Teachers - encouragers or criticisers?

Crystal Chan wrote to the papers about how some teachers can be so extremely annoying in the way they react to their students' work. Some embarrass the students in front of the whole class. I remember being sarcastically spoken about when I forgot to bring my textbook. Was there a need to "advertise" it to the whole class? Would my classmates have wanted to know that I had not brought my textbook? It'd have been better for my spirits if she had admonished me in private.

However, I would like to jump to the defence of teachers who suspect the authenticity of students' work if it's of an unusually high standard. To be sceptical, we are firstly aware that they don't produce such quality on a consistent level and we are of the knowledge that their age encompasses a certain standard of work. To perform beyond expectations in such a suspicious manner prevents us from being open to a marked improvement in their work. We go on to wonder if someone else had done their work or at least provided the content for it. I had encountered such a case before. Of course, it still doesn't allow us to shame the student in public though. Private questioning is just as effective.

On the other hand, a reader wrote in to respond to an article in Today dated 12 July 2006 titled 'No! Not a zero please'. I'm quoting from Daniel Chan's letter to show how some teachers fail to be open in their grading of exam scripts. "A phrase or sentence may be subject to all kinds of interpretation. Must a student only interpret it as the teacher sees correct and anything else is irrelevant? Whatever happened to thinking out of the box?"

Such teachers are just being dictatorial and impose their own ideas on their students. Is that what education, is about? Aren't teachers supposed to encourage creativity instead of quelling it? This is especially pertinent to English essays, specifically expository and narrative questions. A zero should be given only when there is total misinterpretation of the question.

Another writer in the Straits Times Forum, Patrick Tan, wrote that "first and foremost, we need to stop putting them into boxes." This's so very true. Don't define the direction in which our students' creativity take. Let their imagination flow and move naturally, unless it defies moral and ethical standards.