Twelfth week lecture 1 – FISH PHILOSOPHY

Fish philosophy??? A fish has a philosophy??? That was the first impression after I heard about it. So, is that mean a crab, a cat and etc also has a philosophy. Erm, I am wondering what is fish philosophy is all about. After Prof Maznah gave this article, http://www.charthouse.com/content.aspx?nodeid=1066, I was quite clear what fish philosophy is. A fish philosophy is a skill that provides the process, tools and language to generate the skills necessary to design a workplace full of inspiration, creativity and innovation.

 

WHY IT IS CALLED FISH PHILOSOPHY?

         

On a visit to Seattle, Christensen observed how animated and happy the employees at Seattle's Pike Place Fish Market were in their work. They filled orders by flinging fish to each other, inciting laughter from the customers and compliments about their throwing/catching abilities, or commiseration if they missed. Employees would often invite customers to join the fun. The Pike Place employees gave their complete attention to each of their customers and ensured each had an enjoyable visit.

Christensen realized that not only were the workers making a routine errand fun for themselves and their customers, they also were selling tons of fish. He constructed the FISH! Philosophy from his observations of Pike Place employees, arriving at four key concepts:

§                     Play

§                     Make Their Day

§                     Be there

§                     Choose Your Attitude

 

I started to like this philosophy. This is because I think it is very suitable to be applied in the classroom. As a teacher, be there is important as it shows our concern towards our students’ learning. We have to support and guide them because they need us a guider. Pupils believe that teacher is everything for them. They even will refuse to listen to their mother’s advice if their teacher asks them to do something. By being there, it makes me realize how important for a teacher in order to make students interested with their learning as well as acquire the knowledge.

Children love to play. Unconsciously, actually children do not come to the English language classroom empty handed. They bring with them an already well-established set of instincts, skills and characteristics which help them to learn another language. For example, children take great pleasure in finding and creating fun in what they do. So, what we as a teacher can do in order to make them play and keep on feel excited to learn.

 

•         Keep a sense of playfulness and fun.

•         Avoid drill and rote memorization.

•         Use group setting to encourage interaction among children.

•         Encourage children curiosity about language and experiment with language and print.

 

Teacher must not have sense of bias or favourite students. Treat them equally as it makes them feel they are not isolated by their teacher. Students like teacher pay more attention to them as they believe their teacher cares and love them. Teacher is important in order to make their day bright and not gloomy.

 

As teacher, we have to choose our attitude. This is because we must portray a good example to our students. Pupils will make their teacher as their role model. If we portray bad attitudes towards them, the fish philosophy cannot be applied as the practices are not complete.