Professional Learning & Development: Who's coaching my 'cher (aka teacher)?

The tuition sector is a billion-dollar generating machinery. This shouldn’t come as a surprise since children in Singapore do spend a significant number of hours each week at tuition centre(s). In today’s lingo, it’s fax. National news agencies examine socio-economic implications of shadow education (tuition in formal terms) from time to time, and reports have shown that a household would easily spend between 700 to 2000 SGD at the end of every month (Wong, 2021).

With such money tunnelled into the tutoring business, it behooves parents to question the quality of services that tuition centres actually offer, and not be taken by a FOMO mindset (read: kiasu) that have often besieged many Singaporean parents to give “the best” (read: $$$) to their kids through more tuition (Teo & Koh, 2020; Starr & Kapoor, 2021).

One benchmark that most tuition centres use to index “quality” teaching lies in the marketing claim “ex-MOE teachers”. Implicitly, being an “ex-MOE” teacher is a tacit seal of confidence on MOE and NIE as certification and training agencies for the pool of teachers nurtured by the state (Chiong & Dimmock, 2020) .

But, is that a legit benchmark to begin with?

Firstly, let’s not forget that the state certification of teachers is only a pre-service qualification to certify trainee teachers as ready to enter the workforce as teachers. While that means that the certified teacher may be aware of educational underpinnings (which are fundamental), it is the continued professional development of teachers that shapes educators to be better practitioners over time.

Secondly, relevance of teaching exposure erodes with time. This is especially true in the last two years where global ‘blanket’ digitalization has challenged classical educational theories that have always assumed physical teaching contexts. We have forever moved on from that paradigm. With the proliferation of newer learning contexts (online, home-based, blended, hybrid to name a few), we cannot deny that Currency of teaching experience matters significantly in the post-Covid world (Starr & Kapoor, 2021).

This begs the next question: What forms of professional development do commercial teachers receive? We suppose that the larger outfits might boast of training departments, but what about the many stand-alone tuition centres?

For us, the answer doesn’t lie in more certification. Why? Because we have all come across highly certified teachers who may not fit the bill of qualified educators. In other words, certification is not always a robust measure of quality.

So what can commercial teachers in smaller outfits seek out in order to stay relevant with the changing times?

We believe that focused practice-based reflection is a sustainable way forward. And since reflection makes most sense by way of a ‘dialogue’, the first step for teachers is to realise their need for “critical friends” to be their professional keepers, their sounding boards. Critical friends could be colleagues or “insiders” who have established mutual professional trust to support and challenge one another’s approaches to the teaching craft (Bambino, 2002). Over time and through open and honest conversations that are centered on the practice of teaching, critical friends provide peer support to identify blind spots and find ways to sharpen one another’s practice as educators.

To embark on the journey in Critical Friendship, here’s some advice for commercial tutors to keep in mind:

• Be open - share what you are doing and find out what your friends are doing in their professions (e.g. deals negotiated, projects undertaken). There is much parallel learning that we can gain from those in the same or even different fields.

• Be authentic - share your successes as well as your failures and concerns. This usually sparks more in-depth reflection and discussions which can lead you to your critical friends.

• Be intentional - seek those friends who you can have honest and meaningful discussions about your teaching practices or materials. Before you meet them, you can read up on pedagogy (educational literature), consider how to improve your teaching practices or even think about a new approach or tech tool that may be suitable for your teaching context. For those in the same field, you can even observe each other’s lessons and talk about it after that.

For tuition and enrichment centres, we encourage you to:

• Be open - Create opportunities for teachers to mingle and get to know each other.

• Be authentic - Beyond formal mentor-mentee relationships, peer-level support should be encouraged. Mentor-mentee relationships can be useful in terms of the feedback provided to the mentee but it doesn’t always lead to open conversations because of the unequal power play that’s inherent in a mentor-mentee relationship. Having conversations with trusted peers tends to lead to more authentic and unguarded conversations.

• Be intentional - Let your tutors know that you value innovation and growth. Create a safe and supportive environment for the tutors to try new teaching methods or add value to the curriculum. Let them know that they can speak to you (or your experienced teachers) before they bring their ideas to the classroom.

Writer

Dr. Katy Kan, wears many hats and is a partner with AGILIT Consultancy LLP. If you’d like to consult with her for education management, do drop her a line at katykan@agilitconsultancy.com.sg

Collaborators Ms. Aileen Lam and Dr. Daron Loo are university lecturers whose research interests include professional development for educators among several others. They are contactable at aileenlam@nus.edu.sg and daronloo@nus.edu.sg respectively.

References

Bambino, D. (2002). Critical friends. Educational Leadership, 59(6), 25-28.

Chiong, C., & Dimmock, C. (2020). Building trust: How low-income parents navigate neoliberalism in Singapore’s education system. Comparative Education, 56(3), 394-408.

Starr, R. L., & Kapoor, S. (2021). “Our graduates will have the edge”: Linguistic entrepreneurship and the discourse of Mandarin enrichment centers in Singapore. Multilingua, 40(2), 155-174.

Teo, P., & Koh, D. (2020). Shadow education in Singapore: A Deweyan perspective. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 52(8), 869-879.

Wong, P. T. (2021, August 16). The Big Read: Singapore’s endless love affair with private tuition just got deeper with COVID-19. Channel News Asia. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/singapore-tuition-centre-teachers-parents-students-education-2114136