LETTERS – Schools are reopening, so that teachers are ready to catch up on lessons lost. It is a welcome change after a two-year break.
Teachers should impart to their charges self-learning using textbooks. First, textbooks are available to every student. Schools must emphasise to students the importance and usefulness of textbooks.
Second, the Education Ministry has distributed good textbooks written by experienced teachers and lecturers. In a textbook, besides the facts on the topics, the three domains of effective learning are knowledge, skills and values.
Third, students must be taught how to read and learn from textbooks. A common complaint is that they do not understand a section, paragraph or chapter.
In the case of science and mathematics, a high likelihood is that they have not understood the materials before that section, paragraph or chapter. So they have to go back and revise the previous materials.
Students must learn to cultivate perseverance, diligence and passion for new knowledge. Spoon-feeding will not lead to success. When they are in class, teachers are there to guide and help.
Fourth, students must be encouraged to cultivate a reading habit. Read again and again the texts to catch their meanings.
Try different assumptions to arrive at the right conclusions, formulae and equations in textbooks. This is true learning and we hear of students giving up without trying hard enough to understand.
Whether in school or outside school, students must learn to learn from their textbooks. Schools must place textbooks in their rightful pole position in the teaching and learning process. Clearly teachers are the task masters here.
Source: Liong Kam Chong (NST)
