National Institute of Education

Today I went to visit Singapore's National Institute of Education. The NIE is an institute of the Nanyang Technological University. It is where all of Singapore’s teachers go through teacher preparation. Students can go through a 1-year postgraduate program, or a 4-year undergraduate program. It is a competitive application process, which includes an interview and sometimes a teaching stint in a school where they can see your teaching aptitude. When students are admitted, they are considered teachers and are given a stipend while they do their studies.

At the NIE I met with the science education faculty and some of their students to share about how we teach science in Boston. In Singapore they do not formally include science in their curriculum until grade 3, so they were very interested in some of the student work samples that I showed them from my kindergarten and first grade students. They shared that in Singapore they are also working on improving student writing in science, like we are in Boston, and some teachers are even using the framework of Claims, Evidence, and Reasoning (CER) that our students are familiar with!

For lunch, we drove to Singapore’s countryside to Bollywood Veggies, a farm and education center. We ate at their restaurant, Poison Ivy Bistro, named for the founder Ivy Singh. We met Ivy, self-identified “warrior” who is an outspoken woman who doesn’t hesitate to tell you what she thinks about Singaporean politics and policies, while working for a more sustainable Singapore. We often eat family style, and this meal consisted of farm fresh veggies, along with curry chicken, tofu, and fried fish! (For fun, click here to see what Martha Stewart thought of this place!)

Aside from learning about how Singapore teaches elementary science, I am learning about how to eat my way through Singapore! For dinner, we ate the traditional meal of "Chicken Rice." It is rice, cooked in the chicken broth, eaten along with boiled chicken, chili sauce, and a variety of side dishes! Yum!