Shaheed Salim Tuition

Recently, Suria TV made a short documentary about the things I do.  A good part of it is about the tuition I do. You can watch the video above.        

In my life as a student, I have met only a few great teachers. Who is a great teacher to me? First of all, a great teacher need not be working as a teacher. A great teacher transforms some of his students positively and inspires many more to new and greater heights. He cannot but be passionate about teaching, and it is likely he is always in a permanent learning mode. A great teacher creates impact although he may sometimes steer off the syllabus. If you were to ask him why he steered off track, perhaps he would tell you that positive transformation is at the core of the curricula, and therefore, he has stayed true to the purpose of teaching and the curricula. Mr David Fahy, an Irishman in my secondary school, was more a lion than a school teacher. Much larger than most adult Asians, his size, voice and antics scared the hell out of my classmates. Thinking logically and being articulate in our thoughts was the path that led to a well of knowledge the lion protected. One not to shut his

  Portrait of  Frederick Douglass The life of a slave is pitiful but Frederick Douglass, although a slave in the early years of his life, shows us that any person can become an inspiration to humanity; he also showed how important a role education plays to the freedom and empowerment of a human being. The turning point came in his life came when the new, kind wife of his owner saw him with a soft heart and taught him the English alphabet and how to spell very short words. This process carried on for a few days before the owner found out that his wife had been teaching a slave the written word. He stopped her from doing so and explained, “A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master—to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world.”  From that day onwards, his mistress changed from a loving lamb to a strict tigress; love and kindness for the slaves had left her heart. She stopped teaching Douglass and he observed, “Nothing seemed to make her more angry

  The CA1 is just over. When the results are out, some parents begin to panic. "My child needs a tutor!" "Where do I find the right tutor?" "My friends send their kids for tuition. Should I do the same?" The tuition industry is booming and it feeds on the fears and hopes of such parents. In reality, we can categorise students into 2 groups – those who need tuition and those who do not. Yet when we study the clientele in the tuition industry, we realise that sometimes those who need tuition do not get tutored, and those who do not need tuition are enrolled for many sessions with tutors. Common sense should guide how parents decide. What should clueless parents do? Simple – ask yourself sincerely whether your child needs help with his studies? If your child is scoring As, is tuition really necessary?  I remember a parent telling me, "My son scored almost full marks for Math last year." My uninhibited response was, "So why do you think he needs

We all love our kids. Who doesn’t? And we want them to excel in their studies. So we load the pressure of high expectations and the routines of tuition classes to solve this problem. Sometimes the problem gets solved. Sometimes it does not; sometimes it stays for a prolonged period of time and we are left asking why. Today, we shall look at the failures of kids at PSLE or upper primary Math, which in my opinion is no different why some students fail at secondary Math. Through the years, I have guided students, who had scored poorly at Maths, attained A grades, and I discovered that unless these students underwent transformation at the self-concept and self-expectations levels, it would be hard to help them score grades A and above. (Note: Even with low self-esteem, scoring a C is still possible for students but an A is clearly out of reach, unless the test paper is full of lower level thinking questions.) The first thing you should realise as a parent or even teacher is you must never