What an interesting first week in school. Life is hot, sweaty, and fast-paced here in the city. My roommate and I are determined to break our cycle of latte-ness so we leave our dorm in the morning at 6:30 and arrive at West Grove Primary School by 6:55. That's just enough time to grab a 50 cent cup of coffee and look over the timetable for the day before going to morning assembly. This first week here was spent visiting a variety of classrooms and grade-levels in order to learn about how their system works and think about what we would like to try and teach. Let me try and capture my observations in a few bullets:

• Singaporean public school are much larger than ours. There are 1700 students at our elementary school. This means that lower primary classes have about 36 students and upper primary classes 40-44. All students wear uniforms.
• 7:20 to 1:30, with a 30 minute break. Students are in class for about 5 hours with a 30 minute break somewhere between 10:00 and 11:00.
• Singaporean teachers tend to teach one or two subjects to multiple classes. Each group of students belongs to one room and the teachers go to the students. The teachers that we are most closely shadowing both teacher English; one to 5th and 6th grade and the other to 3rd and 6th grade.This means that they teach several different English lessons throughout the day. However, we also shadow one teacher who teaches English, Math, and Science to the same group of 6th graders.
• School is conducted in English. The Singaporean population is a blend of people of Chinese, Malasian, and Indian descent. It was also a British colony for about 140 years. The unifying language between people is English but every student is required to take "Mother Tongue" class where they learn a second language that is prominent in the country. Our school offers Mandarin, Tamil, and Malay but parents may take their children elsewhere if they want them to study a different language.
• The students begin to enter an education track after 6th grade based on the PSLE. The PSLE, or the Primary School Leaving Examination, is a test set and scored by the government that all students must pass in order to move on to secondary school. They score on this examination also determines which type of secondary school they may attend. The top 44% students will score well enough to go on the "Express" track, which is 4 years of secondary school to prepare them for university. The next 44% will enter the "Normal Academic" track of five years of secondary school to prepare them for university. The bottom 12% will enter the "normal technical" track where students will filter more into the technical and applied sciences jobs. After secondary school there are junior colleges and then universities.
• Singapore has both inclusion and Special Needs schools available. For students with diagnosed learning disabilities who perform lower in academic subjects remain in public school where there are resource teachers who work with them throughout the week, possible for the duration of their time in school. There are also aids available to groups of those students during class time. Students who's disabilities severely affect their IQ and social skills attend special schools for students with exceptional needs. However, there are few of these school and there are long waiting lists. The special schools focus on life skills.

There are so many more interesting things to say about being in class and being with students but I think those are a few stand-out differences between what I see in America and what I see in Singapore. Here are a few pictures of my school campus. It's a bright and colorful place, run by the most genuinely caring group of teachers.

Thank you for stopping by! More adventures to come.

I feel so very excited and blessed that my teaching adventures have taken me to Singapore. For those who didn't hear, my credential program through UCSB is piloting an exchange program with three countries. For the month of January 11 UCSB credential candidates are studying in Denmark, Switzerland, and Singapore. I am here with four lovely ladies (see my home page) who are just as much fun as they are studious. We landed in Singapore one week ago and have had that week to get our bearings, settle in to our dorm, and explore all this beautiful island has to offer. Monday will be our first day in the classrooms. We're been hearing so much about the Singapore education system, but I will save all of that for a future blog about our teaching adventures.

Our first week has taken us all over Singapore and since picture can spare me typing thousands of words, let me take you on a tour of our week:

Day 1: My 28th birthday!
We took the train down to the river, where we had dinner.

Then we rode the Singapore Flyer, a 47-story tall ferris wheel with awesome views of the city.

Day 2: New Year Eve! We went to a party our on this resort island called Sentosa Beach. We enjoyed the views, made some new friends, and celebrated the beginning of 2014.

Day 3: not super exciting. I caught up on sleep and let myself settle and watched frozen. Didn't really need to document that but it's a great movie :)
Day 4: We got to meet the amazing staff hosting us at the National Institute of Education (NIE). They are so thoughtful and excited to have us here. From that meeting we left for Little India where we had a delicious lunch, enjoyed the sights, and got our eyebrows threaded!

Day 5: A few members of the NIE staff took us to lunch at this INCREDIBLE organic restaurant called Bollywood Veggie. The food was amazing, the people there were so much fun, and they had a spectacular garden that we got a personal tour of.

Day 6: We headed out early to a little island called Pulau Ubin. It's a lovely wetland preserve. We rented kayaks and cruised the Indian Ocean. Then we rode bikes out the explore the wetlands. On the way we saw a horrifying spider (but I didn't scream) and a wild boar! There were mud skippers and crabs and some great plants down by the water. But the highlight was the group of monkeys that were playing by the road. So adorable.

Thus far it has been a delightful trip. I'm excited and nervous for what's in store at school tomorrow but I know it's going to be a great journey. Stay tuned for adventures in education!