This poem just turned Singapore into a kiasu picture.

My city, my canvas
Heng Siok Tian

How do I colour my city
with creatures busy in living?
Do I walk along as if on an errand
seeking a lotus pond afloat with enlightenment?
Do I go in search of orchid petals
to unfurl whorls for hybrid pollens?
Do I hurry along street plans and measure landuse
to draw lines and shapes for my canvas?
My city has no mountain ranges
to be unscrolled broadened brownness,
neither has she bushfires nor epic tragedies
but her sky can be
as dry and distant as a desert’s.
My city has campaigns, policies and long-term planning,
has a reputation for drivenness
of a small country,
has shopping malls and more …
Is my canvas
a surrealscape of
a slim city slowly coated with melting cheese
where there are clowns with broken legs,
jugglers balancing on shaky stakes,
children spinning on top of whales
growing up to be adults with briefcases
on top of flying clocks?
I want to hiss a snake out of a kettle,
drink it like coffee as the steam scatters,
that I may
frame with passing beatitude and mosaic wisdom,
my city, my canvas.

No respite in sight for overworked teachers

By Ion Danker – May 16th, 2010

Teachers in Singapore are suffering from punishing workloads, a lack of work-life balance and too many hours clocked in school.
That’s the view of an overwhelming majority of over 3,000 comments posted in response to Yahoo!’s Fit-to-Post (FTP) blog  ‘Are Singapore teachers overworked’ published on 16^th May.
FTP reader Naidu commented, “My wife gets home from work at about 6pm and I’m hoping she can coach our children, but instead, she spends her time marking and planning for a lot of things which I think has very little to do with her being a teacher. She gets uptight if I question her and says that I don’t understand that she needs to do all these at home because she can’t complete them in school.”
Parents also voiced their views on the long hours that teachers clocked in school.
Madam Lee, who has a Secondary 1 son, said, “As I read those entries, I find it disheartening that this is happening in our neighbourhood schools, especially when I read that teachers are overtaxed with other non-essentials, that they don’t have time to mark.”
“This is unacceptable. MOE must allow time for teachers to mark and plan their lessons. This should not encroach on the teachers’ weekend or weekday nights as I understand as a parent, this is important family time,” she continued.
Despite repeated attempts to get MOE’s reaction on the issues teachers are facing, the Ministry has so far declined interview requests.
A teacher in a primary school, who wanted to remain anonymous, half-jokingly told Yahoo! Singapore, “I’m assuming the people who commented are mostly teachers but I do not think MOE will respond. They prefer to remain silent and hope things subside.”
Another comment with the nickname ‘Mjkl’, was shocked at MOE’s failure to address the issue.
“Apart from a reply by MOE in the ST Forum, I am shocked there is no response, to give a politically correct answer on this. Some feedback will be good in how the ministry is addressing this internally,” he said.
The question is, how long will our teachers have to bear with the punishing workload and will MOE continue to remain silent?
Are Singapore teachers overworked?
Many people call it one of the most under-appreciated career choices in Singapore today.
In a forum letter in The Straits Times on 15 May 2010, a teacher’s wife, Ms Aishah Quek chronicles her husband’s typical work day. She bemoans her husband’s punishing workload and questions the seeming non-existence of a work-life balance.
A teacher in a local primary school, Ms Quek’s husband wakes up at 5am every weekday, and leaves home by 6am, to reach school in time for morning ‘guard duty’ at 7am. After remedial lessons, co-curricular activities and administrative duties, her husband reaches home at 8pm for dinner, before, surprise, surprise, he starts to work from home.
If these normal working hours are representative of a typical day in the life of a teacher, do teachers; the people who play an integral role in shaping young, impressionable minds, have sufficient time to relax and recharge, before the next day comes around?
A student in the morning session has about 6 hours of lessons per day (from 7.30am to 1pm). But that’s just about the time a teacher’s after-teaching hours begin.
“On a typical day, we mark assignments, conduct remedial lessons and complete many administrative tasks, which often extend long beyond our official working hours,” said John*, 35, a married primary school teacher with a one-year-old son.
Another educator, Seline*, 27, who called it quits after three years, said, “When my husband and I were both teaching, we hardly had any quality time in the evenings because we’d both be busy marking assignments, preparing for the next day’s lessons or just be too tired.”
Added another teacher, Lionel*, “I already feel drained by the time I start marking my students’ work after 5pm. This increases the likelihood of making errors.”
KJ*, 23, a fresh graduate from the National Institute of Education, knows that the teaching road ahead may not be an easy one.
“I believe we just need to find a balance, set our priorities and hope our senior colleagues will share tips with us on how best to handle different situations,” she said.
My informal survey revealed that most teachers joined the profession to pursue their passion to equip the young with knowledge, and invaluable life skills. However, teachers today are feeling the strain.
Are our teachers overworked? How do you think the Ministry of Education can help teachers have a better work-life balance?
 from: http://sg.yfittopostblog.com/2010/05/16/are-singapore-teachers-overworked/



Evening on Karl Johan by Edvard Munch. (Yes, I used this for one of the extra reading things.)


WORDLE 8D


http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2297211/My_city%2C_my_canvas



http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2297220/No_Respite_for_TEACHERS

  Why did you pair this poem with this photo/art work and the article? What do the three have in common? 

This poem talks about the dreary parts of Singapore culture, about how boring it can be. The artwork, Evening on Karl Johan, is a rather depressing scene showing people who are all looking rather the same and all looking lifeless. They also look like typical working people. The article is about overworked teachers in Singapore who pretty much have not much life too. All these three things have a common theme about too much work, a place that is becoming dreary and everyone wants more life.

-          Examine the two Wordles. What important words, if any, do the poem and article have in common? Does the word cloud make you see the themes, ideas or subjects of each more clearly? How?

 They don't really share any words. The word clouds highlight the words describing time, Singapore and school in the article, and in the poem they are mostly about city. City and Singapore have a direct relation and that much is obvious. But the article seems to fit into the poem in the aspect of "canvas", because this is something that can be portrayed on a piece of art, like the different parts of the canvas of the city that the poem describes, this is the part of the people in this city- the teachers, and their rushed lives. The subject on overworked teachers easily fits the "reputation for driveness" part. 

The word cloud mostly helps me picture the poem better as a picture, with the article as one part of the whole picture.

-          Which do you like best: the Poem, the Image or the Article? Why?

I like the poem because it's descriptive and shows hope at the end. The hope of the 'artist' who wishes to paint Singapore as a vibrant city.It's a good way to show that if Singapore were to be accurately depicted as a picture it wouldn't be a very nice one. The poet wishes for a beautiful city which is conveyed using imagery that has a lot of visually colourful parts. 

The image and the article do not offer much hope for improvement.

-        

  What does this pairing say about life today? Do you think someone looking at it 25 years from now would “get” the same meaning? What about 100 years from now?

I don't know. Whether Singapore manages in its campaign to be more 'fun', I can't tell. It would depend on who was looking at it. If it was a person who appreciates the IRs and all that which are popping up, they would disagree. Chances are, with all these new attractions in Singapore, Singapore WILL grow to be more vibrant to most people and they would all think my views are rather...uh, dumb. They would also think that the poet is too pessimistic, Edvard Munch is not a Singaporean and thus his picture would have no bearing on us, and about the article, that teachers really should be treated better.

-          What other photos, art work or ST articles could also have been paired with this poem? Why?

I was hoping to find a picture of a piece of canvas that has been destroyed or with ugly colours splayed across it. Or something about Singaporeans having no life. I think that's what the poem's telling us-- we have to loosen up a bit. We're too caught up with serious things.

-          What other works of Literature, Film, or Fine Art can you think of that also echo, expand or even challenge the words and ideas of this poem?

The Phantom Tollbooth, especially that section where they see the cities of Illusion and Reality.

Tan An Yan (25)
308'10