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 My name
is Ken Mizusawa and I arrived in this sunny island republic
in South East Asia in April 2001 after completing my postgraduate
studies at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New
Zealand.
I applied
for a teaching post with the
Ministry of Education (MOE) via the net in 2000 and admittedly
knew very little about the place before I arrived beyond the
chewing gum issue, the Michael Faye affair and what was promised
on the "Welcome to Singapore" CD-Rom I found tucked
away at the Careers Advisory Service of my university.
I was
pleased to discover, first and foremost, that the weather
was not suffocatingly humid (Japanese summers are much much
worse actually), and secondly, a highly developed, efficient,
clean and green city state (as they promised in the CD Rom!).
In fact, Singapore could be described as "South East
Asia for Beginners" for it offers a taste of the region
while still providing the many modern comforts that typify
western living.
The main
attraction of Singapore is, no, not the Merlion, but the food,
which is as ethnically diverse as it is delicious.
If you
are new to Asia, food stall banners may seem both unnecessarily
descriptive (ie. "Pig Organ and Intestine Soup")
or infuriatingly vague (ie. "Cooked Food") and it
may take trial and error to find what works for you.
Same applies
to teaching in Singapore. Having largely taught adults in
a western country, it was quite an eye-opener to be teaching
in a multiracial classroom in Yio Chu Kang Secondary School
made up of ethnically Indian, Chinese and Malay Singaporean
teenagers who knew a lot more about Japanese popular culture
than I did and thought and acted in a manner that I found
at times truly perplexing.
After
serving just over two months there as a contract teacher,
I was admitted into the National Institute of Education (NIE)
to undertake the one-year Postgraduate Diploma in Education
(PGDE) in June 2001. There I revisited student life while
still taking home a monthly salary - which is definitely not
a bad deal in my opinion.
By the
way, you may have already noticed that they like to use a
lot of abbreviations and acronyms here. Hence, if you come
here be fully prepared for people to tell you things like:
"Have you keyed in your CAs yet? By the way, your CCA
is AVA" and expect you to understand it (I speak from
personal experience! :-)).
I emerged
a fully-fledged teacher (or General Education Officer 1.1)
in June 2002 and was selected to teach in the Gifted Education
Department at Dunman High School, the top government school
in Singapore. 2004 will be my third year with the school and
with the students I began teaching in 2002.
For more
information about the school or the programme please click
the appropriate links below.
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