Parenting and Teaching

It’s barely three months into the year and I’ve been so busy, it’s crazy…

You see, this year Jacques started attending primary school (compulsory education for children aged seven and above).  In Singapore, children will usually attend a kindergarten (half-day program) or childcare centre (full-day program) for 2-3 years before that, and that helps to prepare them for what the schools will teach at primary level.

Jacques was attending a kindergarten near my in-laws. After a whole year of crazy stories about the things the “teachers” there would make him do, I finally discover that his teachers taught him what he did NOT need to know, and not what he needed for primary school. I made this discovery at the end of last year, so I really had no time to repair the damage. Oh boy…

As a prominent Singaporean politician has said before, you pay peanuts, you’ll get monkeys. And with that Singaporean parents will immediately be able to figure out the kindergarten and the sheer irony of the situation!

Maybe it’s just a Singaporean thing. When I look at how much more work there is to do with Jacques to just get him to catch up and have SOME clue of what’s going on in school, it’s easy to just panic, freak out and try to cram everything into him at one go.

And this doesn’t happen only with parenting either. Sometimes as a music teacher I face the same situation with students about to take their music exams, but aren’t ready, or “musicians” who have to ready to play for a worship set by the weekend, but need another few more months of lessons and practice instead. It’s tempting to either give up or data dump on them everything they need to know. And if they can’t absorb or use whatever I teach that’s their problem!

But that is NOT how Jesus does things.

John 16:12-13 (NIV) - “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

We see from here that even Jesus, the Master Teacher, had a sense of pacing. And that pacing was based not only what his disciples needed to know (“much more to say to you”) but also what they were able to absorb (“more than you can now bear”). Because of those factors, he did the best he could do in the earthly time he had available, but also knew that the work had to be shared with others, in this case the Holy Spirit.

So if you are a parent or a teacher, or even the head of a ministry or church, this is an important lesson for us to learn too. In our teaching and leadership, we need to be aware of pacing, what is the best our children, students and followers can manage at that moment, and how to best work within those limits.

It’s difficult, because we are often pulled in two directions – the present or the future. If we are stuck in the present, we don’t strive for improvement. We just make do with how things are. The kid can’t manage his maths? Blame the teacher and complain to other parents. Your students can’t perform? Blame their previous teachers or label them as lazy. Your congregation doesn’t worship God the way the Bible wants them to? Just ignore it or gossip about it with other church members…

On the other hand, if we see the future but have no plan or vision of how to get there, we get frustrated and impatient. We pressurize and berate our kids, students and congregation. We try to guilt them into conforming to our expectations and lose patience with them if they do not immediately get what we want them to know or perform as we want them to.

This is a sure-fire way to burn out and wear out ourselves and the people around us!

Recognizing Good Teachers

How do you recognize good teachers? Knowing this will help you identify people you can entrust your children or congregation to, as well as give you insight into your own teaching ability. With such insight it’s easier to decide on what you may need to work on in order to get the results you need.

• Lowest Level Teaching – “You want this? Do that!”
  
• Low Level Teaching – “You want this? Do that, which is made up of A, B and C…”
  
• Mid-Level Teaching – “You want this? Do that, which is made up of A, B and C. Usually people do them in that order, but you may have to switch them around if you…”
  
• High-Level Teaching – “You want this? Do that, which is made up of A, B and C. I noticed you already have A, but you are very weak in C, you should spend more time on that for the moment…”
  
• Higher-Level Teaching - “You want this? Do that, which is made up of A, B and C. I noticed you already have A, but you are very weak in C, you should spend more time on that for the moment. Work especially on C1, C2 and C3…” And it can go on and on, depending on how deep is the subject and the specific needs of the student/child/congregation.

Of course, you won’t need the highest level of teaching for everything all the time. If you are naturally inclined towards a particular field, such as music, art or a language, lower level teaching may be all you need. But if you or your child has serious difficulty in something, or your congregation finds it hard to live the life of worship (or walk in divine healing, freedom from strife, etc), then you will need a teacher who is capable of higher level teaching.

And what if no one else is available?

Sometimes we find ourselves in a place when higher-level teaching is needed, but we are the only ones available. We don’t know how to get the people to where we want them to be, but we are stuck with the job and we can’t just hand it over to someone else. At that time, what can we do?

Pray.

Ask God, “What is the best thing I can do, say or teach for NOW?”

Sometimes, all God wants of us is to just manage the now. Jesus taught what he was supposed to teach, and then left the rest to the Holy Spirit. And sometimes, what little we can do may just be enough for God to accomplish what he wants to do.

John 6:9 (NIV) - "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?"

The Bible records that the five loaves and two fishes worked well enough when entrusted to Jesus!

Conclusion:

I’ve always had a heart for teaching. It’s how God has wired me. But that doesn’t make it any easier to do things the right way when it’s my own son! So I pray that the insights from my own experiences will be helpful to you the next time you need to teach anyone something or make any decisions about getting teaching for yourself or others.

Be blessed!

Thinking back on Monday

(Personal Blog Post)

I pushed myself really hard to prepare for Monday.

I had two things coming up that day, a music enrichment module (on songwriting) and playing for an audition for a hotel gig.

The Music Enrichment Module

That was super-challenging because it was to be conducted with a class of kids that were mostly defiant and rowdy. For the trouble-makers, if they were not actively causing problems (mocking the teachers, starting fights with the rest of the students in class and so forth) they were passive (going on Facebook and Counterstrike) while the teacher was trying to conduct a lesson.

Irony of ironies, some of those problem kids were outraged when told to shut down the computers. How dare a teacher mess up their Counterstrike session!

Anyway, because I saw those kids in action before, I knew what kind of challenge I was facing, so I worked like nuts during the weekend to prepare my lesson. Videos from Eagles, Michael Jackson, Santana and even the United States Marine Corps were carefully chosen to both illustrate the songwriting points I wanted to make, as well as keep even the dis-interested entertained.

When facing a class of kids like this, some people would spend their time complaining about how the parents didn't raise the kids properly, how the school should have allocated more resources to helping those kids and how ultimately everything is the government's fault. That does not help anyone in any way. I chose to face up to the challenge: I knew it was going to be like managing a large class of 5-6 year old kids (bigger sized, greater potential for violence, a lot better at provoking teachers, but still 5-6 years old at heart) and I prepared myself accordingly.

All my preparations went to naught. I put all the videos on my thumb drive AND even brought along my trusty laptop as a back-up plan. In the end the teacher's computer in that room couldn't even be switched on (so much for my thumb drive) and my laptop kept hanging every few minutes. So no matter what I did I was unable to conduct the lesson.

In the end the kids went back to Facebook and Counterstrike. Score: Kids 01 – Me 00.

Hotel Gig Audition

Why did I have to push myself hard for this one too? Because it was a piano and singer thing, and I was expected to do all the jazz piano solos and all that. Having neglected jazz for years because I was working on classical piano, my weaker side, I was very worried about blotching up the audition. So even while preparing for the music module I would take time out to practice some jazz standards.

The audition went well, I only messed up one solo. And at least two of the people there praised my piano playing. But before the audition I made it clear to the people involved that I would NOT be taking this gig. Why? Because of my kids. This was a typical hotel gig, starting at 7.30-8 pm in the evenings, and because of my kids' schedules that would clash with me spending time with my boys.

And of course I can't keep farming out my sons to my relatives 6 nights a week, right?

In the past when I was doing gigs at Chinese/Canto pubs, they'd start late at night, around 10 pm. That was just perfect for me. I'd get Jess to sleep (Jacques wasn't born yet) then rush out for work. In the morning I'd wake up to manage Jess, though I was usually groggy until the afternoon nap. But it was all good. I'd get to be with my son during the day AND get a full-time pay at the same time for working at night. It was a perfect arrangement while it lasted!

Things are different now. I don't get any Canto gigs anymore, that stream has dried up. And as my sons grew older and needed more of my time I had to turn down regular evening gigs, even though they are easy money to me (not that much work required). I am not too happy about it, but there is no point complaining. All I can do about it right now is to continue to be serious with my music (both jazz and classical) and see how things go later on.

Anyway, ever since Monday I've been kind of spaced out. It was a good thing that Tuesday was a light teaching day for me, because I was so worn out from the pressure I had to sleep a lot more than usual. I started ramping things up yesterday (work, training and practice) and I should be back in the full swing of things by this weekend. Yup, so that's about it for me this week. Will post again soon!