HaNdwriTing WoRRies and WoEs
Sigh… here we go again.
I stared miserably at the outcome of a recent Spelling Test.
6-and-a-half over 10 marks: no mean feat for a happy, intelligent 8-year-old, I was sure. But what was this?
Scratched viciously under a number of beginning letters were red lines, further decorated with more red-inked judgments: only half-a-mark awarded for this word and that word, and another word (all spelt correctly, mind you) simply because the beginning letters were a little larger than normal.
"Why did she do this?" I asked my daughter, as calmly as I could, though rhetorically, since I knew what the answer would be already.
"Because she says they look like capital letters," was her sheepish reply.
Well, you would think a teacher could be kinder than that. But this was the third instance of a pattern I had seen repeated since the start of the academic year. And it had started quite unexpectedly, since this was a teacher whom I knew and respected, who had taught my eldest daughter two years before, and whom I had succeeded in developing a shared language of "teacherese" with. She was, by most criteria, experienced, gentle and "pro-student".
But not it seems, with number two.
Earlier in the year, my eldest had come home from school saying that Ms X had "complained" about the former’s handwriting.
"She said: how come my handwriting is so good, and T’s is so untidy?" with a sly smirk and a "neh-neh-neh-neh-neh" tone that I knew would set off a rapid succession of intense drama.
True enough, upon hearing this pronouncement, number two burst – promptly - into tears.
"Why didn’t she tell me? Why did she have to tell Jie-Jie?" she complained with the face and voice of a hurt and injured creature.
"I don’t know, sweetie… I’ll ask her, okay? I’ll talk to her."
I sent off an e-mail the next morning, a cautiously guarded one, asking Ms X please, to call me back once classes were over, but not elaborating further or more than I felt was necessary at that point.
She apologized upon hearing that her words had been "enhanced" by the eldest culprit, and we said our "good-byes" amicably, with the usual round of pleasantries. The whole incident, however, had planted a seed of doubt in my mind and left me wondering, as to whether my middle child was truly that untidy.
I had always known number two to be an interesting and somewhat non-conformist personality. As a three-year-old, she would walk away whilst I was talking, seemingly unconcerned about the effects this would have on me. I had been forced to come up with a creative set of methods to motivate her to learn her letters and numbers, a feat that number one had achieved by the age of 18 months.
"She’s born free…" my mother remarked, with the perception of the old, one day. And true enough, she would dress up as Super-Girl and fly around our flat, try and squeeze herself into a box like a contortionist, bake us cookies (which we loved) and eventually, learn to dance (to perform as well as to compete), tinker with the cello, fence "en-garde!" and roller-blade with the energy and determination that only the young can muster and the old look admiringly upon.
I had never, ever - even when she was a playful pre-schooler - doubted that she could write, and write neatly.
A few weeks after the SQUEAL, the first result of a bad Spelling Test was returned for my acknowledgement. I tried not to over-react at first, but then a second came back, again with the same red lines drawn beneath first letters that "looked like capitals".
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This time, when she called me back after another polite e-mail, Ms X’s first remark seemed somewhat exasperated:
"Mrs Lai, why…? You want her to get 10 upon 10 all the time, is it…?
"No, Ms X, that’s not the point. I want her to be happy and enjoy learning and going to school. I don’t want her self-esteem to be affected by these kinds of grades. Surely there must be a better way to teach her to write (the way you want her to) rather than by deducting marks for what I feel are quite ambiguous details."
"Mrs Lai…" she responded, trying to sound patient, "during the English Exams, she will have to edit a paragraph, and if her letters look like capitals when in fact, they should be small, she will lose marks unnecessarily. That is what I am trying to teach the whole class!"
"In this way…? Can I please come and discuss this with you some more?"
"I am very busy, okay, Mrs Lai. Sorry, ah… but I have a workshop to attend now," and with that, she hung the receiver up on me, whilst I choked on the rest of the words that were still in my mouth.
Two weeks later, the final straw arrived. This time, I wrote a curt message saying that I would be in school the next day, and would she please tell me what time would suit her best for a discussion.
She was in the foulest of moods when I arrived, and strode off, leaving me trailing behind like some kind of errant, disrespectful child, to a bench in a quiet spot in the school. She had a sore throat and could hardly be heard, but her displeasure was obvious nonetheless.
I tried to persuade her to understand why I had come and what I felt about these minor written "mistakes".
"Look at the whole word, Ms X, the small letters in the middle of the word are bigger than the first letter. What is more, we are not talking about letters T or P or Y where the difference between the capital and the small letters are distinct."
She stonewalled my pleas and arguments with a stubborn tenacity cultivated from numerous and countless other encounters with panicky local parents.
"So, you think that it is okay to start a word with a capital letter?"
"Um…" I paused, "yes… words do start with capital letters, don’t they?"
"And you want me to mark based on spelling accuracy, not writing accuracy?"
"Yes, exactly!" I crowed enthusiastically.
"So, Mrs Lai, tell me," she continued, "what if a child uses a capital letter in the middle of a word? Should I mark her wrong in that instance?"
I paused again, wondering if it was a trick question.
"Ms X, words do not usually allow capital letters within them, so wouldn’t it be right to correct the child then…?"
"Again, I am telling you that it is because of the Exams that I am being stricter in daily-work."
"She does not comprehend what you are trying to teach her here, Ms X, and correcting her like this is punitive."
"No, it is not."
"Yes, it is."
"Then how do you expect me to teach her?"
"Well, does she have a problem with her handwriting?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean: does she need more writing drills?"
"If I give drills, parents will say that I am being discriminatory."
I stopped for a second to think; I was beginning to feel outright out-smarted. This was going to be harder than I had thought.
"Okay, does she have a perception problem?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean: does she have a problem with her eyes?"
"I don’t think so."
"Well, does she have a problem with her memory?"
"No. She has a good memory. And actually, you say she has a self-esteem problem, but everyday she looks so happy and comes up to talk to me and shows me what is in her snack-box."
"Yes, she is a happy person, Ms X" (but not because of you, I fought the urge to add.)
Finally, after more insistence and pleading on my part, she snapped, "Okay, I register. I cannot argue with you on research matters. I register that you do not like this, and I will take note of this the next time I mark her work."
Aargh….
I left the meeting feeling as if I had smashed myself against a wall of hard rock, a rock of attitudes and habits that had formed during the Stone Age, and which had weathered the fluxes of educational change since then with stolid resolution. "So what?" seemed to be the resounding battle cry, "I have taught like this since, and I will teach like this… forever!"
It did not seem conceivable to Ms X that I would care more about the processes of how my daughter was learning than the mere outcomes. It baffled me equally to meet a teacher so archaic in perspectives that the whole notion of a "paradigm shift" seemed necessary.
In the space of a few short minutes between the bench and the school-gates, I grieved and lamented inwardly about all that was (still) wrong with local schooling; how, in spite of policy- and cultural- shifts in attitudes about relevant and "best-practice" goals in education, local contexts still expect children to "pass" or "fail", "make the grade" or "miss the mark." Daily, for hours on end, our children are taught along the lines of a hidden curriculum that they must "get the correct answer" or face the consequences thereafter. Individual Differences are laudable only if you distinguish yourself on one end of the continuum, the successful one.
Quietly, I pondered again if all of our high-achieving scholars would dare to fail, dare to face their own inadequacies and weaknesses as are usual amongst the lot of Man. I wondered if they had ever dared to face the secret cry and articulation of every human heart, "Will you still love (and accept) me… for who I am, even if I fail, even if I have… less money, a lower status, a smaller flat…?"
And all this while, Society continues to wonder why it is faced with higher rates of mental and stress-related disorders. It wonders about children who become addicted to Internet gaming and the attractive unrealities of living and playing in a cyber-world.
I mourned too for the hundreds, if not thousands, of children skilled with other kinds of talents and differing learning styles; singled out possibly, for the simple fact that they have their own personal signature - a distinctive way of learning, or of writing letters and numbers. I agonized mentally over the boys and girls with special learning requirements, for whom the first penned “a” had already been a high and heady victory.
And I continued to worry too about my number two… whilst knowing still that one day... she will probably fly (me and her Daddy and possibly many more) all the way to the moon... and back, even if she might practise crash-landing once in a while, along the way.
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Children at this age tend to scribble with the whole arm moving. Usually, both arms are used equally. As the child approaches his or her second birthday, hand preference becomes a little more obvious; one hand may initiate activity more often than the other. Because hand preference is just beginning to emerge though, there will still be times when the child alternates hand-use in the middle of an activity.
At this age, more movement will occur at the elbow when the hand is being used. Hand dominance will continue to emerge but not yet be established. The child begins to learn to use both hands co-operatively - such as holding a jar in one hand and twisting the lid off with the other.
The child will progress from copying lines and circles to imitating crosses and tracing over triangles and diamonds. The child may also attempt to colour within lines.
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For more information on the Bright Starts Programme for ages 2-4yo, please visit our website at www.weecare.com.sg.