Two of the major concepts which I have learnt from the two articles are as follows:
1) Literacy
It is integral to success in the contemporary society. Competence in literacy is essential for an individual to participate fully in society, that is, to be able to take part in the work force, engage in democratic processes and contribute to the society. This is particularly significant in our local context. Singapore, being a small dot on the world map, does not possess many natural resources. Therefore, she could only rely on her human capital to compete for survival in the highly competitive environment. With this backdrop, our school system is structured to produce economically useful knowledge and to classify people efficiently into different jobs that have to be filled in the stratified occupational structure.
Consequently, local children are brought up with the perception that knowledge is everything in life. Other aspects of life such as moral values are often neglected in our school curriculum as they pale in comparison with examinable subjects like English, Mathematics, Science and Mother Tongue. This, in turn, creates the “paper chase” phenomenon today.
2) Hybridity
Third space falls under hybridity because it is a combination of both the official and unofficial space. To me, the concept of third space is pretty similar to what we known as the “teaching moment", which is highly valued in our local education scene. A good teacher is often one who never fail to “seize the moment” to teach the children something that is outside of the syllabus.
There are several implications that teacher might have to consider when implementing third space in their lessons. Many times when children produce remarks to which they do not know how to respond, teachers simply chose not to address what has been just said, due to the fear of saying the wrong things. In addition, some teachers are too academic driven, to the extent that they would not forsake any time to teach beyond the syllabus. Others rejected the idea due to time constraint, a problem that is faced by many teachers in Singapore.
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