I am not being sarcastic, what I wrote here was my frank take on the situation. Singaporens has gotten to where they are today thanks to the government's pragmatic approach in building the nation. Try to look at the big picture. If PAP government continues to lose power and implement even more populist measures, we could be on a slippery slope. Do we want to end up like some Western countries where there are sizable amount of voters who are on welfare? When these governments needed to make tough measures to rescue their economies, they were stuck because these voters threaten to withdraw their votes. Do we really want to see that? I for one would not want to see my hard-earned tax-payers money go to support these lazy bums. So I stand by my view that votes should be tied to income level. If you don't contribute to the nation, then you should have lesser say, simple as that.


Yes, I admire LKY greatly because he was willing to make unpopular decisions for the good of the nation. I wish LHL would be as firm as his father, but I would still take the current PAP brigade over any current oppositions. Have you followed the recent Parliament? Low Thia Kang did not even know about his TC's tender status. All the opposition does is to capitalise on the sensational issues whereas PAP is willing to speak the hard truth, like what Dr Amy Khor did 2 days ago. http://www.singapolitics.sg/news/singaporeans-first-policy-wont-benefit-economy-long-term

So many oppurtunists now trying to capitalise on the anti foreigners sentiments. I am very disturbed by the younger generation’s blaming of everything on government while failing to see their own shortcomings.


Foreigners stealing jobs?
Be less picky, accept lower pays, and get more skills to be more relevant in marketplace. As simple as that.

I echo Amy Khor’s sentiment that ‘Singaporeans First’ policy is detrimental to the economy. Government has been bending backwards recently a lot to please the younger generation with increasingly populist policies to ensure their votes in the upcoming election. I am not happy with this. I don’t blame PAP for this. They are just trying to ensure their survival and dominance in Singapore politics. I blame this on a segment of Singaporeans who are too pampered and xenophobic. And they are very vocal. And these Singaporeans do not spare a thought for their other fellow Singaporeans who have worked very hard to get where they are now and contributed much more to the economy and the country.

I would propose for voting during the next election to be tied to annual income tax paid. If I earn more and pay more tax, I should get more votes to decide who govern the country. If I work harder to be more successful, then my vote should matter more than those jobless youngsters who complain all the time.

fifiyeo:

classymadame:

[quote=\"waiyean\"]After reading this long post, I still do not know what the teacher did wrong. Sounds like a very reasonable and patient teacher. Nowhere in the post was it mentioned that the teacher promised 100% distinction. Track record of churning distinction holders does not guarantee it, and is highly dependent on capability of the students and efforts put in.


Just try to relax. I understand the stress that parents go through before a piano exam. Parents always are more anxious than the kid who is taking the exam. Any mistakes made just before the exams feels like the end of the world.

I am just thankful that parents are not allowed to sit in during the exams.

One of the reasons why I am so pissed off is I was misled about DD’s teacher teaching style. Prior to starting the trial, the teacher allowed me to observe two lessons of her students. She was firm, strict, and had no nonsense approach. I was impressed by the professionalism displayed. The teacher also assessed DD first and she said to me with practice, DD can be trained to achieve distinction, but true, she never promised us distinctions. For the first few lessons, she adopted this no nonsense approach with DD. DD ended up crying at the end of the lessons, but I did not mind as I wanted the teacher to push DD more. But then suddenly from 3rd or 4th lesson onward, the teacher suddenly changed her style and became this extremely patient and encouraging teacher. This is when she started ignoring mistakes DD made and praising DD even though she did not deserve it. I was alarmed and the teacher explained to me that she wanted DD to enjoy lessons and not cried at the end of each lesson. I did not agree with this. If I hire a plumber to fix my toilet, I don’t need him to tell me how nice my toiletries are to make me feel good, I want him to fix my toilet. I hired the teacher to impart a skill to DD, not to make her feel good. My duty as a parent is to ensure DD is well equipped with many skills. I don’t really care if she wants them or not now, she can thank me later when she grows up. I asked the teacher to revert to her initial style with my DD, but she refused, saying that it goes against her principle to do that. I am the paying customer here, shouldn’t she listen to me and accommodate my request? Never mind, lesson learnt, I should have changed teacher before registering DD for her grade 3.

Music is a lifelong learning process and to cultivate a love for it is really important to keep on going on the long run. I can understand why the teacher started to be encouraging and took a softer approach towards your DD after she was crying at the end of the lesson.

If the child feels motivated, he/she will practice and push on and it can go a long way. If the teacher is the one who is pushing too hard, then it will kill the interest totally.

My DS's piano teacher is also very encouraging and I think that is what kept DS going at a fast pace since he started his lessons back in Dec. DS will never not practice his piano and will often do extra theory work and learn new pieces ahead of what he is taught. His piano classes are something he looks forward to every week. In fact I think he is dying for those praises from his teacher that makes him practice and practice.[/quote]Fifiyeo, I am envious that your DS is diligent. DD's teacher is encouraging and she liked going to lessons, but this actually made DD lazier. I sat with DD everyday to help her practice and I often had to raise my voice at her just to get her to correct her mistakes. DD is so easily self-satisfied even when she played lousy, because her teacher so easily praised her even if the playing was not good. Lately DD has became more rebellious and would refuse to follow what I asked her to do during practice. It's very tiring because obviously I am more strict towards DD than the teacher. It should be the other way around.

Dreamaurora:

waiyean:

After reading this long post, I still do not know what the teacher did wrong. Sounds like a very reasonable and patient teacher. Nowhere in the post was it mentioned that the teacher promised 100% distinction. Track record of churning distinction holders does not guarantee it, and is highly dependent on capability of the students and efforts put in.


Just try to relax. I understand the stress that parents go through before a piano exam. Parents always are more anxious than the kid who is taking the exam. Any mistakes made just before the exams feels like the end of the world.

I am just thankful that parents are not allowed to sit in during the exams.

Yeah lor, I think it's just a mismatch between expectation and reality. I know it's tempting when we see brilliant kids performing on the stage and then thinking that our kids can achieve the same. Basically it's tempting to believe 'if you put your heart to it, you can achieve anything'.

One's natural affinity or 'talent' does play a part in achieving a very high standard in performance. Then must have self-motivation and supportive parents. I guess classymadame was just very anxious, but I just feel that it's not exactly right to blame her current predicaments on the teacher who helped prepare her DD for grade 3 despite not being supportive of the move. If a parent attempts to be more critical than me and overrides my authority, I would seriously consider dropping the student.

Anyway, classymadame, on a more constructive note. Perhaps you can try taking piano lessons yourself too and practice together with your DD? Kids tend to follow after good examples set by their parents. Maybe it will be a better approach.

I brought my DD to a few teachers before settling with the current teacher. All of them said DD played well and talented. I know DD can play very well if pushed, just sad that her current teacher refused to unlock DD's potential.

waiyean:

After reading this long post, I still do not know what the teacher did wrong. Sounds like a very reasonable and patient teacher. Nowhere in the post was it mentioned that the teacher promised 100% distinction. Track record of churning distinction holders does not guarantee it, and is highly dependent on capability of the students and efforts put in.


Just try to relax. I understand the stress that parents go through before a piano exam. Parents always are more anxious than the kid who is taking the exam. Any mistakes made just before the exams feels like the end of the world.

I am just thankful that parents are not allowed to sit in during the exams.

One of the reasons why I am so pissed off is I was misled about DD’s teacher teaching style. Prior to starting the trial, the teacher allowed me to observe two lessons of her students. She was firm, strict, and had no nonsense approach. I was impressed by the professionalism displayed. The teacher also assessed DD first and she said to me with practice, DD can be trained to achieve distinction, but true, she never promised us distinctions. For the first few lessons, she adopted this no nonsense approach with DD. DD ended up crying at the end of the lessons, but I did not mind as I wanted the teacher to push DD more. But then suddenly from 3rd or 4th lesson onward, the teacher suddenly changed her style and became this extremely patient and encouraging teacher. This is when she started ignoring mistakes DD made and praising DD even though she did not deserve it. I was alarmed and the teacher explained to me that she wanted DD to enjoy lessons and not cried at the end of each lesson. I did not agree with this. If I hire a plumber to fix my toilet, I don’t need him to tell me how nice my toiletries are to make me feel good, I want him to fix my toilet. I hired the teacher to impart a skill to DD, not to make her feel good. My duty as a parent is to ensure DD is well equipped with many skills. I don’t really care if she wants them or not now, she can thank me later when she grows up. I asked the teacher to revert to her initial style with my DD, but she refused, saying that it goes against her principle to do that. I am the paying customer here, shouldn’t she listen to me and accommodate my request? Never mind, lesson learnt, I should have changed teacher before registering DD for her grade 3.

Dear fellow parents,


I just want to rant about my DD’s current piano teacher. I feel frustrated at recent developments and seriously considering a new teacher. My DD is 7 years old. She auditioned for NAFA when she was 6 and got rejected. I was very disappointed but I believed my DD was very capable. My DD does not really enjoy playing piano, but I believe that she should be equipped with the best instruction so she can excel. I then began to look for a teacher who could provide standards equivalent to NAFA’s. I was recommended a teacher who supposedly one of the better ones and had track record of churning out distinction holders. I did contact a few ‘branded’ teachers but they said they did not take in lower grade students or beginners. So, I settled for this teacher. The first shock came during the first performance class that she organized for her students in our first month of lessons. There were very impressive students comparable to NAFA’s, but majority of her students actually played average. I talked to the parents and seemed like only 40% who had taken exams with this teacher scored distinctions. The rest scored mostly merits or passes. This teacher seemed incapable of maintaining standards across the board.

During lessons, I began to realize that she was not as critical as I expected. I sat in the lessons and I made it clear to the teacher that I expect my DD not to score lower than distinction. However, I notice she was not that particular about mistakes and often did not correct all the mistakes. She was also very easy with praises and often would praise sub-standard playing. I do not play any instrument myself, but I know when I heard a lousy playing. When I pressed her, she said she was aware of the mistakes but she said she did not want to overwhelm my DD too much. Granted, I am aware my DD easily get emotional and frustrated, but I wanted her to excel in piano to develop her discipline and to boost her confidence. I often had to ask her why she did not fix some of the obvious mistakes I heard, and only then she would fix those mistakes.

I decided to register my DD for grade 3 ABRSM this coming March. The teacher was actually against this idea as she said she wanted my DD to have more time to fix her technique and other things like sight-reading first. But I insisted because my DD was lagging behind and the exam would make her practice. Despite her reluctance, she agreed to enter DD for grade 3 after I assured her that I would make her practice very diligently. My DD admittedly was not really diligent in practice and a lot of things were not completed on schedule. But her teacher seemed content with the progress and did not scold or punish her. She pushed the blame to me, saying that I should have helped more with practice. I did try my best to get my DD to practice, but she would often just sat in front of the piano and refused to correct the mistakes I asked her. DD would then quarrel with me saying that teacher liked her playing and would proceed to tinker with the easy Disney songs the teacher assigned her for sight-reading instead. Exam is 2 weeks later and so far DD did manage to finish all the scales and songs, but with slips here and there. My DD still could not play all the 3 songs perfectly without any mistakes. Teacher said at most DD could only score at best a merit or a pass after considering all the other sections. Teacher said she was satisfied with the effort my DD has put in considering her current ability and said she was proud of her no matter how my DD would do in exam. I was very angry when I heard her said that. I specifically employed her because I wanted my DD to get a distinction, but now this is almost impossible.

Sorry for the long rant. If anybody has a recommendation on a teacher with much better track record of excellence. Do PM me.