This blog is about a book. (Ahh.. I can hear you saying the word "boring!") It's not a book review as I'm talking about a international best-seller here, and literature textbook used in schools. Who am I kidding to write a review about it? It's just some personal after-thoughts from reading it..


The book


I chanced upon this book under really special circumstances.

I was tutoring my student (currently Sec 2) last week and he was telling me that he has homework to complete. Next, he pressed a piece of paper in front of me and tossed me a book. It was his English literature assignment. The funny thing about students is the fact that they regards teachers (or for my case, tutor) as super-beings and expect us to provide solutions to anything that they should have problems with. I had been tutoring him for the past few years, and the subjects that I had to deal with had grossly expanded ever since he went up to secondary school. Mind you, that was English Lit and I haven’t even read the book before!

“English Literature?”

He nodded and proceeds to look at me expectantly, waiting for answers. In a mood to do some kind of charity that day, I quickly skimmed through the first few chapters of the book while he got busy with other tasks. I managed to provide the answers to the questions that he had, quite easily. That was how I chanced upon the book. Surprisingly, it was unlike other E.lit books that I had encountered, quite entertaining and easy to read. I got my hands on another copy of the book soon after that and I finished it in barely two days.

It’s an autobiography of a little Japanese girl, her life as a student in an elementary school which was run in an unorthodox manner. What was interesting is the fact that her school actually existed and all her encounters were real. The real charms of the book were the sincere and simple descriptions of her curriculum and interactions with the headmaster. Personally, I feel that it's a good read for educators, and for understanding the point of view of a child.

It also reminds me of GTO (Great Teacher Onizuka), it originated from a series of Japanese anime but more popularly known as a drama acted by the very dashing Takashi (反町!) It was a popular hit in Singapore a few years ago, with the gangsterish teacher solving students’ life problems in a very dramatic way. It’s mostly entertaining but there’s also a subtler meaning of teaching behind the scene.


Great Teacher Onizuka (GTO) 

I can’t help but admire the unique methods used by these teachers (although Onizuka is too far exaggerated). To them, education is clearly teaching about life more than books. What is known as the real useful stuff. Somehow, it also dawned upon me that teaching about life is easier said that done. We will well need to ditch all the textbooks, worksheets and assessment books that we have, forget about exams and PSLE. Can we really do that? Most of us started out with idealistic views about what we wanted to do, but there's too many distractions down the path and we face the great danger of falling into the same pits that drowned the passion of many others.

Many years later (or even sooner!), perhaps I will also fall into the stream of teachers who sit about lamenting about their work life in the staffroom. That’s a fairly common scene to be seen, and its also my greatest fear at present. Argghh.. nightmare!

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Okay, enough about that. Look at the timestamp! I need to get some sleep to appear full of zest for my first jia-qiang-ban of the year.. Hahaa.. that's the real nightmare. =P