Reflection on the SCLP Process

Less than a week to the submission deadline.

It is 1:20am and I'm working on my project.

On a certain level, I don't really mind the final grade I get for this course. If I were to be true to what I believe real teaching is — that knowledge is better than good grades; learning better than testing — then this class is top-notch already, no matter what my final grade is.

I've learnt key pedagogical concepts in this class that has in turn shaped my understanding of teaching in my other English and Literature classes. Who would have thought a class in ICT — a class that meets only once a week for twelve weeks — could teach me so much pedagogically?

My SCLP partner and I met Dr Tan this week to talk through our Project. The most interesting part of the meeting was near the end, when Dr Tan posed to us a question:

"Why bother doing the SCLP at all, when realistically, teachers don't have the time to create such elaborate packages?"

My first instinct was to give a utilitarian answer. Actually I gave this answer in class when Dr Tan asked it last week. I think I was sleepy, hence the bravery. I said that it was useful to do the SCLP because the process of creating such a package is important. Once you have run through the steps once, you could either replicate the SCLP on a smaller scale, or even take apart the parts for mini-lessons, for example, creating an audio clip with audacity for oral, a wiki page for the class, etc. But I think Dr Tan was looking for an answer that was a bit less pragmatic, a bit more conceptual.

While sitting there throwing about ideas on why SCLP is important — by the way, I admire Dr Tan's commitment to the thought that it is better for students to discover on their own, and hence his patience in never telling us the answer — we were gently prodded towards a realisation: that the SCLP exists to make us think out of the box and get used to working outside our comfort zone. ICT is the ideal way of keeping us on our toes because it is changes so quickly.

I realised that it is important for our time here in NIE to be an uncomfortable one — where we get prodded to do things we wouldn't normally do, think in ways we don't usually think, and consider options that we would normally think too risky. When we go back to the schools, the stress and the limited resources tend to only mean one thing: we choose the easiest and safest way to teach — the method with the most credo and the least risk. Before long, we'll get stuck in the rut using these safe methods — Comprehension; Reading; Grammar; Composition; rinse and repeat — because we are used to these methods and we think that nobody can tell us any different just by virtue of the sheer number of years we've used these methods. We would have become Senior Teachers.

I hope I will remember these things when I go back out to teach. I hope I won't get swept away by the overwhelming pressure to produce good grades, and forget that at the heart of teaching, is learning. If I can teach one thing to one person every day, it would be worth it. And although I would like to be Senior Teacher one day, I hope I will never be too stuck-up to change myself and my mindset for the sake of the students.

That's about it. I had better get back to working on the SCLP now...