Child Centred Time

I had an experiment a couple of days ago. During the first experiment, I dictated what Abby should play and how she should play it. Ben sat through the results of the findings as one who had to withstand getting his nails torn apart by durian thorns. It was AWFUL. I was in pain, because it had been a terribly frustrating experience. I almost ended up hitting Abby because she deliberately did the things I told her not to, like use her lollipop as a crayon on the high chair and jumping at the edge of the bed. Both of us were exasperated with each other. It was very bad group work.

The next day, I tried the other approach. I took on the roles of the observer, helper and cheerleader. I watched how she played, assisted her whenever she had difficulty and cheered like mad whenever she did something right. It was an AWESOME time! We had so much fun! And she learnt so many things! :)

It felt like an Ezzo vs What I learn in NIE - Parent-directed vs Student centred approach. In the former, the teacher/parent decides what the child should learn and how to learn it. The other method focuses on the child, allows the child to take responsiblity over his/her own learning and the teacher no longer disseminates information and acts as if she's the queen of the classroom. Instead, she helps. It requires so much more. But it is really more rewarding. I really don't know how things will turn out with MOE doing away with EM3 and implementing subject-banding instead (as announced today in the news). The only downside is the stress the kid has to go through during post-evaluation after Foundation/Standard to move to Standard if he or she was being posted to Foundational level. Oh well. At least parents have the final say. Actually, that's a really scary thought.