18 Years In Education Later, I May Have To Move On

18 years in education is not a short time.

I am seriously contemplating a move out of it.

For those who’ve known me for some time, this may seem unexpected. After all, it’s what most people I know have known me for, and know that I truly enjoy.

Thankfully, though, it’s not the only thing they know me for. I do have options.

Perhaps it’s worth talking about - why I’m thinking about leaving the education industry, at least in Singapore.

Those who are parents or are educators themselves know that our local education system has mandated a fairly recent “update” to the way schools are handling class allocation for their students.

Essentially, each class is “mixed” - with students from different backgrounds, who have different aptitudes, and who likely have different life experiences thus far.

Each student is projected to learn each subject at their pace and at a level that is projected to cater to them.

The intent behind it was noble. The marketing to the public was focused on the positive. The educators themselves were informed way ahead of time and deemed prepared.

The results are, to put it lightly, not great. Even taking into consideration the usual teething problems at the start of any huge change, there is a clear lack of support and knowledge of handling rising issues.

It all looks to me like a poorly-thought-out grand experiment and I’m not confident that it will yield the hoped-for results, at least not within the next 5 - 10 years.

Some schools had piloted the move since a couple of years ago, but, as of 2024, this is now a nation-wide programme.

As an educator for nearly 2 decades, I’ve had my share of difficult audiences.

What I haven’t faced in that time is the sheer number of difficult audiences over such a short time.

I cannot speak for the teachers in the schools, but, from my interactions with them, they, too, are facing difficulties.

Add this to the tremendously unfair practices around getting school programmes, which I have talked about before, and this becomes a serious push factor away from this sector.

Yes, my current employment revolves around this sector, and a move away from it will likely entail an end to this state of affairs.

It’s not an easy move to make, and I don’t relish the potential problems that doing so will bring.

That said, I am nearly at my limit with the current situation and, unlike teachers who are bonded to the system, I can much more easily make a move. I believe that, this time, I likely will.

Game Design and Making is Much More Than the End Product

I'm currently delving into a series of videos on game design and making.

Not because I intend to join the game-making community (though I'll never rule this out), but because I've been an avid gamer all my life, and I'm always interested in finding new angles and ways to make my lessons more interesting.

To get this out of the way, I think that the word "gamification" has become a grotesquely-overused buzzword that has lost its soul.

And, based on what I've witnessed so far, a lot of "game design" workshops run in local schools are just programming workshops with a gaming front cover.

The principles of making a game interesting, engaging, and fun seem secondary to producing some sort of rudimentary templated game on some standard platform.

Of course, one could argue that the time allocated is too short to produce a fully-fledged game, but then, why are there never board games, card games, or even sport-based games produced by the students in these workshops?

As huge an industry as video and mobile games is, not every game has to be digital.

I have no issue with teaching students programming and platform use, but if that's the goal of the programme, call a spade a spade and say that it's a programming workshop.

Game design and making is much more than just that.

Vanity Metrics Can Be Useful. If They Result in Serving Others.

We're all susceptible to some sort of vanity metric in our lives.

When I first started as an educator, I wanted to be liked.

I wanted to be that interesting teacher who's chill about things going off the rails, cool with my students being students, and savvy about the things they were interested in.

If I really think about it, I wanted to be the teacher I never had when I was a student - one I could relate to and see as less of an authority figure, more a person I could look up to.

And it wasn't that difficult. Most of my students weren't that much younger than me.

We were able to relate to fairly similar cultural icons and had similar life experiences.

I can't really tell if I succeeded in being liked, but I know that my efforts towards infusing relevant things into lessons and making my presentations as interesting as possible (because I, too, had some horrendously boring teachers) were not wasted.

Till today, I make these 2 things - relevance and interesting talking points - my top priorities in any of my programmes and lessons.

And I've received feedback, from past students (now friends), present students, and other educators, that they enjoy sitting in my sessions.

So perhaps it's not necessarily a bad thing to have a vanity metric if it results in serving others.

Stop Wasting My Time on Ice Breaker Games and Energiser Activities

Ice-breaker and “energiser” activities.

I learned them.

I’ve been asked to conduct them.

I hate them.

Why make everyone stand up and move around needlessly, answer frivolous questions, and waste precious time that could be better spent on other things?

When I attend a workshop, seminar, course, etc., I don’t care what the person beside me likes to eat for breakfast or what movies he/she likes.

I don’t even care what his/her opinion is on anything.

I’m there to learn something from the speaker/trainer, not from random members of the audience.

In turn, I respect the time and energy of my audience by getting straight to the point as soon as I’ve introduced myself.

And, so far, I’ve never received a single comment or piece of feedback that wished for ice-breaker or “energiser” activities.

I’m certainly not stopping other trainers/educators from running these activities if they feel that it’s important to their flow.

Just, for goodness’ sake, give your audience the option of opting out, keep them concise, and at least explain the activity once it’s over.

I am of the opinion that it makes more sense to be the energy-giver, especially right at the start, instead of demanding that your audience generates their own.