many mouthfuls of praises.
10. Each time failure occurs, do not be disheartened. Pour in lots of encouragement to sweeten the feelings.
11. Maintain a regular rotation of duties around your axis of fairness. Everyone in the team must have a chance to do things.
12. Let the willingness to let others lead remind you that you do not always have to be in charge, others must have the opportunity too.

This is my recipe for a great team. It takes a team (not an individual) to prepare such a delicious dish. And I am glad to be a part of many such teams in Blangah Rise Primary School. Thank you.

P/S I came across this recipe that I had created a few years ago to contribute to the class newsletter started by my pupils then. It was my subtle way of telling my pupils what it meant to work as a team. It was also my way of introducing the text type, procedural text, to pupils.

Life is waiting

Life is waiting. Every time I switch on my home PC, these words stare at me. The wallpaper of my desktop is that of the movie "The Terminal". The movie's tagline is "Life is waiting". I like the tagline. It is a constant reminder to me to make the most of my life.

I read with interest that the average lifespan of human beings is 66 years. In developed countries, the average lifespan is higher at 77 to 81 years. 200 years ago, however, the average lifespan of homo sapiens (scientific name of our species) was a mere 37 years.
In a relatively short time, we have managed to increase the average lifespan by two folds. It does seem that we can now afford to let life wait.

Some of us do seem to be waiting. Some children, quite unconsciously, seem to display this attitude towards life. Some parents seem to encourage this attitude towards life and even live by this attitude too. To them, it is okay to miss school often. To them, it is okay to let their children stay at home if they wake up late. To them, having no money to pay for transport to come to school justifies not sending their children to school even though it takes only 15 min to walk to school. They forget that (maybe they can't be bothered) when they do all this, they are telling their children that "Education can wait." Maybe they lack the farsightedness to see that Education will break the vicious cycle of poverty. They fail to see that Education is their children's tickets out of poverty. They wait for things to happen. But really, life is waiting for them to make things happen.

As teachers, we cannot let life wait. Sometimes, we need to act in loco parentis to let children know the importance of Education and cultivate a good attitude towards it. We have the responsibility to let the children value Education. We cannot force them but we can seduce them. We can make learning so fun for children that they want to learn. We can plan lessons so engaging and authentic that children learn without feeling that learning is a chore. We can make assessment valid and fun by assessing them developmentally approriately through authentic tasks that simulate our society. We have to discredit the notion that there are "unteachables". Every child can learn and would want to learn. The question is "What would make them want to learn?" As children grow older, the question evolves and becomes "What would make them want to learn for the sake of learning alone?" Sometimes I ask myself, "Why would I want to go through all these trouble just to teach?"
Because these young lives are waiting. They are waiting to be taken on the path of lifelong learning and teachers are their candles in the dark. Lighted ones, of course. :-)

P/S "Coincidentally", the school's Computers Free Access area is also called "The Terminal". The hidden message is "Life is waiting". Make good use of your free time to use the computers to enhance your learning and expand your horizons! Learn through the many learning objects available on the World Wide Web! Life is short, don't let it wait!

P/S again By the way, the movie itself is worth watching too.