It's not about me, it's about IT

As our APBL approaches its climax, the more I realise it is not about the teacher but the student. Over the last three days, I have been there just to facilitate, guide, help, you name it, but never to do it for them.

Education is empowering the student with knowledge, skills and the wherewithal to do anything he sets his heart to do. After that. he's on his own to find resources, think of ideas, plan and arrive at the solution. And my goodness do they need all the assistance they can get. With the proliferation of the Internet in many homes, one drawback is that the have-nots become severely handicapped and disadvantaged. It pains my heart when they propose a solution but are forced to find a way around their lack of a computer.

Like it or not, there kids eventually need to be equipped with the IT knowledge. This is already being done in our school, but with any skill, the lack of practice renders it forgotten and useless. How many of us actually remember how to do differentiation and integration ('O' Level Additional Mathematics) except for perhaps the engineering students?

Despite the vagaries of this cycle, I hope my students prove me wrong and produce a non-IT end-product that will blow me away. One group has started making a clay model of the digestive system, another a pretty nifty-looking scrapbook. It is already looking more impressive than most of the PowerPoint presentations.

I'm glad aesthetics still holds higher regard than fancy-schmancy graphics and effects.