What am I doing here?

Let’s fall in love
Words by Ted Koehler and Music by Harold Arlen



I have a feeling, it's a feeling,
I'm concealing, I don't know why
It's just a mental, sentimental alibi

For the longest time, I have always suspected that there was something wrong with the way I was taught. It was not until 2007, the year that I started doing my Dip Ed, which I realized that I have been taught under very traditional models of teaching, where the student is considered an “empty vessel” waiting for the teacher to pour into them what they know. In the context of a Chinese education, the teacher is never questioned and has the status of a semi-god. In fact, the term for education in the Chinese language is made up of two words “jiao yu”. The first word, “jiao”, means to teach while the second word, “yu”, means to nurture, thus giving the teacher the dual role of an educator as well as a parent. From the typical Confucian point of view, teachers are not only expected to be the source of knowledge, but also meant to be a “shining beacon of light” in terms of a role model. They do not merely provide knowledge, but are moral compasses as well. There is a Chinese saying;

“Yang bu jiao, fu zhi guo,
Jiao bu yan, shi zhi duo”

Translation: It is the father’s mistake if the children are brought up without an education, but if the children are unruly, it is due to the laziness of the teacher.

Notice that the education that should be provided in the saying above is strict, authoritarian and hardly negotiable, unlike the holistic views by held by the West of today. The irony of the matter lies in the fact that the same Confucian culture perpetrates the ideas of “yin” and “yang”, a balance and coexistence, where something can be both right and wrong.
Exempli Gratia: The tree is both straight (it is growing upright) and crooked (it has branches that are veering off). The idea is applied to anything but the Chinese classroom.

But I adore you
So strong for you
Why go on stalling
I am falling
Our love is calling
Why be shy?

Most Asian cultures are pragmatic, to say the least. We were told that we have to educated, which provides a means to get a stable job. For most Asian families, education was an end in itself. The education that was offered me became a source of pragmatism. I would go far as to say that that would be the case for a lot of Asians who was offered the same brand of education that I was. A pragmatism that was not only within the classroom, but also deeply rooted within the family unit, thus leading to social myopia. If one could excel and go to University, by all means. If not, ground yourself to reality and face the facts, one should aim for something at a TAFE equivalent. This social view views the person as a statistic and when he/she could contribute to the economy, discounting the power of the human spirit and one’s ability to often surprise him/herself. Now, most Asian families have no idea who Gardener is or what his multiple intelligences theory is about. If one eventually ends up as a tradesperson, that person is labeled as stupid due to his apparent lack of education, unless he ends up with a business, has stacks of cash at his disposal and drives several luxury cars, where he ends up being credited for his hard work and all else is forgiven and forgotten.

When it came for me to take up my Degree, I decided to jump on what was the buzzword of 2002-nanotechnology. My choice was a result of the pragmatism that has been so ingrained in me. As an international student, that education in Australia does not come cheap. I had better choose a course that would provide me with some form of work once I graduated. Never mind that deep down, I have always wanted to explore the visual arts and film industry. I performed fairly well in Science in Secondary School and that is what I should go for. How much job stability does one does one get in the creative arts anyway? So after doing some research, I packed my bags for Flinders University for their BSc in Nanotechnology.

Let's fall in love
Why shouldn't we fall in love?
Our hearts are made of it
Let's take a chance
Why be afraid of it?

Two years into the course, I could no longer lie to myself and wanted to pursue something with a greater social relevance. And that social relevance came with pursuing a qualification in education so that I could impact a classroom. I still had to finish my course though. My pride would not allow otherwise. Plus, if I wanted to teach, I needed a base qualification to teach something in.

Let's close our eyes and make our own paradise
Little we know of it, still we can try
To make a go of it

Fast forward to 2007-the year where I come face to face with the fact that I could have learnt subject matter in ways that that are so radically different from the ways that I have been taught. On the one hand I was really happy with the revelation that there are so many schools of thought when it comes to a person’s learning processes. On the other hand, I realize there is much to be done on my part. Learning about various theories of different theorists and how, as a teacher in training, I have to learn about teaching a class differently from the way I was taught. Another Chinese saying comes to mind:

“liang yao ku kou”

Translation: the effective medicine is bitter to the mouth.

I have always been taught the good things in life can and should only be achieved under some form of duress. However, in the learning and teaching class, I have come to learnt that learning can be fun, which is not only contradictory to what I have been taught but also how I have been taught.

When I was introduced to the theories of constructivism, it appealed to me on both the two fronts-classroom relationships and pedagogical learning. In terms of classroom relationships, the theory of humanism appeals to me most.

Humanism believes that
• Students will learn when what they are learning meets their intellectual, social and emotional needs
• The student must act as a facilitator(italics mine) who helps students to learn what interests them and what they need to know. When this occurs, few disruptions will result;
• When a student’s behaviour violates someone’s rights, you should solve the problem by being assertive and collaborating with students to resolve the issue. This approach looks for a solution rather than punishing a culprit.¹

Though I have never admitted to anyone yet, I have always had the nagging feeling that a teacher’s authority within the classroom is over-rated. Humanism is a theory that I could agree with in terms of classroom management. Also, this school of thought does not see education as the be all and end all, neither is it so callous in its approach to see a student as an economic statistic ten years down the line. Even though I believe that a person needs to have a certain pool of knowledge in order to function in society, I believe that it is more important for a student to see how he/she can function best in society without learning something that compromises his/hers higher order needs. I believe that a teacher is more effective in a facilitator role, where the child is guided into the learning process through his own questions and sees the teacher who as someone who guides the child into asking the right questions that he/she may learn from them.

In terms of learning, I support the work J. Bruner (the fact that I will be teaching Maths and Physics has no relation whatsoever). In his theoretical framework, he believes that “learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge. The learner selects and transforms information, constructs hypotheses, and makes decisions, relying on a cognitive structure to do so. Cognitive structure (i.e., schema, mental models) provides meaning and organization to experiences and allows the individual to ‘go beyond the information given’. As far as instruction is concerned, the instructor should try and encourage students to discover principles by themselves. The instructor and student should engage in an active dialog (i.e., Socratic learning). The task of the instructor is to translate information to be learned into a format appropriate to the learner's current state of understanding. Curriculum should be organized in a spiral manner so that the student continually builds upon what they have already learned."². I believe that new ideas not only have to be built based on previous knowledge but also previous experiences as well. Getting students to learn by questioning, thus learning the principles which gave rise to the questions in the first place is beneficial as it aids the student in learning while letting the teacher know where the students are at. Having said that, it is an uphill task for a Physics teacher in training due to the fact that there are laws of Physics that are counter-intuitive at times.

We might have been meant for each other
To be or not be
Let our hearts discover

Any person with a scientific background would tell you that theories are fine and good as they give you an idea where you could end up, but actually realizing that end is another matter altogether. During my first few opportunities to teach, I inevitably fell back onto the teaching methods in the way I was taught. Thus I had to make a conscious effort on how I conducted the classroom and how the lessons were to be carried out from thereafter. At the end of my teaching round, though I am a bit away from carrying out the theoretical framework that Bruner had in mind, I dare say that I am more aware of the needs of the students within the classroom.

Let's fall in love
Why shouldn't we fall in love
Now is the time for it, while we are young
Let's fall in love

Allow me to break the fourth wall. Though I have yet to find any theorists who says this or has such a belief system, I feel that while a teacher passes on knowledge to a student, and that much is obvious, one of the joys of teaching lies in the fact that the students teaches the teacher how to live and enjoy life a bit more. That certainly was true of my first teaching experience.


1) Porter, L. (2000) Part one: The theories. Student behaviour: Theory and practice for teachers. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

2) http://tip.psychology.org/bruner.html