03_BT_March 2022

Brand Story
BabyTalk recently had the opportunity to
catch up with two prominent siblings in
the education industry. They are Ms Anne
and Ms Melinda, founders of Lil Unicorn
Academy, and through our conversation,
we learned more of what the ideal
schooling environment should be like,
particularly at the early stages, or during
one’s early education. For those who are
not aware of this, these ladies have a rich
background in teaching children, whereby
Ms Anne was also quoted as saying
“There are individuals whom I have been
teaching throughout their entire schooling
life!” Her sister, Ms Melinda, who took
up teaching Math and Science subjects
in Singapore, happens to also be a civil
engineer by qualification. Read on to see
how this has played its own special role
in the school’s success.
How Lil Unicorn came to be also has a
rather interesting air to it, for the founders
did not decide to start from ‘the bottom’,
so to speak, or at the kindergarten and
preschool levels. Rather, they were already
trying to make some changes among
secondary school students before that.
“As we were attempting to clean up that
ecosystem, we could not help but notice
that this group of students are really
suffering as a result of a poor education
foundation,” Ms Anne explained. As they
worked backwards from secondary and
primary school levels, they were still not
truly aware yet of the ‘damages’ to be
uncovered ahead as a result of inadequate
earlier education.
“When we opened our schools and saw
what was coming in at the primary level
itself, we knew we had lots to undo, plus,
we have to offer families a better
foundation for their kids down from the
kindergarten level to start making a
difference,” Ms Anne shared.
The way kids were
meant to learn
They knew what they had to do and how
they wanted it done, and they also knew
that they had to step away from the
traditional ways if they were to help kids
excel. Since they already know that the
entire system wasn’t doing well in the
first place, conventionally trained
teachers would not have been right for
the job, that was for sure. So, imagine
if you will, the subject of Math, for
instance, being taught to kindergarten
kids by an engineer. Before we get to
that, did you know that there are very
few math-inclined people out there
compared to people who are not great
at math? Yes, studies show that 80% of
all people are not math-inclined. The
issue is, alarmingly, most of our math
curricula are created for schools by the
math-inclined. This means that most
students learning math are doomed to
failure or poor performance!
As a result of her research into how kids
learn best, Ms Melinda came to know
that kids tend to pick up lessons quicker
and more successfully when they are
initially introduced or exposed to
something, physically. In other words,
they need to hold, touch and see
something first before getting to the
pictorial aspect of it, and then only can
they fully grasp the abstract part of it. A
simple example was how Ms Melinda
herself introduced mathematics to her
then preschool daughter. “I would do
something like actually give her two
objects, sweets as an example. I would
then give her three more, and ask her
how many she had then. She would start
to count them and conclude that the
answer is five. Only after that will other
aspects of the subject, such as pictorial
and abstract come in,” she generously
shared. “Here’s the problem; the standard
way of teaching Math was created by
math-inclined people, hence they are
mostly, if not fully, abstract (as in, they
are taught from the beginning itself in
symbols such as 2 + 3 = 5),” revealed Ms
Melinda, a math-inclined engineer herself.
Another conventional method of teaching
is through rote learning and memorisation,
and if we look at the Math subject, you
can see how this isn’t going to end well.
“Memorising may work during the earlier
stages of learning mathematics, but when
students start to learn algebra, for
instance, they’re bound to run into serious
challenges which will negatively affect
their performance,” Ms Melinda went on
to explain. After offering more
comprehensive explanations of how
mathematics should ideally be taught to
kids, Ms Melinda added, “Imagine how
easy math can be for school children as
they grow older with all the proper
foundation laid out!” “In the meantime,
in our kindergarten, the little ones are
already sorting out their x’s and their
x-squares without issue,” Ms Anne
quipped with a smile! Well, that is the
power of quality education delivered by
quality educators, if you ask us. And, do
keep in mind that this is just one example,
out of one school subject, whereby they
all need to be rectified for children to be
successful learners.
Lil Unicorn: The best of
the East and the West
Finland has one of the best education
systems in the world - a fact well-known
by many. As explained by Ms Anne, the
aim at Lil Unicorn was to merge the best
practices from the East and West to come
up with a curriculum that works, while
still maintaining important education
elements that most Asian parents are
reluctant to do away with. Ms Anne went
on to explain that the solutions to the
education issues we’re facing in the East
should ideally come from the East. “We
cannot fully adopt the whole idea of how
they teach over in the West and implement
it here, for that would not work,” she
stated. Hence at Lil Unicorn, what they’ve
done is anchored the best practices taken
from Finland to what we already have
here. It’s also where techniques come to
play, such as techniques in counting, as
well as memorising, to the point of being
able to use them for a lifetime!
The way Ms Anne and Ms Melinda see
it, and we tend to agree fully, the old
system has failed. And leaving things be
when it comes to kids’ education will just
keep reaping the same old results of them
suffering throughout their schooling years
and beyond, being miserable, with low
self confidence, and with very little sense
of creativity. They’ll also be losing out a
lot, especially in the Western world where
one would need to be able to converse
well and sell their ideas. The Eastern way
of education focuses a whole lot on
academic rigour, without much room left
over for social and emotional growth -
which are actually very important for the
complete development of children.
Children need to enjoy their lessons and
have a sense of fun while learning. At Lil
Unicorn, adopting some best practices
from the Finnish education system means
that fun and zest are now introduced into
the curriculum, allowing kids to enjoy
their schooling so much that they don’t