Adventures in Singapore: Spectra Secondary School Visit

Tuesday, 23 January 2018

We met Freddy at the Woodlands MRT station this morning to head to Spectra Secondary School. When we briefly met with the Deputy Director of General Education in Singapore during our first week here, she mentioned a innovative school that was doing great work with the normal tech stream (lowest academic) students in Singapore. We were all immediately intrigued and AST helped set up a visit to Spectra Sec today. It was an incredible visit and the school is clearly meeting students where they are at and helping them experience success academically. The principal, Mr. Krishnan Aravinathan, is an incredible school leader and it was great to get to spend the day learning about his vision for the school and how far they have come over the past 5 years since they opened.

This is what the principal wrote for in the informational brochure they gave us: "At Spectra Secondary School, we recognize the spectrum of talents and strengths of our students. We believe that every child has the potential to succeed and shine to their brightest. We want to provide the platforms for our students to shine. There will be room for them to make mistakes, learn and grow to become global citizens who will make a difference in the lives of others. Join us and be a part of close-knit community of students, parents, teachers, industry and community partners. Together, we will advance with a shared purpose to bring out the best in all who work, study, and dream here. Spectra is a place where our dreams take flight."

It was neat to see these words come to life in this school building. Spectra Sec has smaller class sizes of around 20 students, and maintains a vision that "every student will leave equipped to lead a fulfilling life." The principal spoke about the current reality of many normal tech students who often view school as boring, sedentary, rigid, tested to highlight weaknesses, criticized, alienated, lacking moral support, no choices, no control, negatively challenged. Spectra aims to create an environment where efforts are appreciated and rewarded, voices are heard, success is prevalent, students take ownership of their learning and work, help others and know how to reach out for help, where the values of school are real, and students feel positively challenged. Before joining Spectra, students described feeling discriminated, apathetic, bored, lacking confidence and frustrated at school. Now at Spectra, kids generally describe their experience at school as enjoyable, somewhere they find meaning, emotionally safe and respected, and confident.

The school seemed to be doing a lot of investing in activities and interest of students. For example, they talked about how there is a monthly initiative to teach the students a new skills. Recently it was juggling, and they talked with kids about how in life there are always things you will have to balance and juggle and that it is important to always keep learning new skills. We didn't get to experience the morning assembly, each day this open the school day with this ritual. During the morning assembly, they celebrate kids and staff who were "caught doing good" or do a fishbowl style "quick chat" where a teacher/staff or student will be interviewed so everyone can learn more about him/her. The principal also shared some about discipline at the school and how he tries to approach most situations as learning opportunities for kids to reflect on their actions and show empathy. For example, he talked about how kids were throwing their trash and empty bottles up onto a ledge as they came down the stairwell. He took pictures of the 70+ year old uncle, janitor, having to climb up a ladder and clean them all up and then spoke with the students about this issue at morning assembly. It seems like a common sense way to approach issues like this in schools, but I think far too often school resort to punishments for students rather than learning opportunities to get kids to actual reflect on their decision-making. There was a real sense of community, and the students seemed to exude a lot of joy. One cool idea they did was have a quarterly "boot sale" (yard sale) where all the staff, parents, and students could bring things to sell and they had a BBQ there too.

The school day is focused on 1/3 academic (math, English, Mother Tongue) + 1/3 vocational + 1/3 electives, character lessons (CCE) and optional academics (science, citizenship). We were able to visit classrooms, and also experience the "Escape Room" that they have built into the school building. Students sovle math problems that open up different portals in the "Escape Room." I want to remember to look into Breakout EDU (a company the school consulted with during the building phases). Here are some pictures of our visit, I loved all the student art and creations around the building: