In preparation for my application for the teaching internship programme, i thought of writing a personal statement in response to the question posted by the Ministry of Education. The title of the essay is shown below.
What are some of the values and beliefs that you hold strongly to? Please provide examples of how you have demonstrated these in your actions.
Values play a very important role in one’s overall psychological well-being. They shape a person’s character and directly impacts the way he reasons morally in every action he takes in his life. My belief is further justified after listening to Mr Teo Chee Hean’s SAF day speech: “Fundamental to the 3G SAF soldier are the values that are imbued in generations of the SAF” during my National Service. This is especially so when i was a commander in NS, i need to align those values to my followers as a leader myself.
Being a morally upright person, i always believed honesty is a virtue. There was once when i caught one of my classmates cheating during a history class test in secondary school. Feeling that it was not right, i spoke to him in person about fairness and integrity. Fortunately, he realised his mistake and owned up to the teacher. I was glad that the teacher did not punish him because he knew his mistake. My ethics were further being demonstrated in army. During my BMT training, i noticed that one of my commanders taught something wrongly. Having the moral courage, i pointed out the mistake to him without hesistation.
I take great responsibility in whatever i do especially when i am given the opportunity to lead in school and in the army. This could be because i always take pride in my work. As a class leader during my college days, i assisted my teacher by managing the class through several duties and organising several projects. As I was also the captain of the recreation badminton team, i enjoyed organising badminton matches for my 45 members in the CCA. Due to my good performance in NS, i was sent to prestigious courses and became the NSF Sergeant Major of my company, and led all my specialists and men to glory.
I am a person who is self-motivated and optimistic, hence have great fighting spirit. This is especially so when i was required to undergo tough trainings during my NS days. Being a combat soldier, SOC and IPPT were physically intense and mentally testing activities that i had to go through. With my mental strength, i was able to overcome all the obstacles in SOC and achieved a GOLD timing in my IPPT.
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Hi Zi Kai,
ReplyDeleteYou've substantiated all the values you mentioned with valid examples, which is good. Also, the values you mentioned are all applicable to being a teacher. However, I felt that your last paragraph was left hanging without a conclusion.
Also, I notice some tense errors, especially when you were giving your examples, you used present tense for those events that were in the past.
Oh and you mentioned "my belief is further justified.." I feel that it sounds a little odd because when you believe in something, there is no need to justify it by quoting someone? Just what I think.
That's about all. Thanks for your post. =)
Hey Zi Kai,
ReplyDeleteInteresting post with good examples. You answered the question but lacked a conclusion.
I found some tense errors also and some of the sentences structure was a little weird to me. Here's my attempt to correct them for you :D
First paragraph
I think you can omit "to me" in the starting paragraph. "values play a very important role in one’s overall psychological make-up." Maybe a better word for "make-up" could be "state" or "well-being".
"They shape a person’s character and directly impacts the way on how he reasons morally in every action he does in his life"<< this sentence is a bit weird.
Maybe you could omit "on how" and "morally in" and replace "does in his life" to "takes".
Second paragraph
"Being a morally upright person, i always believe that honesty is a virtue." to "..., I've always believed honesty..."
"Fortunately, he realised his mistake and corrected it by owning up to the teacher." to "...realised his mistake and owned up..."
Third paragraph
"My ethics is further being demonstrated in army. During my BMT training, i notice that one of my commanders taught something wrongly. Having the moral courage, i pointed out the mistake to him without hesistation." Your tenses are quite inconsistent :p "My ethics were...", "I noticed that..."
"As a class leader during my college days, i assisted my teacher by managing the class through the several duties and organising several projects." Maybe you can remove "the" so it becomes "...the class through several..."
Last paragraph
"This is especially so when i need to undergo tough trainings during my NS days." to
"...when I needed to..."
"Being a combat soldier, SOC and IPPT are physically intense and mentally testing activities that i must go through."
Maybe "...SOC and IPPT were..." and "...that I had to go through"? Unless you are still taking those tests?
Sorry for the long comment, I hope it was useful and correct :p
Uh, maybe you can have someone correct my comment to see if I made any mistakes.
Catherine
hey thanx for the correction of the language errors,catherine. i did not notice the tense errors until you mention it. i shall edit my post.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Zikai.
ReplyDeleteI think this statement is very well aligned to the task requested by the MOE. In that way, I think you've done a fine job. At the same time, I also really appreciate the comments left by Catherine and Geok Ting. These are very appropriate, especially in regard to your language use.
Be careful as well to use the capital I instead of the small i when referring to yourself.
Finally, they might have missed this sentence: i need to align those values to my followers as a leader myself. In it you use the verb "align" wrong!
Did your buddy read this?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi, I was reading the blogs and saw Brad's comment. Nope.. We did not edit each other's work this time.
ReplyDeleteZi Kai,
ReplyDeleteI refer to the following sentence:
"Due to my good performance in NS, i was sent to prestigious courses and became the NSF Sergeant Major of my company, and led all my specialists and men to glory."
Personally, I feel to be appointed as a Sergeant Major of a company while you are an NSF is a HUGE achievement. So I would recommend that you use stronger adjectives so as to draw the reader's attention.
1) Replace "good" with "outstanding" or "excellent"
2) Replace "sent to" with "enrolled into".
3) delete "and became" end the sentence and insert "Subsequently, I was promoted as"
4) "led men to glory" in which aspect? if you led your soldiers in ATEC, then make sure you talk about it, because it's a gigantic achievement.
Cheers,
Ji Wei
Hi zi kai!
ReplyDeleteYou did a good job in linking up your traits with the question. It is a good thing that you used your army life in your examples since most Singaporean men always have bad things to say about their army days. It shows that you were appreciating your army life which is rare!
I agree with the rest with the language problem. Maybe next time you should read it through at least twice before posting it on the blog.