Author: pamela

Asian vs Western Education

Most people tell me that westerners can accept more ‘nonsense’ and their schools can be panaceas to parents whose children have difficulties in Asian schools. Some people say that Asian schools teach more academically and therefore stretch our children more – I thought so too, until I became a parent to students from both sides.

Asian and Western

I have always been and still am proud of the education I received, which gave me social mobility, so it was hard for me to believe that there was any good education system apart from the one I was familiar with.

Therefore, when I moved to another country, I used to think hard and homeschooled my children until I found good schools that met my criteria.

So far, my children have studied under the Singaporean, Australian, American and Chinese systems, and to be really honest, none is better than the other, and every system has its own merits.

Academic Difference

The western systems tend to pitch Math and Science at lower levels than the Asian systems, or so I thought. Therefore, I did not really look at their Math syllabus or homework thinking my children should be miles ahead of their peers, until my then12-year-old son came home and asked me about cosine, sine and tangent identities.

He skipped a few classes to attend courses at the university, so he did not realize his classmates, all twelve, had gone ahead to cover trigonometry. This is not a class from some expensive private school but a primary school just five minutes’ walk from home.

The school fee was $0 and there was no waiting queue to register the child as the state ensured all students within the catchment get a place. There was no ‘gifted class’ or ‘gifted program’ in the school, yet the class of 25 twelve-year-olds were doing trigonometry.(?) I was actually pleasantly surprised.

During their class time, they also did Japanese, Robotics and History. So instead of mugging for PSLE, these 12-year-olds were getting ready for high school (or secondary school) education in their own ways.

By the time they left their primary school, they knew simultaneous equations, trigonometry identities, persuasive and descriptive writing, history and geography of their own country.

It was an inquiry based system where each kid was allowed to explore as deep as he/she desired. I thought… wow…this teacher accelerated all of her students, amidst her busy schedule of writing nice school-leaver reports for each student.

Disciplinary Difference

Afraid that my son could not fit in, I had hoped for more lenient disciplinary requirements from the school, yet my son was assigned to a really strict old English teacher who could not tolerate nonsense: no sweet or soft drinks in the school, everyone should sit upright, no talking with the mouth full, no talking back, no calling out, and no asking questions in class without raising hands.

So what did she do to ensure orderliness? With a lot of love behind her stern face.

For two occasions when my son did not behave, she called me in and had my son sit in the office with the VP. They would go through his unacceptable actions with him, allowed him to defend himself to understand his perspectives, and then explain why his actions were not acceptable. It was in these sessions I got to know my son’s thoughts better, too.

As a typical old gentle lady, the teacher would punctuate all her sentences with “Darling”, and start her reprimanding with “You may not know it, but…”

I can still recall the last statement from the VP as we left the room, “I look forward to you putting all these bad behaviors aside and then see your contributions in class. I know we have great things to learn from you with that wonderful mind of yours.”

Cultural Difference

When my son ran out to play without a hat, the same teacher would run after him with one which was usually too small since he was big for his age.

She was never judgmental.

Would you believe she made my son functional in the classroom again within three weeks and two meetings. All because my son wanted to please and make her happy, so that the class could continue.

He knew she cared and he reciprocated. It is therefore a misconception that Westerners are more tolerant and in my son’s case, she was less. However, this educator knew how to handle him calmly.

I have these educators to thank forever now that my son can attend university and high school classes.

Common Objectives but Different Premises

How the educators from different cultures handled the same student was starkly different though they wanted to achieve the same thing. I believe it is because they started with different premises: one believed the boy was bad and needed a punishment to ‘wake’ him up, while the other believed he wanted to be good but didn’t know how.

The latter took three weeks to do what the former could not in years.

Unfortunately, in any part of the world, most of us educators and parents spend too little time knowing who our children are. Not all of our children are the same: some are suitable for screaming at or even a spanking, while others are more suitable for talking to.

Some thrive on challenges, others don’t like repetitive work but think creatively. Yet, both types are gifted and precious in their own ways.

If we do not label and judge our students so quickly, but give them a chance to show us what make them tick, perhaps we will have a better chance in giving them a great education, and it really does not matter if it is Western or Asian.

June 10, 2020
From housewife to entrepreneur: Mum turns online grocer after husband contracts COVID-19

Ms May Lim (left) and daughter Claudia Chiew at the Geylang Serai Market on May 6, 2020. (Photo courtesy of May Lim)

This story was covered by Channels News Asia.

SINGAPORE: When her husband contracted COVID-19 and her family was quarantined, Ms May Lim’s world was turned upside down – they lost their only source of income and her husband’s condition soon took a turn for the worse.

But two months on, she is hoping her new online business will take off and even help others who are in financial difficulty during the coronavirus outbreak.

May’s husband, Constant Chiew, was a taxi driver who had driven an Indonesian passenger from Changi Airport to a hospital in mid-March. The passenger later tested positive for COVID-19 and died due to complications from the disease.

A day after that trip from Changi Airport, Mr Chiew was told by the Ministry of Health to quarantine himself. Three days later, he came down with a high fever. He was diagnosed with the coronavirus on Mar 18.

Soon after that, the 63-year-old was moved to the intensive care unit and put on a ventilator.

All this was devastating for May, 52, who told CNA that she could barely make herself get out of bed in the initial days after her husband fell ill.

“On the fourth or fifth day, he almost passed on and I was quarantined, I could not visit him at all. That was … so difficult for me,” she said, tearing whenever she spoke about her husband.

“But I forced myself to wake up. I told myself: I cannot go on like that, I need to do something.”

These events also affected her younger daughter, 13-year-old Clarabelle, who had to ask for a deferment of an online enrichment course that she was taking with All Gifted High School. And that was how the school’s founder, Ms Pamela Lim, got to know about the family’s situation.

Ms Lim, a businesswoman turned educator, had been running courses on entrepreneurship and coaching aspiring business owners for years. When the COVID-19 outbreak intensified, the 54-year-old decided to focus on helping people whose livelihoods have been hit.

Her only condition was that they have to implement the business idea that was generated during her course. Ms May Lim and her elder daughter, Claudia, joined Pamela’s class in April.

During her quarantine, May had difficulty getting fresh produce and food. She also found the offerings online inadequate, and that gave her a business idea to connect consumers with wet market stallholders who may be struggling during the “circuit breaker” period.

Pamela, whose parents ran a market stall when she was young, saw the potential and decided not just to coach them but to invest in the business as well.

Screengrab of the Claude and Clari online wet market delivery website.

A month on, their website Claude & Clari is online and has started taking orders since May 1. The hardest part was persuading the stall owners to trust her, a total stranger, May said.

“Some were very unfriendly because they didn’t know me, they thought that I was trying to cheat them, or whatever, but some were friendly,” she said.

While she had help from Pamela to set up the website, May and her daughter are currently a two-woman operation – ordering and packing vegetables, seafood, meat and dried goods to their customers. The groceries are then delivered by taxi or private-hire drivers in need of work at this time.

The fresh produce is currently from Geylang Serai Market but they plan to expand to other heritage markets such as Chinatown Market and Tekka Market, she said. While May is aware that Tekka Market has recently gone online, she said she does not see it as “competition”, but as a sign that this was a niche that has potential for growth.

With some guidance from Pamela, May said she hopes to make her first online business a success and eventually help people in a similar situation by offering them freelance jobs.

“At first I had no confidence because I have been a housewife for eight to nine years, but she encouraged me,” May said. “My vision is that this business is not just for my family. I hope I will be able to help other people too.”

The family is hoping that Mr Chiew, who is now virus-free, can recover in a few weeks’ time. He is still in intensive care due to damage to his lungs, but may be able to breathe without a ventilator soon, said May, who visits him in hospital every day.

Given his serious condition, he is unlikely to be able to return to work soon.

May added: “He said when he’s discharged, he will be a burden to us. But I said ‘no, what is a family for?’ He’s not a burden, definitely.”

May 10, 2020
Visual Spatial Learners

[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text]Visual spatial learners won’t show workings on their Maths papers and derive answers in the strangest ways and methods not taught in schools. They choose to be too creative in their ‘creative writing’ classes and irk their teachers. Do you have one at home?

Adult Visual Learners Learn to Compromise

Though a spatial learner myself, I find it hard to cope with my kids sometimes. Perhaps it is because we, as adults have been drilled and grilled by our education system to perfection we’ve forgotten how to solve problems from first principles or from whatever we need to know. We’ve forgotten that many people possess enough intelligence to build upon what they already know to obtain next level of understanding with little guidance.

For example, in our Math paper, we get no marks when we do not show the steps that make sense to the teacher/marker, even if our answers are correct, even in the university.

Since fighting the system is of no use, I asked my oldest son to learn the right steps and forgo HIS own problem solving method. He lost his love for Maths completely in secondary school even though he topped his Primary school in Math. What a fool I was!

Looking back, he (oldest boy) was the genius, I was just a system follower and I probably helped destroy his love for Math. Fortunately, he found his passion in other areas that I cannot help in.

These days, I no longer let those few marks determine how my children should think, I let them explore and solve their own ways, then teach them how to present their weird solutions so that others can understand.

Visual-Spatial Learners See Big Pictures

I was watching my other son do his Maths two years ago. I saw that he was heading for the wrong answer, it was crystal clear to me. So I interrupted him to show him the ‘right steps’ to the answer. Since he is not your regular child, he put up such a big fight I almost lost my lungs shouting at him.

“Why wouldn’t he allow me to show him just one step?” I thought to myself. And, I seldom teach him!!! I wanted some obedience!

The more I wanted him to just pause, the louder he yelled, and eventually, he cried and kicked up a big fuss and went to the room. Then, I talked myself into letting go of the situation, so I told him to do just what he wanted.

TO MY BIG SURPRISE, he gave me the right answer using a completely different and shorter method?! He grinned and walked off.

Since then, I have never meddled with his Math again as I observe him progress from Grade 5 Math to second year university Math in two years. I can no longer guide him, since he chose Math electives that I have never studied.

I recall this was how he did his work in his younger days: he saw the whole picture in his mind first, then solved everything all at once.

Different but not wrong

He had no steps! He’d look at me and ask, “Right? Mummy?” I’d shrug my shoulders, because I wouldn’t know. I needed to pick up my pencil and go through the question one step at a time like I was trained to do.

I could calculate very fast, and go through steps very quickly, but I HAD to go through the steps. If I had not picked up that pencil, I wouldn’t know the answers.

On the other hand, if you ask him to solve the steps one at a time, to communicate what he is doing, he is completely disorientated and he is lost! My job then, was not to force him to comply to the model answer his professors put on the board, but to encourage him to put down his own thoughts so that others can understand.

Understanding Visual Learners

It occurs to me, why he had a hard time functioning in classrooms when he was young: teachers had no time to teach each child to present their thoughts, so instead, they taught the kids a method they know all invigilators know and will mark correct.

Visual students do not see things the way sequential folks do, but they are not wrong either. Often more correct and our task is to help them ‘see’ like others and present what they see in their minds’ eyes so that others can understand.

I also begin to understand why teachers lost patience with him in his younger days, and why he constantly lost patience with his teachers. He could not understand why his teachers could not ‘see’.

With well-meaning teachers, he could end up like me, adopting the world’s wisdom and solving problems step by step, not using my first gift of being able to solve them without those steps.

Now that I have not used them, I have lost those abilities as well.

I’m sure there are many of us who learn differently from the prescribed methods dished out by schools. If you have a child, student, friend or sibling who is like that, what are you to do?

Visual learners are gifted in their own ways, and need to slow down, understand what others see and communicate their thoughts. Knowing this, would you work with visual learners so that they can learn to communicate their differentiated thoughts, or would you force them to conform and follow the model answers in the hope of helping them achieve A’s?[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

October 12, 2019
Kinesthetic Giftedness

[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text]Just before the race, I instructed my son to do eleven strokes per minute if he wanted to go faster and win the International competition, so he altered his stroke and brought back the medal. Many kinesthetic learners has this “perfect rhythm” in them, and I found out that this ability is common among athletes.

My oldest child can tell you how many beats there are in a minute without a metronome, so when the coach needs him to do a certain number of strokes per minute or the music teacher needs a precise number of crotchets in a bar, using “faster” or “slower” will confuse him.

He needs them to be specific to deliver what they require him to. Kinesthetic intelligence is the giftedness in movements and rhythms.

Kinesthetic Intelligence and ADHD

Kinesthetic learners do not function well in school environments, because they need to move around to think, and are often labeled hyperactive. Therefore, when faced with such students, many teachers will ask their parents to check if the kids have ADHD. Sounds familiar?

I sent my other son to a pretty good kindy when he was four-years-old, and the teachers were a helpful lot. One teacher reported him walking around the classroom when she was teaching the continents and oceans. She thought he learned nothing since he was just walking around the classroom, visiting the reading corners, picking up books, shifting here and there. She was shocked when he could regurgitate all that she taught when they had to do the worksheets.

He even went around coaching his classmates who were one year older. I often wonder if she had chained him to the chair, would he learn or remember as much. I knew he needed to move to think.

But this kind environment is not to be found in a formal school setting, he had much trouble explaining why he had to go to the toilet often because he just could not sit on the chair for that full period without dozing off, he couldn’t think and function without moving his feet and shifting his body.

In the end, like every good educator, the teachers and principals told me to check if he had ADHD.

After a good sum of money spent, one psychologist confirmed he had ADHD after a few questionaires, and another psychologist did a thorough test and said he could focus and had no attention deficit. We were asked to put him on Ritalin, anyway, to ‘test if it works’.

To Drug or Educate?

As a parent, I do not believe that my son is a lab rat, so I refrained from putting him on drugs, to the dismal of his teachers who branded me an irresponsible mother. But I was determined to empower him to work in classrooms again without drugs.

When he started university studies at twelve, I was given the chance to observe him in lecture theatres. Unlike primary schools, universities neither limit the number of toilet visits nor forbid walks to refresh. Every 50 minutes, he will move to a new lecture theatre or tutorial room, and he would grab that opportunity to find a Subway or Coke, which energizes him.

It occurs to me that the working world, just like the university, allows freedom to walk and pace about, so putting him on drugs just so he can operate in the classroom seems wrong.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” text_align=”left”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text]Read the story of Gillian Lynne with Kinesthetic Intelligence, an excerpt from Sir Ken Robinson’s Book: The Element.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]Strangely, this need to move can be viewed as an intelligence and gift or a disability depending on the environment and how we want to read things. For me, to be different is a gift and every gift can be a two-edged sword: if we choose to focus on its negatives, the problems become bigger and bigger, but if we focus on the positives and spend time nurturing that gift, it becomes easier to teach the child to assuage the pain of being different and release him to learn how to behave in an acceptable way.

So the next time a child is prescribed Ritalin, we should really think hard if we want the drug to act as the chain that puts him on the seat, killing his gift at the same time, or take the more painful route of teaching him to exploit his own gifts and learn to blend into his environment at the same time.[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” text_align=”left”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/2″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text]I am not sure if the disease is fictitious, but the over usage of drugs on our children is worrisome. Today, one out of ten ten-year-olds is on Ritalin, and one wonders the coins in whose pockets are jiggling.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner column_padding=”padding-4-percent” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” background_color=”#960000″ background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ font_color=”#ffffff” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/2″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text]Quote:

“ADHD is the prime example of a fictitious disease”

~Psychiatrist Leon Eisenberg, the Father of ADHD[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]

December 12, 2018
Key To Acceleration

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What about his Calling?

My son observed this about Singapore’s attitude to education: It is like the driver is concentrating so hard on driving to get to his destination, he refuses to notice there is a highway or a tunnel to make his journey shorter. Everyone is so focused on what he is asked to do, he misses out how to get to his destination better and quicker even when you point him to a short cut.

A Standard Aspiration

It is amazing that many of us are so engrossed in chasing what we are told to for our children that we forget why we are doing so: we fight mindlessly to get into GEP, for good PSLE T-scores, straight As in ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels, perfect IB and GPA scores. So if everyone is closing in on perfect scores, how do we differentiate one perfect scorer from another?

In our gathering where we saw our 13-year-olds meet after their first semester in their respective secondary schools, I am curious what the boys’ plans and career hopes are. Interestingly, my lawyer friend and fellow parent pointed out to me that every single one wants to be either a doctor or a lawyer, but none of them knows why. The none-of-them-knows-why part surprises and worries me.

I don’t believe two classes of 50 gifted students all have the same calling and share just two gifts, so realistically, some will be spending 40 years of their lives doing something they are not passionate about, and that will be so tragic.

Finding an Individual Passion

As a parent, I believe the one single most important responsibility is to help each child find his passion, his purpose and calling in life. It is already sad that many of us who grew up in third world Singapore in the 1970s fail to find these in our entire lives in the name of survival. Yet many of us are passing the same fate to our children.

We parents ferry our children in and out for all sorts of classes to pursue academic excellence but do not know what our children’s passions are. As a society, we judge a student by his GPA or aggregate score in standardized exams like ‘O’, ‘A’ levels and SAT. So what about the area that he really sparkles in, do we look deep into each child’s talent even if it is not measured in standardized exams? Do we spend time to ensure each child gets to pursue his love, his dreams and his career? Do we find time to listen to each child’s heart so that we know his dreams and then help him achieve them?

Acceleration = Finding a Calling Early

The earlier we help our children find their passions in life, the happier they will be, and the earlier they will be on their career paths. Doesn’t this sound perfectly logical? Isn’t that what we all hope to do?

Instead of focusing on our steering wheel and driving the same road we are told to, we can look harder to find that tunnel or highway and that short cut. That accelerated path has been there all along: in each child, and he has been trying to tell us all the time how to lead him to the life he wants. He has been trying to tell us how to differentiate him from the multitudes out there.

Would we be drivers who find the correct roads and paths to help our children get to where they want to go or would we rather insist on the perfect roads to take so that they reach the predestined aka OUR destinations?[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

June 13, 2018
Our Outreach
We are a social enterprise, which means we are like any for-profit companies, but with a social cause. Our social cause is to educate the world and promote literacy and numeracy to the ends of the earth. We are not a charity, so you will never, ever hear us asking you for donations.

A social enterprise also typically does not declare dividends or pay directors’ fee. Whatever is invested is normally not paid back to its investors.

Our staff are not volunteers, we pay them full or above market rates, and we recruit the best. Our systems are designed and done by the best in the world, supported by research that earned patents in many countries.

These great innovations that are typically expensive and therefore only available to the rich in first world countries need not be esoteric. We believe the best education must reach the masses, and we mean everyone in the world.

Our Beneficiaries

Three groups are identified:
1. Born-in-Singapore Singaporeans with a family income of less than $2000
2. Born-in-Singapore Singaporeans with family income of less than $3000 pay half of all our courses
3. Children in Third World Countries
How do we contribute?

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

~ Nelson Mandela

We will provide all our courses free to children who are born in Singapore and to Singapore-born parents with a family income of less than $2000. We hope that our programs will help alleviate the tuition costs incurred by these families. We also hope to help such students realize their potentials. We want them to have better education opportunities than average.

If you fall into this category, all you need to do is to provide documentary proof of your place of birth, citizenship and family income.

In addition, we put aside funds for outreach purposes. This will include meeting costs of providing our courses to children in third world countries who have no consistent access to schools. We hope that by providing our materials free, the children will have a chance in education.

We believe education is the only social leveler, and the chance of the people and the country to come out of poverty: the way Singapore did in the 60s and 70s.

We also believe that technology can replace the lack of educators across the globe. The technology is ready, and the time has come.

How can you contribute?

By subscribing to our courses, you are already participating in this exciting journey to help us educate the world. We believe that children in the Third World countries must have access to even better curriculum and pedagogy than us in the First World, because their hours are precious and whatever they can afford, we must teach efficiently. For every day that we take a child from his family, we risk his/her family some kind of livelihood.

Hence, we see the need to accelerate learning for these children, so that they can contribute meaningfully to their societies in a shorter time frame.

When we have prepared them for university, we will provide the support to put them through university with a scholarship and a family to live with when they are in a first world country for tertiary studies.

Our target?

If we manage to educate a doctor or an engineer, we would have been successful. He/She will not only contribute to his/her society, but prove to the community that education is a way out of poverty.

And from there, our span of influence can grow.

Join us in finding that doctor or engineer, who will not be able to read a line of words unless we reach out to him/her.

What are we working on now?

We are already providing a few Singaporean families with our courses free. In addition, we are working on getting the infrastructure ready in Myanmar and working with a school in Cambodia to deliver our materials to those in the tribal and rural areas.
July 15, 2017
Social Prodigy

[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column_text]When Eve asked to feature my children in her article about social prodigies, I asked her for the definition of “prodigy” because different words can mean different things to different people, and I have never thought my kids belong to that category. Her answer was “to do things ahead of his peers”.

Social Intelligence

Being a bit more cautious, I checked the dictionary, and it says, “to be endowed with exceptional abilities”, and in that case, there are many people who are prodigies, because every child is indeed endowed with a different exceptional ability. If you were to ask me what is the exceptional ability this daughter who is featured in this article has, I’d tell you she is a social butterfly, very good with people, and super observant. When those things are in place, she manages to get her things done in effective ways, and her friends will run to her rescue when she needs them. The university is a mini society and to have friends to look out for you makes things a lot easier, that’s why even when we were apprehensive to send her to university at fourteen, we were at ease after her first semester for whatever she lacked ‘intellectually’, she more than made up for it by working and learning together with her friends.

So here. This daughter is special (a social prodigy?) because she is very hardworking and tenacious, extremely sociable, sensitive and empathetic. Those qualities I believe are much more important than being gifted in one or even a few academic areas. You can read the article and interestingly quite a few of the parents there echo my views. 🙂

Read more about my experience sending my kids off to university early here.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

February 13, 2017
Universities Rated PG

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“Hello, Auntie!” another curious student stared and greeted as I waved from my chair outside my son’s classroom. It felt like I was punished by my primary school teacher for forgetting my exercise book. At times, I felt unjustified, because when I visited schools or universities, I used to turn up as the guest-of-honor or the invited speaker. Yet today, I feel ‘punished’ for being the mother to a child whose behavior is not acceptable.

But I refused to let it drag me down. I held up my head and put up a brave smile and addressed each child from the two GEP classes by name. I was asked to sit in to watch my son’s unacceptable behavior in school by the HOD and the principal. For some reason, the teacher felt it unnecessary, so she politely took my chair, placed it outside the classroom and closed the door. Maybe she felt threatened by my presence even though I have never paid attention to what she said in class, choosing to focus on my son instead.

They then told me my son behaved differently (and well) in my presence anyway so there was nothing to watch. After many inhospitable stares from other teachers and pupils, I decided to move myself to the canteen, and then out of the school completely. I could catch no strange behavior, taped nothing unusual, and felt really out of place. My requests to send in a psychologist to watch him in action was also rejected, so to this day, I can only guess what really happened in those classrooms which led the educators to conclude he needed to be sent to a special school instead.

Baby-Sitting in the University

Little did I expect that three years later, I will be asked to do this again. Just days after my son was enrolled in this university, the administrator called for a meeting between the two assistant deans and the welfare folks in the Faculty. Since he was the youngest ever enrolled, the university was really kind to make provisions so that he could attend alongside late teenagers at least six years his senior. One of the requests was for me to sit in EVERY lecture, tutorial, and practical – basically I have to tail him everywhere in the campus, except for the loo, until he turns fifteen. The rationale was that University staff do not hold ‘Blue cards’ and are not certified to handle children and minors, so I have be around. I gladly agreed.

Modeling the Desired Social Behavior

What do I do for those twenty hours a week in the undergraduate classes? Like everyone else, I take notes, listen carefully and try to do the assignments as well, just that I do not submit them. I do not participate or ask questions. I could have whipped up my computer or iPad and surf instead, but I won’t because I know what I am there for: I am there not just to be a guardian, but also to model the right class behavior for my son.

When I see a student opening the door for the rest, I will point that out to my son. When he sneezed and his classmate hand over a tissue, I reminded him that he should carry his own and to pay it forward. I wanted to show him how he should behave in the lecture theatre when the lecturer is teaching. I wanted to show him when to keep quiet and when to speak, and when to look interested even though he really wants to fall asleep.

Though right there in the same classroom, my son will interact with his teachers and classmates with me watching from my seat but I will listen intently – not to catch his academic inadequacies, but to listen out for his tone, his facial expression etc. If I felt that he could speak in nicer ways, I would tell him.

At times, I left it to his classmates to tell him off, so that he learn and remember social rules better. These are skills that I know come easily to many other children, but my son has to be taught and reminded. I saw sitting in his classes a unique opportunity to observe and teach him the right behavior, social skills and classroom etiquette he lacks.

Taming the Tiger Mum

Initially, many of his classmates thought I went to class to “Tiger Mum” him to maintain his historically excellent academic results, but academic is so secondary. I would rather work on his executive functioning skills : planning, scheduling, and keeping track of his own progress and facing the consequence of all his actions. Over the years of sitting in his university classes, I’ve had the privilege of teaching him these, step by step. An opportunity I know not many parents have.

I have to give up a lot of things to ensure I can support him this way, it basically means I have no free time for anything to myself, as I have to look after another four children, cook six to seven meals a day, drive the kids to all their activities and then do all the housework chores. Hm.. plus handle my full-time job, and write this book. But I am always optimistic and I have never failed to find strength to do this day after day, I have never grumbled or wished otherwise. Which mother would have this opportunity and privilege to teach her child the right classroom behavior?

He will likely earn his bachelor degree ahead of his peers, and I know that I will definitely be proud of him, less for his outstanding academic performance, and more for his ability to mitigate his weaknesses and work outside his comfort zone to become an organized, socially able person. Those months and years of time invested will be so worth the while. I look forward to that day, and know that I will get to see a confident teenager with good skills, as long as I fail to give up.

The years of giving up my freedom, time and pride just to help him overcome his weaknesses will seem so insignificant.

*After ‘following’ him for a semester, the university decided I need not sit with him in class anymore, and now I am ‘upgraded’ to sit outside doing my work, research or write my books. Many universities’ by-laws do not allow teenagers into their premises without supervision, and we made this into a precious learning opportunity.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

June 13, 2015
A Page from the Past

There was no Facebook, Youtube or any kind of social networking. I was a pioneer in the days when mobile banking and internet banking was advanced. I invented mobile trading using WAP, and was the first to integrate EMV, electronic, mobile and voice-recognition commerce on one platform. But this is now history, and these technologies are now pervasive and taken for granted. Yet the biggest change I marvel at is how one can change from a meticulous business person to a mult-tasking mother and educator, and am thankful for the opportunities these different aspects of life offer.

June 13, 2013
Past Philosophy that is still Relevant Today

Pamela Lim – In Straits Times, NewAsia Biz Woman

She struck gold in the male-dominated IT industry. She bucked convention by having four children. She defies time management by cooking breakfast each day. CORINNE KERK looks for the superwoman in Pamela Lim

HER first job was as an air stewardess with Singapore Airlines. The science graduate thought it was her dream job, as she wanted to “fly in the kebaya”. But on the first day of work, Pamela Lim asked when she would be promoted. “I said, ‘what if I worked very very hard and do very well?’,” she recalls. “But back then, they told me promotion is done batch by batch.”

That was all Ms Lim needed to switch careers. Which is not a bad thing, considering the career-minded woman was eventually to become one of the founders and group chief executive officer of Ebiz Solutions – now renamed 3rd Frontier.

3rd Frontier supplies technology so companies can offer Internet-based financial services such as banking, stock and forex trading through personal computers, handheld computers and handphones. The three-year-old company was involved in launching the world’s first mobile-trading solution, providing solutions for complicated trading requirements.

With clients like Citibank, UBS Warburg and GK Goh, 3rd Frontier is reportedly making annual revenues of some $15 million, is profitable and has a positive cashflow. With about 130 staff in Singapore, Hongkong, Malaysia, London and Sydney, more than 70 per cent of its business is now generated outside of Singapore.

But what is running a business like for the gung-ho, 35-year-old mother-of-four?

“We serve financial institutions, which are still very traditional, very conservative,” says Ms Lim. “The systems we sell are very high in value and go into millions. So buyers will want to meet the CEO of the company. But one look at me, and I can tell they’re thinking, ‘how did she get there?’. Many of these are old men, top men in the bank. They don’t talk about my company or products, but about my appearance, such as ‘you look so young, you look like that poster girl’, and so on. But my style is, I must get their respect in the first five minutes.” She does that by ignoring their personal comments and concentrating on e-commerce talk.

“As a woman entrepreneur, you must know your own stuff better than anybody else,” she says. “Fortunately in IT, there’s no handicap. If you lose two years, it’s okay, that’s history anyway in Internet time. Just read, update yourself, be very knowledgeable and you’re back. IT is about knowledge.”

Things have changed a lot in the last 15 years, says the MBA holder and former IBM and Citibank staffer. She feels there is much less bias against women today in Singapore.

“In the past, there were too few women who used their fullest potential to achieve in the business world,” she says. “They have their reasons and their priorities are different, but they are not less smart. Maybe they feel time is better spent at home, which is something I respect.”

In fact, Ms Lim says that families should come first in every society. “You have to first build a family, then the society will be strong. If everyone goes to work and the children go astray, it’s wrong. The society will collapse.”

Ms Lim goes a step further – she wishes more women will stay home. “If a woman can cope with both work and family, that’s okay. But if she cannot cope and it is at the expense of her family, and her relationship with her husband and children is gone, then it’s better for her to stay home. It’s a grave mistake to choose business over family.”

Having said that, she feels modern technology now allows women to balance family and work.

“Given this kind of opportunity, if women spend the effort and time to discover themselves, they will find businesses that will work for them. In fact, I’m now helping my 65-year-old mother start a small food business because she wants to.”

Although the busy career woman has two maids to help her out at home, the bubbly Ms Lim says she enjoys a good relationship with her children.

“I always believe that in whatever I do, I have to do it very well. I breastfed all my four kids for one year each, I review all their school work and they don’t have a tuition teacher because I don’t believe in that, I go with them for all their music lessons, my husband does the marketing and I cook their breakfast and plan all their meals. We even bake our own bread at home every day.”

With the birth of every child, she would carry her breast-pump everywhere. “Even when I travelled, I would pump the milk and freeze it to bring back to my babies. Often, I would get a fever because of engorgement, or too much milk. And once, it was a bit embarrassing because while I was doing a presentation, my milk wet my blouse. So I apologised and explained that I was breastfeeding. But I think people respect you for that.”

The refreshingly candid Ms Lim admits her lifestyle is hectic, but fun. “The family can stress you out more, or, it can de-stress you and help break the cycle of work.”

For a woman who used to sleep only four hours a day because her mind was “always working”, Ms Lim now clocks five hours of sleep every night, which she finds sufficient.

At 3rd Frontier, she is the youngest member in the management team. But as CEO, she manages men who are more experienced than she is. “I don’t feel inferior. My job is to make decisions, be accountable for them and steer the company. Their job is to operate. They can’t replace me not because I have the best skills, but because of my different skills. To be CEO, you have to be a visionary, a dreamer. You must be able to see what other people cannot see. Of course, I’ve made wrong decisions, but I just have to be sure I am fair and ethical to investors, staff, clients and partners.”

She feels that women have an advantage over men in that they tend to have stronger communication skills, are good listeners and better judges of character. “These are very good business skills,” she points out.

Even her husband, chief operating officer, has to accept the decisions she makes as boss. But he isn’t less successful than she is, Ms Lim points out. He’s just in a different role.

“He was director of operations for IBM Asia Pacific before he joined us after our fourth child was born a year ago. He is more successful than I am, and had always drawn more salary than I did. Now, we get about the same pay, but I don’t pay myself the most here. There are other people who draw more salary than I do, including my people in Hongkong and London.”

While she makes the decisions in the office, Ms Lim’s husband is clearly head of the household at home. “At home, all the final decisions are made by him, and the kids know that.”

In her view, a wife’s role should be like the one described in the final chapter of Proverbs in the Bible. “A woman has to make her family proud of her, but it doesn’t mean she cannot support the family in terms of going out to make money. At the end of the day, you want your children to be proud of you, and your husband to sing praises of you. As for men, their first responsibility is to be head of the family, and it is important for them to be respected by society.”

Although she could have stayed on in IBM and worked herself up the ranks like a friend of hers did, she has no regrets coming out to weather the storms of entrepreneurship.

“My friend is very high ranking now, but her environment is so protected compared to what I’ve been through; getting stepped all over, bitched about and dealing with people who try to steal our software,” she says philosophically. “But what’s the point of having too cushy a life? Then I wouldn’t have become what I am today, I wouldn’t have learnt. Hopefully, when I die, I die a better person. To each her own.”

Ms Lim is still in touch with some of her stewardess friends, a few of whom are still flying. “Are they less successful than I am? No, they are successful in their own way, they are happy. Different people have different targets in life. But would I do that? No. When I was younger, a man had offered to make me his kept woman. I told him: ‘I’ll make more money than you’.”

Confident words from a confident woman. No doubt she is well on her way to achieving that by now – husband and four kids in tow.

June 13, 2013