SingaporeMotherhood | Parenting

June 2019

Deanne Chong-Duffield, mum & founder of GUG (Growing Up Gifted), on passion, obsession, and gifted education

Deanne Chong-Duffield looks like the woman every girl wants to be when she grows up. The Founder-CEO of GUG (Growing Up Gifted), one of Singapore’s premier preschools, glows. The poised and eloquent mother of one looks decades younger than her 50-something years. When she speaks, though, the years of experience and her depth of expertise shine through. She shares her inspiring story, for the first time, here.

Growing Up

“My dad used to tell me, when I was 9 or 10 years old, that I would be the lawyer in the family. I could speak quite well, and he felt that I had the spunk of an advocate. He bought me my first law textbook when I was 12, and he would introduce me to everyone as “my lawyer to be.” I grew up thinking that being anything else would disappoint my father.

Eventually I went to the UK to study Law. It felt like a cross I had to bear, rather than something I was inspired to do. Back in Singapore, not surprisingly, I left legal practice after a few months. I joined the world of corporate banking instead, and persevered for a couple of years, but in truth I felt like a fish out of water.

Finding Her Calling for GUG

Then one day, I came across a huge write-up in the newspaper on brain development, and on what makes some children grow up to be geniuses.

Maybe it’s one of those things in life where it’s your calling — I became both fascinated and obsessed with the subject, so much so that I decided to go to the U.S. to pursue my Masters. I chose to do a double major in Early Childhood Education and Gifted Education – a rather unique combination.

I remember telling my parents how, for the first time in my life, I actually enjoyed studying and learning. To my astonishment, my dad wrote back, “I think you have finally found your niche.”

When I came back to Singapore, I planned to start my own preschool, to marry gifted education and early childhood education, and to raise the standard of local preschools.

However I wasn’t trained in business, and I had very little courage to start out on my own. So even though I had big plans, I shelved them because I was afraid I was going to fail.

At 35, I got married and my son came along. Then when he was four years old, I became a single mother. I felt I had to work even harder now in order to raise my child singlehandedly.

Learning From The Womb

When I was pregnant with Ethan (now 18, and enlisting into National Service soon), I was brimming with excitement. He was like a little project where I could download my pent-up passion and skills. To help boost his brain development, I forced myself to eat sardines and salmon every day. I purchased things that were not available in Singapore, like this instrument which was strapped onto the tummy to expose the foetus to rhythmic sound patterns.

At 12 months old, Ethan was a precocious child. I brought him around to some preschools and realised that even the so-called ‘best’ ones did not provide enough to stimulate him. There was no stretching of the boundaries. It was all normal early childhood education activities where they teach according to the child’s age.

Gifted education takes a different approach. No matter what your age is, it will challenge you and stretch your mental development, but in a way that is appropriate for your emotional development. So in the case of preschoolers, it would have to be challenging but fun, playful and interesting for the child. The goal is to encourage more complex thought processing.

Making the GUG Decision

When I talked about early childhood education to the other mummies in Ethan’s playgroup, I would be really passionate and excited about it. They asked, “Why don’t you start your own preschool? We would enroll our kids if you did.”

I looked at my son and thought, he’s going to grow up really quickly. I knew very well that 90 per cent of brain development takes place from birth to five years, and how important it is to provide adequate stimulation to take advantage of that growth spurt period. With that consideration, I decided to start GUG.

I faced strong objections from naysayers telling me I was going to fail. That I had no prior experience running a business, that I was starting out as an entrepreneur too late (at age 36), that I had chosen a “bad luck” location, and so on.

I had many fears, and almost gave up at some points. But I had just completed a personal development leadership course then, and one thing it taught me was that Fear and Courage go hand-in-hand together. To pursue my dreams, I must not be afraid to feel afraid!

Courage doesn’t mean you don’t get afraid. Courage means you don’t let fear stop you,” said one-armed surfer Bethany Hamilton. My challenges became my drivers and motivated me to push harder towards my goal.

Developing the GUG Phonics Method

GUG student giving the sound and signal for the letter n

I did exhaustive research, exploring the best phonics programmes out there. In the end I zoomed in on Zoophonics. I liked that it involved hand signals and actions. The science behind it made sense. Whenever you move, what you are learning gets locked into your long-term memory more quickly and efficiently.

However, it was designed for older children from the age of four to five years and up. And so I modified it to suit the youngest students in GUG, who would be 10 months old and up.

I tested it out on Ethan when he was 14 months old. Within three months he knew all the phonetic sounds, and at 18 months, he amazed us all by speaking in perfect sentences. Then at 20 months, he started stringing the letter sounds together to read words.

GUG as Pioneers in Preschool Education

Exploring and evaluating a chemistry project

Ethan attended K1 in another school as I was still preparing the kindergarten curriculum for GUG then. As soon as our K1 curriculum was done, I pulled him out of K2 in the other school. I felt that GUG’s K1 was more than enough to prepare him for primary school as it was pegged at a higher level than other schools’ K2 standards.

In Singapore, children are expected to have already acquired certain academic skillsets and content knowledge by the time they enter primary school. That is why I don’t believe it is enough to have just a play-based, inquiry-based curriculum without also placing an equal and well-structured emphasis on the academic subjects.

When taught well and seamlessly from PG to K2 levels, children grow to enjoy learning, and results will be consistently positive. This eliminates the “culture shock” and stress from being ill-prepared for our primary school syllabuses later on.

It is not just about what is taught, but HOW it is taught that matters. Reading, writing, math, science, history… young children and even babies can learn all these through fun, playful, creative methods. GUG has been doing it this way. We ensure that our kids not only have a great time learning, but are also very well prepared for primary school — academically, socially, emotionally, holistically.

Besides being pioneers in teaching phonics to babies and toddlers, we were also the first preschool in Singapore to have Science as a core subject, as well as weekly Social Studies and Current Affairs sessions.

With Social Studies, there is great emphasis on courage. The children would learn about political leaders, athletes, and those who had made it despite handicaps and obstacles. We also talked about ordinary kids who had done courageous things in their lives. I wanted children to feel that they could make a huge difference, and not be limited by their age and their size.

(See also: Growing Up Gifted and Courageous!)

Like Mother, Like Son?

Ethan is similar to me in his creativity, his analytical skills, his love for writing and his musical intelligence. However he is also different from me in many ways. He is more an observer, and careful, instead of jumping into something.

Ethan was in the GEP (Gifted Education Programme) in ACS and he enjoyed it even though there was a lot of pressure. He said that the best part was having freedom and creativity in project work.

He wrote short stories, poems, created a photo journal, and a graphic book about the momentous separation of Singapore from Malaysia. For him, the worst part was the stress of balancing long term projects with regular homework.

But I think the GEP is great. It teaches you to be independent, to do your own research and give persuasive presentations. It allows you the freedom to find what you are passionate about, and to do more of that.

(See also: Is your Child a Bright Spark?)

Moving On, The Future of GUG

In January 2018, we had to move out of United Square after 16 years there. I decided it was time to start GUG Preschools at Thomson and Tampines.

For the first time recently, Ethan attended one of my talks at an open house for the Tampines branch. I talked about the GUG philosophy, instilling five kinds of Courage, as well as our three processes — exploration, experiential learning, and evaluation.

Ethan told me that this was exactly what GEP was all about. Maybe this is something you should bring up to parents, he said.

That hadn’t occurred to me before. I just did it all based on my own training. And I thought, maybe this is why so many parents have given credit to GUG for having prepared their kids for GEP!

Connecting the Dots

The other day, in the supermarket, I saw a girl of about four or five years playing with a latch on a shelf. She was asking her parents what it was for.

Her parents just said “don’t touch!” — what many parents do. They impose limits on their children, and on their children’s learning and miss the teachable moments.

Steve Jobs once said that “creativity is just connecting things.” What parents need to do is to empower their children with the knowledge and the tools to make these connections.

But I would say that, above all, developing a courageous mindset is the most precious thing we can do to help our children thrive in the 21st Century.

Let children feel worthy, give them the tools and confidence so they learn to value themselves. When they do, they feel that they are capable of achieving or being something greater and better, and they boldly seek it. This is what “growing up gifted” is about, and what we at GUG have been doing all this while.”

Want to find out more about GUG?

Come to the Open Houses, meet the Growing Up Gifted team, and find out why GUG could be the best fit for your bright spark. Register your centre visit here

GUG Preschool @ Tampines
Sat 22 June, 11am – 2pm
Venue: 300 Tampines Ave 5, #07-01/07

GUG Preschool @ Thomson
Sat 29 June, 1pm – 3pm
Venue: 2 Derbyshire Rd

Open House 17 – 29 June 2019

  • Popcorn, carnival games and activities
  • Talk by Founder-CEO Deanne Chong-Duffield
  • Promotion: Save up to $2,000 when you enrol your child during Open House days.

All images: Deanne Chong-Duffield

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Deanne Chong-Duffield, mum & founder of GUG (Growing Up Gifted), on passion, obsession, and gifted education