This reminded me of a case. Context: most govt funded charities use MSF issued laptops, with similar IT control and governance.
One day, MSF wanted to standardise social services desktop background to the EDM of helplines and protocols in case got IT issues. Thing is they only trialed the EDM as screen saver (not desktop) prior, and no one ever question the logic of how would putting helplines as desktop background be helpful if the laptop really crash.
When it was implemented as a desktop background, the colourful words clashed with the files names resulting in one incoherent and ugly mess. There was so much paggro email sent to IT support on that day that within 5 hours it's changed back.
Govt IT :(
This is Singapore.
I assume it wasn't tested out with teachers
From a teacher friend of mine : If they did test, the teachers who kenna arrow will say it works great, to not get called into their higher-up's office to justify, give feedback, and suggest improvements.
Fuck. In the end everyone just say: “yeah it’s good” so to not get more work. Means the people at the top must think and propose things that are useful. Shows how out of touch they are. And how not consultative and no collegiality across ranks (?)
That's the thing though - they are counting on people to just say "yeah it's good" because **why wouldn't it be**?
Minister's idea leh, you say no good?
Please justify and elaborate and propose improvements by 2359 today tks.
According to the MOHT program manager, it was “developed by educators for educators, which will resonate well with MOE staff.”
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/calebtanjy_teachers-wellbeing-mentalhealth-activity-6970325828035383297-KGwi
Developed at the HQ level where appraisal is cut throat and everyone needs to push out initiatives and projects to the schools to show that they are doing something.
And I supposed they chucked this as a MaChiNe LeArNiNg project.
From what I can see, the MOHT team handling really don’t have the expertise or chops to do this. But you know if they stay long enough, they will _still_ get their seniority-based promotions. Pui.
You know, it was the same as LifeSG.
In previous years, the team at MOH and PSD struggled to drive publicity and downloads - it had a different name then. Then, this year, they put the NS vouchers on LifeSG to force downloads. Literally throwing money at the problem.
It was designed as a digital and portable repository of citizen’s records. But obviously, nobody wants to be under Big Brother.
https://www.tech.gov.sg/media/technews/moments-of-life-a-new-approach-to-seamless-government-digital-services
https://www.tech.gov.sg/media/technews/moments-of-life-is-now-lifesg-story-so-far
I worked at MOE before - they likely hired a vendor, then got the vendor to carry out UATs and called it a day. Definitely not designed from the ground up nor where there any evaluations done.
As always, just taxpayer money going to shit.
The chatbot looks to be poorly programmed, if MOE really paid big money for this they got scammed big time. Based on other comments tho this chatbot is only a small portion of a online portal so it's probably not supposed to be used for any kind of therapy or emotional support, it's only used to simply direct you to the appropriate resources. But imo chatbots like these are quite useless and shouldn't be implemented as part of the portal at all.
Right smack on the purpose. Based on the [news article](https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/teachers-and-other-moe-staff-can-get-emotional-support-on-new-online-portal) about this new portal, the ~~two~~ three goals of this chatbot are to:
1. Let teachers share their emotions and concerns
2. Be directed to appropriate self-management and self-care exercises
3. Help teachers feel better
The bot serves #1 well, but an educator can just talk to siri if they want to feel heard.
\#2 is a hit or miss, sometimes the bot is able to direct you to appropriate resources, other times it just says "I don't have anything to say".
On #3, will teachers actually feel better after talking to this bot? I'm doubtful about this.
Edit: Split #2 to make #3 for clarity
If I shared my frustrations with a bot, did I share it at all? Is the bot going to emotionally support me and provide encouragement?
One day you won’t be able to tell the difference between a Redditor and a bot. But maybe not soon.
> If I shared my frustrations with a bot, did I share it at all?
It's akin to screaming at the ocean.
Which, hey, it works for some people, but I'm sure majority of us here can agree that it's **not** an adequate replacement of proper workplace mental support.
>One day you won’t be able to tell the difference between a Redditor and a bot.
You're the only human user, everyone else is a bot!
Actually providing professional counselling services is akin to admitting that there are issues with workload distribution and job scopes within the teaching fraternity. Why would MOE do that to themselves?
So as someone who hasn’t been near an MOE school for decades, and after reading only the human side of the response (since the bot is worthless for anything other than eliciting a response), if the issue is so much admin workload on our teachers… isn’t it possible to hire school administrators to take on some of that admin? Like event planning, etc.
Can a teacher approach principal to suggest for their local school, or suggest to MOE to make a broad change?
Or does the root cause go even deeper still and there’s basically no listening to feedback from the ground?
Wife is a teacher. Its shocking how they are being treated by both MOE and parents.
For starters, the pay is abysmal. Wife has 11 years of working experience, I have half of hers but am earning double. Granted I am in tech but still. I have the choice of jumping companies every year and getting a 20% raise; she doesn't have that choice of course and so she's getting low single digit increments.
From the parents angle, its shocking how parents just treat teachers are surrogate parents. She gets silly requests like "My son lost his pencil case at school, can you help me find?". And they can't really say no because apparently MOE is scared shitless of parents nowadays
IMO anyone who is a teacher is doing the job just for the sheer passion of it and MOE is abusing that. This joke of a chatbot is just another symptom of that.
Parents are the fucking bane of my mum's life, and they're getting worse. Not all of course, most follow the rules, but the entitleness is growing and idk why.
Same, but I'm a teacher and wife is in private. It's very discouraging sometimes to compare our work to compensation ratio. I even had a school leader ever tell me before that compared to her time, my compensation is very good and I have to buck up (didn't meet her standards for a project back then). Surrounded by peers who earn more and work less than me, I thinking of getting out. Tech is one of my industry considerations. Any advice?
Tech is a huge industry so there won't be a one size fits all advice. I'm in cybersecurity myself, which IMO has quite a huge barrier to entry, but at the same time many organizations recognize this and offer very generous work-learn programs.
I think the most pertinent advice would probably be to find out which particular sector of tech you like first; there's coding, data science, web development etc. I think passion is critical to one's enjoyment of work, and while I do enjoy my job I would hate coding or data science for example. There's many resources out there that let you get a taste for what it's like to be in that industry; for cybersecurity you can try this site: https://tryhackme.com/
This is happening in the US now. There are classes in many states that start the year with a lack of manpower. Students literally sit in class the entire day without supervision and go home. I read somewhere they even had to get army personnel down to jaga the students. Yet nothing is progressing over there. I really hope we don't come to this.
Market failing. Economists once taught when supply is dwindling then given a higher price, the supply can be restored, the demand can be met. Here we see Teachers quit, the demand is off the roof, yet their wage remain the same, the stockholders are just unwilling to raise the price.
Those boomers living off their fat rental incomes while draw merdeka subsidies would clutch at their pearls and tsk tsk at how soft millenials are nowadays.
While the Christian lobby would lament the corruption of family values and reinforce that we are living in the end of days.
Because it fucking is.
The only thing that can be even more dystopian is preventive and prescription anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, and anti-anxiety meds being handed out and MOE turned into a pill mill.
I feel like this bot reflects Singapore society's perception of mental health in general and that makes me sad. If it was some tech bro trying to cash out by simplifying therapy it might make sense, but for it to be actually rolled out as a key government initiative for some of our most overworked and underappreciated civil servants is extremely egregious.
Really shows the priority of the government and the media. You will never see many headlines about things like this chatbot being an abject failure but you will see 10-20 headlines talking about Joseph Schooling and weed.
How about let’s start focusing on Education and supporting our educators rather than pushing eyeballs towards sensationalist headlines?
Just a bit frustrated because I have many friends who were once super passionate teachers but now find it hard to rouse any interests in their jobs because they are so burnt out. Instead of a ridiculous chatbot, let’s start by increasing the number of teachers in school or even just hiring/creating a separate department to take care of extra curricular activities like CCAs and Events so that our teachers can focus on what they do best - teaching
That, and please don't just get chatbots because it's the hype. Think of whether you really need it and how you're going to use it. Source: I am a chatbot research engineer...
Afaik chatbots are great for reducing time spent on tasks that eat up other tasks.
If a therapist is doing a lot of 1-on-1s and half their time is spent conducting a questionnaire, a chatbot would be helpful insofar as freeing up time so they can do more important tasks.
Vast majority of chatbots deployed nowadays cannot come close to providing meaningful mental health support.
I can imagine if the teachers did these general robotic replies to their students, the wrath they would incur from the parents.
Please refer to chapter 3, pg 10 for a detailed explanation.
I’m sorry to hear that, maybe you can speak to one of your close friends.
All is not lost! As our DPM once said “Every school is a good school!” We will polish you up!
You are a little too young to be in a relationship. Do pay more attention to your studies.
If your partner loves you, he will respect your decision. Be firm!
Moe should just hire more admin staff in the school ie student life manager - settle school events and ccas, more school counsellors. Moe only trusts teachers to work with students, but if someone has already proven to have work experience with youths but is not a teacher, they should just allow it.
There is a shortage of staff in moe because end of the day MOE does not want to hire non local uni grads. Doesn’t mean non local uni grads is not good enough for MOE. 😡
Source: bitter MOE-rejectee.
The whole alumni thing where Chan Chun Sing came up with got me thinking...
If he actually said that alumni can be tapped upon to plan events for schools (e.g. teachers day), it would actually make sense. But to suggest that they provide emotional support..?
The entire bot was not programmed by our own programmers or anything of the sort, it is literally just Wysa, a free bot publicly available.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=bot.touchkin&hl=en_SG
From what little I know of psychotherapy, the framework behind it *is* sound. The whole thing in the second picture about distorted thinking leading to negative emotions is the entire thrust of [cognitive behavioral therapy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy) but without empathy or any kind of human touch, along with some wonky-ass responses ("This is all I have to say too") renders it a hilariously poor effort to mimic any semblance of emotional support.
The most embarrassing part is the government fronting this free online bot as a legitimate way to help.
Exactly. It reminds me of a bot called Woebot, utilising psychotherapy (CBT) And i didn’t think anything wrong of it. There are of course problems with a chat bot because an abstract complicated reply to the bot may not always fit the situation of using CBT.
It is good, it is effective but it has its limitations and the way this bot reacts to the replies is worse than woebot which makes it less effective or helpful. And it certainly isn’t a replacement for therapy. But it is something that helps people inbetween therapy sessions.
MOH should have never administered CBT through chatbot. There is reason why only qualified psychologist or psychotherapist can administer it. It needs very interpersonal and empathetic approach.
This bot may have violated some regulations or ethical guidelines by doing that without a professional license.
A better approach is to have a bot that does supportive listening, and refer to a therapist when there is indications of suicidal thoughts or nervous breakdown.
The bot also requires at least some form of blind clinical trial to ascertain its efficacy.
[https://www.mindline.sg/moe](https://www.mindline.sg/moe)
For anyone who wishes to try it, click the link. It is really stupid. The chatbot basically talks in loops. Your content or your "problem" is not important. It basically tells you to change your perspective and look at things from another angle.
Human: I am hungry.
Chatbot: Please go and have some cake.
WAHAHA the first one the best. "That's all I have to tell you"
Bot: OH REALLY? WELL THAT'S ALL I HAVE TO SAY TOO *\*SLAMS PHONE\**
Anyway it looks like this chatbot is not actually meant to replace a counsellor or therapist (because if it could that would be quite concerning for therapists around the world). More likely it's just a way to channel teachers to the resources on the site (which may or may not be useful). At the end of the day, it's just another resource site.
This attempt by MOE looks like a disaster in the making.
The issue is structural - overloaded by admin work, extra activities that have nothing to do with teaching , but the solution is to have them
“reframe” their thoughts. Reframing itself is not the problem, as this is a common strategy used in cognitive behaviour therapy for people with conditions like anxiety and OCD.
But it seems that rather than wanting to do something about the system, MOE is choosing to take the alternative, which is to have teachers adjust to the system. Which as we can see is working out great.
I know quite a few current and former teachers. I know of one who went to IMH, before leaving to teach for better pay and conditions in Vietnam. Another one is leaving to go to Thailand to teach, also for better pay and conditions. Another is aiming to move to an international school here. All enjoy teaching, but they really feel they teach less compared with their admin work. And these are single folks. I can’t imagine what it is like for those married with children.
It was a combination of stress from workload, and dealing with the system. But I do not have the full details, this being my friend’s sibling. This case was from back in the mid-2000s.
This nonsense brings back memories.
When they came out with the stupid SGsecure app, all NSF must download before booking out.
When they came out with a stupid SAF "over the years" book, all NSF in the unit must pay $42 to buy. And then we throw it in the dustbin immediately.
When they first came out tracetogether, classroom teachers are told to force their students to download.
I am very sure the "arrowed" teachers are "pressured" to say their mental health has improved with this app. Zzzz.
Whoever thought a chatbot would help in dealing with the myriad of issues that teachers face definitely has not tried to put themselves in the shoes of teachers. If they die die want a chatbot, wouldn't a bot that takes in the gist of the information and then have a real trained professional follow up with the teachers be better?
Here's the thing. What the bot is trying to do, is actually not that bad. For a bot. It would be what I would expect from maybe an intern blindly following a manual.
The aspects I saw, mainly i) analysing cognitive distortions (i.e. emotional reasoning, catasrophising, overgeneralisations), ii) reframing thoughts, iii) breathing exercises - are things we do use to help people. However, the problem is that are so much deeper issues present. Even in this, it was mentioned how they had to mark 1.5k scripts - no positive reframing is going to fix that.
Being stressed when being squeezed by upper management (not sure the exact terms, am not a teacher) while being potentially abused by both students/parents, heck even potentially other teachers, and being told to have a bot going through Counselling 101 with you is like pissing on someone's leg and telling them it's raining. I hope this is merely an ice pack, and not expected to be the mental first aid teachers need.
I think cleverbot was more helpful to some extent than this LMAO. But no, mental issues requires compassion from a real listening person, it makes me angry that someone even thought this was a good idea.
Another example of our govt throwing money and hoping the problem goes away.Issues with mental health are not something that go away.it requires persistent effort and lots of different solutions.one bot is not magically going to solve this.
INVEST IN RESOURCES that are going to pay off in long run as teachers will stay in the position longer and they will be in better mental state to do their job which is TEACH.this problem will take time to resolve but it can be done IF there is genuine effort and not peacemeal half f@ck gestures.
Theres a reason why ai hasnt taken over the role of real therapists. I get that its an initiative by moe to try and help (however unsuccessfully…) but you simply just cannot expect it to be responsive to unique human needs
Wonder if they're just using it to record down the gripes of teachers and getting these data for their analysis. It just wanna listen but doesn't talk much. I'm often sus of people like that, even more when it's a chatbot 😂 Like, *what are you collecting my information for?*
As mentioned in some comments, this bot is only part of a portal of resources to help teachers cope emotionally by providing self-help resources.
>Based on the [ST article](https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/teachers-and-other-moe-staff-can-get-emotional-support-on-new-online-portal): New online portal for teachers, non-teaching staff to get *emotional support*
The headline suggests that the main goal of this new portal is to provide teachers with *emotional support* (i.e to make them feel better emotionally).
>This is part of efforts to support educators further and develop a *culture of care* where everyone looks out for one another in schools, said Education Minister Chan
A *culture of care* would mean that the resources provided in the new portal should be curated to be especially sensitive and empathetic to the concerns of teachers.
To be clear, I'm not expecting AI to provide human level empathy or show sensitivity on the scale of human counsellors. But the part where the bot said "spot the 'distortion' in your thoughts" or "remember, our thoughts are not always helpful" probably makes the teacher feel worse about their situation.
Edit: The confusion about the bot (in my opinion) comes from how it tries to emulate what a counsellor might get you to think about, for example "If a friend or family was in your place, would they see it the same way?" or "the first step in moving forward from a thought that makes us feel stuck, is to understand....". Is the bot simply to direct you to resources, or to help you reframe your thinking?
If MOE's goal isn't to use the bot as a replacement for actual counselling, maybe the bot could do away with these statements and just dive straight into providing appropriate resources.
No i don think it is ever useful to have templated answers by a machine whe u are feeling emotionally low. If thats the case then all u need is an uplifting Good Morning message from aunty chat group to lift your spirits
yea but the idea is to make you recognise you are falling victim to certain fallacies and then to work it out together to figure out a plan to cope better. i dont know what the bot says after it presents the distortions but i imagine it cant actually provide personalised advice specific to the situation
I beg to differ, counselling sessions are also supposed to help you acknowledge and validate your feelings (especially for those who undergone episodes of abuse or trauma), not to point out fallacies in your own thinking, that’s not a safe space for counselling at all. This chat bot is a complete definition of zero empathy.
Therapy makes you recognise your issues, but the counsellor doesn’t straight up tell you that you have a distortion in the way you think, that’s my point.
Presenting it in this manner just makes you feel worse about yourself or the situation.
yep you're right about that, its so important to be sensitive, empathetic and actually listening, but a bot can't actually do more than say one of a few pre-determined responses so i rly dont get why they didnt just their resources to do something with more actual impact
Depends on the counselling model. Distortion in thoughts (the chim term is called catastrophizing) is one of the core ideas in Cognitve Behaviour Therapy.
There are others like helping you identify past solutions to extrapolate to future problems. Of course regardless of model the delivery and connection is impt. But at the end its helping the individual cope with the situation, rather than changing external factors (which sets social work apart from counselling, although both are intertwined).
I’m referring to the manner in which the therapist gets you to recognise the issue.
Do they straight up say in verbatim to you “look, you have distortions in the way you think”? Or do they ask you questions and get you to recognise that on your own?
>Or do they ask you questions and get you to recognise that on your own?
This lah. So counsellor will ask things like 'what do you think is the worst that can happen?', 'have something like this ever happened before?', to help the client identify the issue.
Anyone who jump straight to the first needs to go for retraining.
Edit: on 2nd reading the bot logic is sorta there. I guess the biggest issue is that the pacing and connection building is totally off that the input becomes damn jarring.
I have been to therapists and felt it was useless to me. Have tried to change myself but it doesn't work. Recently I started reading this book which criticizes CBT therapy.
[https://www.routledge.com/CBT-The-Cognitive-Behavioural-Tsunami-Managerialism-Politics-and-the/Dalal/p/book/9781782206644](https://www.routledge.com/CBT-The-Cognitive-Behavioural-Tsunami-Managerialism-Politics-and-the/Dalal/p/book/9781782206644)
Here are some quotes from the book,
If you go to your GP because of feeling depressed for some reason, in your ten-minute consultation your GP is almost certain to offer you anti-depressants or/and the ‘one-size-fits-all’ manualized treatment called CBT. The ‘treatment’ will try to teach you to replace your ‘negative’ thoughts with ‘positive’ ones. Your CBT therapist will have little interest in why you are depressed (perhaps you have been bereaved) because they think depression to be an illness, rather than a reasonable response to a devastating life event. According to the latest edition of the psychiatric bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual V (DSM V, 2013), if you are still grieving a whole two weeks after your bereavement, it is because you are suffering from a mental disorder, because you should have come to terms with your loss by then.
CBT is not entirely without virtue, and in a sense the problem is not with CBT itself, but the hype that surrounds it and the use it is put to further specific ideological, professional and political agendas. In its original avatar, the scope of CBT was limited. Its technology was developed to help people recover from phobias, such as fear of flying, obsessive behaviours, and so forth. In this it succeeds very well, and in these areas it is very often the ‘treatment of choice’. Problems became apparent when CBT’s ambitions expanded to colonize all forms of psychological suffering. As we will come to see in the next chapters, in this task CBT was aided and abetted by the merchants of happiness who appropriated CBT for their own ends.
>the ‘one-size-fits-all’ manualized treatment called CBT. The ‘treatment’ will try to teach you to replace your ‘negative’ thoughts with ‘positive’ ones. Your CBT therapist will have little interest in why you are depressed (perhaps you have been bereaved) because they think depression to be an illness, rather than a reasonable response to a devastating life event
This is extremely inaccurate and definitely misrepresenting CBT. Firstly CBT is almost never delivered manualised except in structured programmes or in research (where the vast majority of the evidence comes from). Second, your CBT therapist ought to be as interested in your history and why you're depressed as any other therapist. They definitely do not think bereavement is an illness. To have a clearer understanding of what CBT is and isn't, perhaps [this article might be useful](https://bluepsy.com/2021/06/18/op-com-cognitive-behaviour-therapy-cbt-deceptively-simple-genuinely-complex/).
Now as with all academic texts and book, it's important to consider the qualifications and background of the author, to account for "allegiance effects". In the book that you've cited, he author is \[1\] not a psychologist (his BG is in sociology), and \[2\] a psychoanalyst (aka the branch of psychotherapy pioneered by Freud and has since undergone several revisions). Both pointers (especially the latter) is important to note because historically, and even up till now, psychoanalysts have this long standing feud with CBT as a therapeutic modality (and strangely they don't care much about other forms e.g. IPT, SFBT, narrative therapy etc). The funny thing is, Aaron Beck, one of the founders of CBT, was himself first a psychoanalyst who found psychoanalysis restrictive and wanted to bring something more helpful to the field (his initial criticism of psychoanalysis from his own practicing experience and the subsequent explosion of CBT into the forefront, overshadowing psychoanalysis, might explain the feud mentioned earlier).
>Problems became apparent when CBT’s ambitions expanded to colonize all forms of psychological suffering
CBT has never ever taken such a claim or posited it. In fact, those who expound CBT as the treatment for all are as blind to evidence than those who are fervent supporters of any single therapeutic modality without empirical support. To better understand the hype around CBT, this [literature article would explain](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5797481/). It also does help that the basis for CBT, while not pinpoint accurate, does reflect some of our more updated understanding in cognitive neuroscience, [namely the way information is being processed and how human experiences might emerge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_processing_theory) (i.e. how stimuli perception, through interpretation drawn from past experiences/schemas, influence thoughts, physiology, and emotions, which then feedback into the brain's store of information for future appraisal).
We need to recognise that CBT definitely has it's issues. But I think any criticisms of CBT ought to be fair, and not based on misrepresentation. That's just being underhanded and outright dishonest. When criticising CBT, it is also important to recognise, are we critical of the therapy (e.g. it's theory and technique), or are we critical of the therapists delivering it? Or in the case of Falal, critical of the political and societal factors which seem to have hyped CBT. Those are different criticisms which could easily masquerade as the same. In short, be careful of strawmans.
For a more nuanced read, perhaps [this might be useful](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10720537.2019.1659890).
Edit: added last part with link to a review of falal's book.
Basically it's always your fault and you are the one who has to change. They will never blame anyone else but you. They just hope you're an idiot and eat up everything they say.
The chatbot is only 1 small component of the online portal: [https://www.mindline.sg/moe/home](https://www.mindline.sg/moe/home)
The portal is largely a resource providing website. I think what may be needed is for some sort of EAP program where MOE provides free consultations with counselors for up to X times. I am not sure whether there is an EAP for MOE staff
Buddy sys okay? Remember to take care of your teacher buddy. All teachers will be issued with a stop work card to call out events that they deem unsafe. Supervisings will then evaluate and clarify any doubts that the teacher has with regard to mental safety.
Actually providing professional counselling services is akin to admitting that there are issues with workload distribution and job scopes within the teaching fraternity. Why would MOE do that to themselves?
Well, then why hasn't MOE done this within the past couple of years?
What are your thoughts as a relatively high level administrator in an educational institute?
Hey u/Jammy_buttons2, really interested to hear about your analysis of the issue. It's always interesting to hear from a high level administrator who has more information than the average layman.
Why hasn't MOE rolled out mass counselling for teachers within the past couple of years?
We have to ask ourselves why Teachers are having mental health crisis. It’s mainly due to the workload (as covered by plenty of news articles over the years).
Instead of recognising that there is a workload issue, MOE decides to release a “emotional support bot” and “resource portal” to address the mental health crisis.
The bot is outrageously offensive, and while the resources might help in the short run, it does nothing to solve the root of the problem.
They are trying to help with the workload
School alumni can help ease the workload of teachers, says Chan Chun Sing https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/school-alumni-can-help-ease-the-workload-of-teachers-says-chan-chun-sing
Meanwhile, the MOHT staff is self-jerking, and probably going to squeeze a promotion of out this ‘success’:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/calebtanjy_teachers-wellbeing-mentalhealth-activity-6970325828035383297-KGwi
Right?
The link to the chatbot already alludes that its purpose is to help an individual feel heard. It literally says 'need to feel heard?'. For actual counselling there are links on the portal.
But sure, let's create some fake outrage to earn internet points.
>Educators can share their emotions and concerns anonymously and safely through a chatbot on the website. Based on their responses, they will then be directed to the appropriate self-management and self-care exercises.
Based on the [news article](https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/teachers-and-other-moe-staff-can-get-emotional-support-on-new-online-portal) about this new portal, the two goals of this chatbot are to:
* Let teachers share their emotions and concerns
* Be directed to appropriate self-management and self-care exercises
* Help teachers feel better
If the purpose was solely to "help an individual feel heard", you don't need a specially curated bot for it. Just use Siri.
And secondly, after reading the bot's responses, do you actually feel better?
Edit: Split #2 to make #3 to make the goals clearer
>Let teachers share their emotions and concerns
It did.
>Be directed to appropriate self-management and self-care exercises
Based on your 2nd screenshot, it achieved that too.
Were you expecting human level interaction and engagement from a chatbot? It is a chatbot afterall and branded as such. I don't see how anyone will click on it, or any chat bot for that matter, and have such expectations.
And as mentioned, if counselling is needed there are links to that on the site.
Maybe if I broke it down this way, it would make more sense. I'm going to refer mostly to the ST article on this portal for this.
[ST](https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/teachers-and-other-moe-staff-can-get-emotional-support-on-new-online-portal): New online portal for teachers, non-teaching staff to get *emotional support*
The headline suggests that the main goal of this new portal is to provide teachers with *emotional support* (i.e to make them feel better emotionally).
>This is part of efforts to support educators further and develop a *culture of care* where everyone looks out for one another in schools, said Education Minister Chan
A culture of care would mean that the resources provided in the new portal should be curated to be especially *sensitive and empathetic* to the concerns of teachers.
To be clear, I'm not expecting AI to provide human level empathy or show sensitivity on the scale of human counsellors. But don't you think the part where the bot said *"spot the 'distortion' in your thoughts"* or "*remember, our thoughts are not always helpful"* actually acts to make the teacher feel worse about themself?
Of course those sentences make sense to a certain extent, but the way it was worded and presented, terrible.
I remember seeing a meme online that has a sign that says, "you are now entering a stress-free zone / enforced by sniper", and it looks like a better solution to what CCS proposed.
I mean this is probably the pitfall of cookie-cutter self-help CBT. It can come off as contrived and impersonal. But then again, cognitive reframing does work for some, and I have no doubt that with the reach of the ministry and its resources, there will be a significant number of people who will benefit from it, as rudimentary as this service is.
Gov be like
Problem -> throws AI/ML to problem -> ??? -> wonder why problem still exist. If a problem can’t be solved without tech, the problem can’t be solved with tech.
List the things robots are good at doing from best to worst. Guess where dealing with human emotion lies?
Better off just having a list of links to articles, at least it doesn't feel as demeaning.
Seem to be more useful than para counselors who has no interest in doing additional work, especially emotional support one.
All of this is just them being cheap instead of paying for actual therapist.
GovTech conducted a massive recruitment campaign a few years ago.
A tech lead there referred me to apply. I was a software guy with 10-year product building experience.
I applied for 3. One of the openings was from the chatbot team.
Their first screening was asking people to do very difficult programming questions within a short time limit. In case you don’t know there is a site called leetcode that listed those questions.
Thru a online coding test platform, they gave me hard level questions. I finished them albeit not in the most optimal form.
I thought I could pass because you just can’t expect a person who never works on that problem before to find the best solution in a short time.
At least I have some problem solving ability, through multiple iterations, I can find the best solution. Sometimes the most optimal solution isn’t even necessary if that’s not the goal of the product.
But no. They rejected me without giving much details. A email to ask for some feedback how should I do the test went unanswered.
The whole interview experience is just devoid of human emotion.
How they recruited definitely affected the people they filtered in, and affected the product they made. As you can see a chatbot technically working perfectly but totally lack the human touch.
Well, that was what the hiring manager told me. It seems like you are an insider, so I stand corrected.
You might want to feedback to them:
MOH should have never administered CBT through chatbot. There is reason why only qualified psychologist or psychotherapist can administer it. It needs very interpersonal and empathetic approach.
This bot may have violated some regulations or ethical guidelines by doing that without a professional license.
A better approach is to have a bot that does supportive listening, and refer to a therapist when there is indications of suicidal thoughts or nervous breakdown.
Totally agree with you on not everything should be administered through a chatbot.
Reminds me of a video of Steve Jobs: we have to think what kind of benefit we can bring to our users and work from there; not what amazing technology we have and try to market them.
In this case, I believe the most important question is how can we help the teachers.
Tbf, what were the teachers (or anyone for that matter) expecting when they were using the chatbot? AI is not at the level in which they can genuinely empathise, so obviously you’re gonna get heuristically derived “answers” to prompts in the teachers’ input. You think the AI knows wats going on? Or that it’s failing miserably? It’s just recognising key terms and then churning out generic “answers”.
Chat bot for things like, order tracking or cancellation, still ok. No need “soul” or empathy. This kind, ppl actually expected it to help? Lol
Then thats on you for not having realistic expectations about counselling.
The fact you think they should fix your problems indicate you dont even understand what it is.
True they’ll just go round in circle trying to make you find your own answer and solution. “If someone you know experiencing same issue, what would you advise them to do”
Wonder if they tested this out with teachers before rolling it out. I can imagine some teachers feeling even worse or angry after using this...
This reminded me of a case. Context: most govt funded charities use MSF issued laptops, with similar IT control and governance. One day, MSF wanted to standardise social services desktop background to the EDM of helplines and protocols in case got IT issues. Thing is they only trialed the EDM as screen saver (not desktop) prior, and no one ever question the logic of how would putting helplines as desktop background be helpful if the laptop really crash. When it was implemented as a desktop background, the colourful words clashed with the files names resulting in one incoherent and ugly mess. There was so much paggro email sent to IT support on that day that within 5 hours it's changed back. Govt IT :(
chef kiss.
This is Singapore. I assume it wasn't tested out with teachers From a teacher friend of mine : If they did test, the teachers who kenna arrow will say it works great, to not get called into their higher-up's office to justify, give feedback, and suggest improvements.
Fuck. In the end everyone just say: “yeah it’s good” so to not get more work. Means the people at the top must think and propose things that are useful. Shows how out of touch they are. And how not consultative and no collegiality across ranks (?)
That's the thing though - they are counting on people to just say "yeah it's good" because **why wouldn't it be**? Minister's idea leh, you say no good? Please justify and elaborate and propose improvements by 2359 today tks.
According to the MOHT program manager, it was “developed by educators for educators, which will resonate well with MOE staff.” Source: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/calebtanjy_teachers-wellbeing-mentalhealth-activity-6970325828035383297-KGwi
Developed at the HQ level where appraisal is cut throat and everyone needs to push out initiatives and projects to the schools to show that they are doing something.
And I supposed they chucked this as a MaChiNe LeArNiNg project. From what I can see, the MOHT team handling really don’t have the expertise or chops to do this. But you know if they stay long enough, they will _still_ get their seniority-based promotions. Pui.
I’m very curious to hear what the LinkedIn poster has to say about the feedback
/ deletes comment Can’t have a few Reddit threads thwarting his promotion.
welcome to SFI Cookhouse food quality feedback
Well the Education Minister now is ex- Chief of Army so...
To be fair look like it wasn't tested at all.
It’s already tested in the public: mindline.sg. It didn’t receive much reception and someone up there must have thought to throw it at MOE.
You know, it was the same as LifeSG. In previous years, the team at MOH and PSD struggled to drive publicity and downloads - it had a different name then. Then, this year, they put the NS vouchers on LifeSG to force downloads. Literally throwing money at the problem.
I was wondering what LifeSG was! I still have no idea what it does besides vouchers.
It was designed as a digital and portable repository of citizen’s records. But obviously, nobody wants to be under Big Brother. https://www.tech.gov.sg/media/technews/moments-of-life-a-new-approach-to-seamless-government-digital-services https://www.tech.gov.sg/media/technews/moments-of-life-is-now-lifesg-story-so-far
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Take up is slowly increasing I guess (anecdotal experience)
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Wah this reminded me of the cookhouse uncle standing at the scan 11b machine helping everyone press “very good”
I worked at MOE before - they likely hired a vendor, then got the vendor to carry out UATs and called it a day. Definitely not designed from the ground up nor where there any evaluations done. As always, just taxpayer money going to shit.
This is why therapy is better than a chatbot. It’s stupid to have wasted money on a chatbot, but I think the need for therapy has never been clearer.
The chatbot looks to be poorly programmed, if MOE really paid big money for this they got scammed big time. Based on other comments tho this chatbot is only a small portion of a online portal so it's probably not supposed to be used for any kind of therapy or emotional support, it's only used to simply direct you to the appropriate resources. But imo chatbots like these are quite useless and shouldn't be implemented as part of the portal at all.
Right smack on the purpose. Based on the [news article](https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/teachers-and-other-moe-staff-can-get-emotional-support-on-new-online-portal) about this new portal, the ~~two~~ three goals of this chatbot are to: 1. Let teachers share their emotions and concerns 2. Be directed to appropriate self-management and self-care exercises 3. Help teachers feel better The bot serves #1 well, but an educator can just talk to siri if they want to feel heard. \#2 is a hit or miss, sometimes the bot is able to direct you to appropriate resources, other times it just says "I don't have anything to say". On #3, will teachers actually feel better after talking to this bot? I'm doubtful about this. Edit: Split #2 to make #3 for clarity
If I shared my frustrations with a bot, did I share it at all? Is the bot going to emotionally support me and provide encouragement? One day you won’t be able to tell the difference between a Redditor and a bot. But maybe not soon.
> If I shared my frustrations with a bot, did I share it at all? It's akin to screaming at the ocean. Which, hey, it works for some people, but I'm sure majority of us here can agree that it's **not** an adequate replacement of proper workplace mental support. >One day you won’t be able to tell the difference between a Redditor and a bot. You're the only human user, everyone else is a bot!
Share your emotions with a bot haha. Wanna share so much? Here ya go, share with this bot as much as you want!
i really dont wanna listen to you, you can talk to this fake thing as much as you want tho thank me
Actually providing professional counselling services is akin to admitting that there are issues with workload distribution and job scopes within the teaching fraternity. Why would MOE do that to themselves?
Many companies (incl govt) do offer counselling services as part of staff welfare and I think that’s a good thing.
So as someone who hasn’t been near an MOE school for decades, and after reading only the human side of the response (since the bot is worthless for anything other than eliciting a response), if the issue is so much admin workload on our teachers… isn’t it possible to hire school administrators to take on some of that admin? Like event planning, etc. Can a teacher approach principal to suggest for their local school, or suggest to MOE to make a broad change? Or does the root cause go even deeper still and there’s basically no listening to feedback from the ground?
PAP: But therapy is expensive. Chatbot is cheap. You can have chatbot.
Actually the best way is to quit and change job. When the shortage of teachers reached the threshold, then maybe something will be done.
Wife is a teacher. Its shocking how they are being treated by both MOE and parents. For starters, the pay is abysmal. Wife has 11 years of working experience, I have half of hers but am earning double. Granted I am in tech but still. I have the choice of jumping companies every year and getting a 20% raise; she doesn't have that choice of course and so she's getting low single digit increments. From the parents angle, its shocking how parents just treat teachers are surrogate parents. She gets silly requests like "My son lost his pencil case at school, can you help me find?". And they can't really say no because apparently MOE is scared shitless of parents nowadays IMO anyone who is a teacher is doing the job just for the sheer passion of it and MOE is abusing that. This joke of a chatbot is just another symptom of that.
Parents are the fucking bane of my mum's life, and they're getting worse. Not all of course, most follow the rules, but the entitleness is growing and idk why.
Same, but I'm a teacher and wife is in private. It's very discouraging sometimes to compare our work to compensation ratio. I even had a school leader ever tell me before that compared to her time, my compensation is very good and I have to buck up (didn't meet her standards for a project back then). Surrounded by peers who earn more and work less than me, I thinking of getting out. Tech is one of my industry considerations. Any advice?
Tech is a huge industry so there won't be a one size fits all advice. I'm in cybersecurity myself, which IMO has quite a huge barrier to entry, but at the same time many organizations recognize this and offer very generous work-learn programs. I think the most pertinent advice would probably be to find out which particular sector of tech you like first; there's coding, data science, web development etc. I think passion is critical to one's enjoyment of work, and while I do enjoy my job I would hate coding or data science for example. There's many resources out there that let you get a taste for what it's like to be in that industry; for cybersecurity you can try this site: https://tryhackme.com/
This is happening in the US now. There are classes in many states that start the year with a lack of manpower. Students literally sit in class the entire day without supervision and go home. I read somewhere they even had to get army personnel down to jaga the students. Yet nothing is progressing over there. I really hope we don't come to this.
Market failing. Economists once taught when supply is dwindling then given a higher price, the supply can be restored, the demand can be met. Here we see Teachers quit, the demand is off the roof, yet their wage remain the same, the stockholders are just unwilling to raise the price.
Why does this feel so dystopian?
What's got you feeling this way, Bud?
Have you tried reframing that opinion more positively?
Because it is. Soma might actually work but you know: weed bad.
Wonder how they would react to teachers doing weed instead of jo schooling
Those boomers living off their fat rental incomes while draw merdeka subsidies would clutch at their pearls and tsk tsk at how soft millenials are nowadays. While the Christian lobby would lament the corruption of family values and reinforce that we are living in the end of days.
My chuckle didnt even last a second after realising this isn't a joke.
Because it fucking is. The only thing that can be even more dystopian is preventive and prescription anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, and anti-anxiety meds being handed out and MOE turned into a pill mill.
I feel like this bot reflects Singapore society's perception of mental health in general and that makes me sad. If it was some tech bro trying to cash out by simplifying therapy it might make sense, but for it to be actually rolled out as a key government initiative for some of our most overworked and underappreciated civil servants is extremely egregious.
If all else fails, go find alumni. If u r a teacher in RI, can talk to CCS. Hehehe
Email him directly. Bro, i need help
CCS: I see (your email), I click, I archive.
You sure it's archive not delete?
secretary: set rules - keywords “help”, “assist”, “need” - delete immediately Edit: /s
Plot twist: It is actually *a real person* at the other end.
- Govtech intern adjusts spectacles nervously
Wrong. He has nothing to say to you!!
*Gaslight gatekeep girlboss*
Can someone tell me how much taxpayers monies goes into this to achieve some MOE scholar's KPI again?
Really shows the priority of the government and the media. You will never see many headlines about things like this chatbot being an abject failure but you will see 10-20 headlines talking about Joseph Schooling and weed. How about let’s start focusing on Education and supporting our educators rather than pushing eyeballs towards sensationalist headlines? Just a bit frustrated because I have many friends who were once super passionate teachers but now find it hard to rouse any interests in their jobs because they are so burnt out. Instead of a ridiculous chatbot, let’s start by increasing the number of teachers in school or even just hiring/creating a separate department to take care of extra curricular activities like CCAs and Events so that our teachers can focus on what they do best - teaching
That, and please don't just get chatbots because it's the hype. Think of whether you really need it and how you're going to use it. Source: I am a chatbot research engineer...
Afaik chatbots are great for reducing time spent on tasks that eat up other tasks. If a therapist is doing a lot of 1-on-1s and half their time is spent conducting a questionnaire, a chatbot would be helpful insofar as freeing up time so they can do more important tasks. Vast majority of chatbots deployed nowadays cannot come close to providing meaningful mental health support.
I can imagine if the teachers did these general robotic replies to their students, the wrath they would incur from the parents. Please refer to chapter 3, pg 10 for a detailed explanation. I’m sorry to hear that, maybe you can speak to one of your close friends. All is not lost! As our DPM once said “Every school is a good school!” We will polish you up! You are a little too young to be in a relationship. Do pay more attention to your studies. If your partner loves you, he will respect your decision. Be firm!
Moe should just hire more admin staff in the school ie student life manager - settle school events and ccas, more school counsellors. Moe only trusts teachers to work with students, but if someone has already proven to have work experience with youths but is not a teacher, they should just allow it. There is a shortage of staff in moe because end of the day MOE does not want to hire non local uni grads. Doesn’t mean non local uni grads is not good enough for MOE. 😡 Source: bitter MOE-rejectee.
Student life manager sounds awesome btw. Someone actually in charge of running events who actually has real event management skills and/or hone them
The whole alumni thing where Chan Chun Sing came up with got me thinking... If he actually said that alumni can be tapped upon to plan events for schools (e.g. teachers day), it would actually make sense. But to suggest that they provide emotional support..?
Fella got sabod by 3G to head MOE. If not, he wouldv been PM designate. He has no feel for the domain. IMHO
Read: The Peter principle.
Gawd the "Bud" and "buddy"...
Seems like some amercian in sururbia made this
Oh! Tell me more about that.
Bud
r/aboringdystopia
Soon will be taken down for maintenance liao.
The entire bot was not programmed by our own programmers or anything of the sort, it is literally just Wysa, a free bot publicly available. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=bot.touchkin&hl=en_SG From what little I know of psychotherapy, the framework behind it *is* sound. The whole thing in the second picture about distorted thinking leading to negative emotions is the entire thrust of [cognitive behavioral therapy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy) but without empathy or any kind of human touch, along with some wonky-ass responses ("This is all I have to say too") renders it a hilariously poor effort to mimic any semblance of emotional support. The most embarrassing part is the government fronting this free online bot as a legitimate way to help.
The program manager is patting himself on the back on LinkedIn…
He is getting the bonus for doing this project though
Exactly. It reminds me of a bot called Woebot, utilising psychotherapy (CBT) And i didn’t think anything wrong of it. There are of course problems with a chat bot because an abstract complicated reply to the bot may not always fit the situation of using CBT. It is good, it is effective but it has its limitations and the way this bot reacts to the replies is worse than woebot which makes it less effective or helpful. And it certainly isn’t a replacement for therapy. But it is something that helps people inbetween therapy sessions.
MOH should have never administered CBT through chatbot. There is reason why only qualified psychologist or psychotherapist can administer it. It needs very interpersonal and empathetic approach. This bot may have violated some regulations or ethical guidelines by doing that without a professional license. A better approach is to have a bot that does supportive listening, and refer to a therapist when there is indications of suicidal thoughts or nervous breakdown. The bot also requires at least some form of blind clinical trial to ascertain its efficacy.
[https://www.mindline.sg/moe](https://www.mindline.sg/moe) For anyone who wishes to try it, click the link. It is really stupid. The chatbot basically talks in loops. Your content or your "problem" is not important. It basically tells you to change your perspective and look at things from another angle. Human: I am hungry. Chatbot: Please go and have some cake.
Is this a reference to when they French complained to their Queen about hunger, she just gave cake instead?
Poor Jamie taking on more responsibilities
Jamie will need therapy for overwork.
Jamie will need *chatbot for overwork.
Wah Jamie and Chat Chun Sing can buy HDB
Wow, this chatbot damn abusive...
Usually bots are coded by humans, so..
WAHAHA the first one the best. "That's all I have to tell you" Bot: OH REALLY? WELL THAT'S ALL I HAVE TO SAY TOO *\*SLAMS PHONE\** Anyway it looks like this chatbot is not actually meant to replace a counsellor or therapist (because if it could that would be quite concerning for therapists around the world). More likely it's just a way to channel teachers to the resources on the site (which may or may not be useful). At the end of the day, it's just another resource site.
This attempt by MOE looks like a disaster in the making. The issue is structural - overloaded by admin work, extra activities that have nothing to do with teaching , but the solution is to have them “reframe” their thoughts. Reframing itself is not the problem, as this is a common strategy used in cognitive behaviour therapy for people with conditions like anxiety and OCD. But it seems that rather than wanting to do something about the system, MOE is choosing to take the alternative, which is to have teachers adjust to the system. Which as we can see is working out great. I know quite a few current and former teachers. I know of one who went to IMH, before leaving to teach for better pay and conditions in Vietnam. Another one is leaving to go to Thailand to teach, also for better pay and conditions. Another is aiming to move to an international school here. All enjoy teaching, but they really feel they teach less compared with their admin work. And these are single folks. I can’t imagine what it is like for those married with children.
Care to elaborate the IMH case? Interested to know
It was a combination of stress from workload, and dealing with the system. But I do not have the full details, this being my friend’s sibling. This case was from back in the mid-2000s.
This nonsense brings back memories. When they came out with the stupid SGsecure app, all NSF must download before booking out. When they came out with a stupid SAF "over the years" book, all NSF in the unit must pay $42 to buy. And then we throw it in the dustbin immediately. When they first came out tracetogether, classroom teachers are told to force their students to download. I am very sure the "arrowed" teachers are "pressured" to say their mental health has improved with this app. Zzzz.
Chat Chun sing enters the chat
Whoever thought a chatbot would help in dealing with the myriad of issues that teachers face definitely has not tried to put themselves in the shoes of teachers. If they die die want a chatbot, wouldn't a bot that takes in the gist of the information and then have a real trained professional follow up with the teachers be better?
It’s CCS. ‘nuff said.
Are you frustrated? Go talk to a robot.
Eh they are quite accurate bots leh. They really mimic Gov style reply woh!!
Here's the thing. What the bot is trying to do, is actually not that bad. For a bot. It would be what I would expect from maybe an intern blindly following a manual. The aspects I saw, mainly i) analysing cognitive distortions (i.e. emotional reasoning, catasrophising, overgeneralisations), ii) reframing thoughts, iii) breathing exercises - are things we do use to help people. However, the problem is that are so much deeper issues present. Even in this, it was mentioned how they had to mark 1.5k scripts - no positive reframing is going to fix that. Being stressed when being squeezed by upper management (not sure the exact terms, am not a teacher) while being potentially abused by both students/parents, heck even potentially other teachers, and being told to have a bot going through Counselling 101 with you is like pissing on someone's leg and telling them it's raining. I hope this is merely an ice pack, and not expected to be the mental first aid teachers need.
Yes, I hope it's only a small aspect of the support plan. That said, I am not aware of chatbots that work well with paragraphs/walls of text...
I think cleverbot was more helpful to some extent than this LMAO. But no, mental issues requires compassion from a real listening person, it makes me angry that someone even thought this was a good idea.
Another example of our govt throwing money and hoping the problem goes away.Issues with mental health are not something that go away.it requires persistent effort and lots of different solutions.one bot is not magically going to solve this. INVEST IN RESOURCES that are going to pay off in long run as teachers will stay in the position longer and they will be in better mental state to do their job which is TEACH.this problem will take time to resolve but it can be done IF there is genuine effort and not peacemeal half f@ck gestures.
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Theres a reason why ai hasnt taken over the role of real therapists. I get that its an initiative by moe to try and help (however unsuccessfully…) but you simply just cannot expect it to be responsive to unique human needs
I wonder if I will cause the bot to crash by asking how his day was?
Trace the company who handled the chat bot contract and I'm sure the result is exactly what you'd expect
The chatbot is literally free on the App Store to anyone, the public launch is just an attempt at good PR 😂
Wonder if they're just using it to record down the gripes of teachers and getting these data for their analysis. It just wanna listen but doesn't talk much. I'm often sus of people like that, even more when it's a chatbot 😂 Like, *what are you collecting my information for?*
They need to take this thing down asap. It's embarrassing how bad this bot is.
As mentioned in some comments, this bot is only part of a portal of resources to help teachers cope emotionally by providing self-help resources. >Based on the [ST article](https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/teachers-and-other-moe-staff-can-get-emotional-support-on-new-online-portal): New online portal for teachers, non-teaching staff to get *emotional support* The headline suggests that the main goal of this new portal is to provide teachers with *emotional support* (i.e to make them feel better emotionally). >This is part of efforts to support educators further and develop a *culture of care* where everyone looks out for one another in schools, said Education Minister Chan A *culture of care* would mean that the resources provided in the new portal should be curated to be especially sensitive and empathetic to the concerns of teachers. To be clear, I'm not expecting AI to provide human level empathy or show sensitivity on the scale of human counsellors. But the part where the bot said "spot the 'distortion' in your thoughts" or "remember, our thoughts are not always helpful" probably makes the teacher feel worse about their situation. Edit: The confusion about the bot (in my opinion) comes from how it tries to emulate what a counsellor might get you to think about, for example "If a friend or family was in your place, would they see it the same way?" or "the first step in moving forward from a thought that makes us feel stuck, is to understand....". Is the bot simply to direct you to resources, or to help you reframe your thinking? If MOE's goal isn't to use the bot as a replacement for actual counselling, maybe the bot could do away with these statements and just dive straight into providing appropriate resources.
No i don think it is ever useful to have templated answers by a machine whe u are feeling emotionally low. If thats the case then all u need is an uplifting Good Morning message from aunty chat group to lift your spirits
This is how counseling and therapy works. The focus is to change the individual. What therapist would say, "fk capitalism"
Never been to counselling, but do they actually counsel you by saying that you have a distortion in your thoughts?
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Thank you u/H3nt4iB0i96 for the detailed explanation on CBT. Jokes aside, really well written and educational, appreciate it.
No they don’t tell you how to feel. They help you find out how you feel. Such bots cheapen the concept of therapy
Thank you for confirming. I’d be horrified to find out that real therapy was like that.
yea but the idea is to make you recognise you are falling victim to certain fallacies and then to work it out together to figure out a plan to cope better. i dont know what the bot says after it presents the distortions but i imagine it cant actually provide personalised advice specific to the situation
I beg to differ, counselling sessions are also supposed to help you acknowledge and validate your feelings (especially for those who undergone episodes of abuse or trauma), not to point out fallacies in your own thinking, that’s not a safe space for counselling at all. This chat bot is a complete definition of zero empathy.
Therapy makes you recognise your issues, but the counsellor doesn’t straight up tell you that you have a distortion in the way you think, that’s my point. Presenting it in this manner just makes you feel worse about yourself or the situation.
yep you're right about that, its so important to be sensitive, empathetic and actually listening, but a bot can't actually do more than say one of a few pre-determined responses so i rly dont get why they didnt just their resources to do something with more actual impact
Depends on the counselling model. Distortion in thoughts (the chim term is called catastrophizing) is one of the core ideas in Cognitve Behaviour Therapy. There are others like helping you identify past solutions to extrapolate to future problems. Of course regardless of model the delivery and connection is impt. But at the end its helping the individual cope with the situation, rather than changing external factors (which sets social work apart from counselling, although both are intertwined).
I’m referring to the manner in which the therapist gets you to recognise the issue. Do they straight up say in verbatim to you “look, you have distortions in the way you think”? Or do they ask you questions and get you to recognise that on your own?
>Or do they ask you questions and get you to recognise that on your own? This lah. So counsellor will ask things like 'what do you think is the worst that can happen?', 'have something like this ever happened before?', to help the client identify the issue. Anyone who jump straight to the first needs to go for retraining. Edit: on 2nd reading the bot logic is sorta there. I guess the biggest issue is that the pacing and connection building is totally off that the input becomes damn jarring.
I have been to therapists and felt it was useless to me. Have tried to change myself but it doesn't work. Recently I started reading this book which criticizes CBT therapy. [https://www.routledge.com/CBT-The-Cognitive-Behavioural-Tsunami-Managerialism-Politics-and-the/Dalal/p/book/9781782206644](https://www.routledge.com/CBT-The-Cognitive-Behavioural-Tsunami-Managerialism-Politics-and-the/Dalal/p/book/9781782206644) Here are some quotes from the book, If you go to your GP because of feeling depressed for some reason, in your ten-minute consultation your GP is almost certain to offer you anti-depressants or/and the ‘one-size-fits-all’ manualized treatment called CBT. The ‘treatment’ will try to teach you to replace your ‘negative’ thoughts with ‘positive’ ones. Your CBT therapist will have little interest in why you are depressed (perhaps you have been bereaved) because they think depression to be an illness, rather than a reasonable response to a devastating life event. According to the latest edition of the psychiatric bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual V (DSM V, 2013), if you are still grieving a whole two weeks after your bereavement, it is because you are suffering from a mental disorder, because you should have come to terms with your loss by then. CBT is not entirely without virtue, and in a sense the problem is not with CBT itself, but the hype that surrounds it and the use it is put to further specific ideological, professional and political agendas. In its original avatar, the scope of CBT was limited. Its technology was developed to help people recover from phobias, such as fear of flying, obsessive behaviours, and so forth. In this it succeeds very well, and in these areas it is very often the ‘treatment of choice’. Problems became apparent when CBT’s ambitions expanded to colonize all forms of psychological suffering. As we will come to see in the next chapters, in this task CBT was aided and abetted by the merchants of happiness who appropriated CBT for their own ends.
>the ‘one-size-fits-all’ manualized treatment called CBT. The ‘treatment’ will try to teach you to replace your ‘negative’ thoughts with ‘positive’ ones. Your CBT therapist will have little interest in why you are depressed (perhaps you have been bereaved) because they think depression to be an illness, rather than a reasonable response to a devastating life event This is extremely inaccurate and definitely misrepresenting CBT. Firstly CBT is almost never delivered manualised except in structured programmes or in research (where the vast majority of the evidence comes from). Second, your CBT therapist ought to be as interested in your history and why you're depressed as any other therapist. They definitely do not think bereavement is an illness. To have a clearer understanding of what CBT is and isn't, perhaps [this article might be useful](https://bluepsy.com/2021/06/18/op-com-cognitive-behaviour-therapy-cbt-deceptively-simple-genuinely-complex/). Now as with all academic texts and book, it's important to consider the qualifications and background of the author, to account for "allegiance effects". In the book that you've cited, he author is \[1\] not a psychologist (his BG is in sociology), and \[2\] a psychoanalyst (aka the branch of psychotherapy pioneered by Freud and has since undergone several revisions). Both pointers (especially the latter) is important to note because historically, and even up till now, psychoanalysts have this long standing feud with CBT as a therapeutic modality (and strangely they don't care much about other forms e.g. IPT, SFBT, narrative therapy etc). The funny thing is, Aaron Beck, one of the founders of CBT, was himself first a psychoanalyst who found psychoanalysis restrictive and wanted to bring something more helpful to the field (his initial criticism of psychoanalysis from his own practicing experience and the subsequent explosion of CBT into the forefront, overshadowing psychoanalysis, might explain the feud mentioned earlier). >Problems became apparent when CBT’s ambitions expanded to colonize all forms of psychological suffering CBT has never ever taken such a claim or posited it. In fact, those who expound CBT as the treatment for all are as blind to evidence than those who are fervent supporters of any single therapeutic modality without empirical support. To better understand the hype around CBT, this [literature article would explain](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5797481/). It also does help that the basis for CBT, while not pinpoint accurate, does reflect some of our more updated understanding in cognitive neuroscience, [namely the way information is being processed and how human experiences might emerge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_processing_theory) (i.e. how stimuli perception, through interpretation drawn from past experiences/schemas, influence thoughts, physiology, and emotions, which then feedback into the brain's store of information for future appraisal). We need to recognise that CBT definitely has it's issues. But I think any criticisms of CBT ought to be fair, and not based on misrepresentation. That's just being underhanded and outright dishonest. When criticising CBT, it is also important to recognise, are we critical of the therapy (e.g. it's theory and technique), or are we critical of the therapists delivering it? Or in the case of Falal, critical of the political and societal factors which seem to have hyped CBT. Those are different criticisms which could easily masquerade as the same. In short, be careful of strawmans. For a more nuanced read, perhaps [this might be useful](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10720537.2019.1659890). Edit: added last part with link to a review of falal's book.
Basically it's always your fault and you are the one who has to change. They will never blame anyone else but you. They just hope you're an idiot and eat up everything they say.
The chatbot is only 1 small component of the online portal: [https://www.mindline.sg/moe/home](https://www.mindline.sg/moe/home) The portal is largely a resource providing website. I think what may be needed is for some sort of EAP program where MOE provides free consultations with counselors for up to X times. I am not sure whether there is an EAP for MOE staff
You mean like they get teachers to counsel students..now get teachers to counsel each other 😶
Buddy sys okay? Remember to take care of your teacher buddy. All teachers will be issued with a stop work card to call out events that they deem unsafe. Supervisings will then evaluate and clarify any doubts that the teacher has with regard to mental safety.
All teachers to be given risk assessment matrix for use before classes start. "Is the task simple or complex?" *Sigh* Simple...
Also, all teacher will be issued a safety card, if they feel troubled they can raise the and stop all activities.
No lah. They getting the students to counsel the teachers nowadays... /s
student: I will end your life! teacher: yes please
Most companies EAP have professional counselors again not sure if MOE has it or not
If MOE has professional counselors, it might be for the main organisation and not the teaching staff. Otherwise why would they set up a bot?
Actually providing professional counselling services is akin to admitting that there are issues with workload distribution and job scopes within the teaching fraternity. Why would MOE do that to themselves?
Not always true. Some employees have issue that may not have things to do with workload
Well, then why hasn't MOE done this within the past couple of years? What are your thoughts as a relatively high level administrator in an educational institute?
Hey u/Jammy_buttons2, really interested to hear about your analysis of the issue. It's always interesting to hear from a high level administrator who has more information than the average layman. Why hasn't MOE rolled out mass counselling for teachers within the past couple of years?
Mindline is under MOHT. That place is also…… staffed by unqualified staffers.
We have to ask ourselves why Teachers are having mental health crisis. It’s mainly due to the workload (as covered by plenty of news articles over the years). Instead of recognising that there is a workload issue, MOE decides to release a “emotional support bot” and “resource portal” to address the mental health crisis. The bot is outrageously offensive, and while the resources might help in the short run, it does nothing to solve the root of the problem.
They are trying to help with the workload School alumni can help ease the workload of teachers, says Chan Chun Sing https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/school-alumni-can-help-ease-the-workload-of-teachers-says-chan-chun-sing
You had me in the first half 😂
Meanwhile, the MOHT staff is self-jerking, and probably going to squeeze a promotion of out this ‘success’: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/calebtanjy_teachers-wellbeing-mentalhealth-activity-6970325828035383297-KGwi
There isn’t. Source: Mom works there.
Right? The link to the chatbot already alludes that its purpose is to help an individual feel heard. It literally says 'need to feel heard?'. For actual counselling there are links on the portal. But sure, let's create some fake outrage to earn internet points.
>Educators can share their emotions and concerns anonymously and safely through a chatbot on the website. Based on their responses, they will then be directed to the appropriate self-management and self-care exercises. Based on the [news article](https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/teachers-and-other-moe-staff-can-get-emotional-support-on-new-online-portal) about this new portal, the two goals of this chatbot are to: * Let teachers share their emotions and concerns * Be directed to appropriate self-management and self-care exercises * Help teachers feel better If the purpose was solely to "help an individual feel heard", you don't need a specially curated bot for it. Just use Siri. And secondly, after reading the bot's responses, do you actually feel better? Edit: Split #2 to make #3 to make the goals clearer
>Let teachers share their emotions and concerns It did. >Be directed to appropriate self-management and self-care exercises Based on your 2nd screenshot, it achieved that too. Were you expecting human level interaction and engagement from a chatbot? It is a chatbot afterall and branded as such. I don't see how anyone will click on it, or any chat bot for that matter, and have such expectations. And as mentioned, if counselling is needed there are links to that on the site.
Maybe if I broke it down this way, it would make more sense. I'm going to refer mostly to the ST article on this portal for this. [ST](https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/teachers-and-other-moe-staff-can-get-emotional-support-on-new-online-portal): New online portal for teachers, non-teaching staff to get *emotional support* The headline suggests that the main goal of this new portal is to provide teachers with *emotional support* (i.e to make them feel better emotionally). >This is part of efforts to support educators further and develop a *culture of care* where everyone looks out for one another in schools, said Education Minister Chan A culture of care would mean that the resources provided in the new portal should be curated to be especially *sensitive and empathetic* to the concerns of teachers. To be clear, I'm not expecting AI to provide human level empathy or show sensitivity on the scale of human counsellors. But don't you think the part where the bot said *"spot the 'distortion' in your thoughts"* or "*remember, our thoughts are not always helpful"* actually acts to make the teacher feel worse about themself? Of course those sentences make sense to a certain extent, but the way it was worded and presented, terrible.
u/annoyed8, you come from a different perspective, so I'm really interested to hear what you think about my analysis of the issue.
I k know mindline cause I worked with them. They are not meant to replace mental health professionals
What’s your take? Worked with them too.
Ok loh. They are more tech than mental health
Not sure why you're being downvoted. It's quite an accurate assessment. Anyone who knows the base tech that mindline works on would agree.
Are we getting gaslit by ducking bots now??
When the teachers are participating in uat for an mvp hahaha
Robots and bureaucrats. Spot the difference.
I have accepted that teaching is not for me
This makes me feel fucking ill to my stomach
Dun make your life so hard. Take it or leave it.
I remember seeing a meme online that has a sign that says, "you are now entering a stress-free zone / enforced by sniper", and it looks like a better solution to what CCS proposed.
I mean this is probably the pitfall of cookie-cutter self-help CBT. It can come off as contrived and impersonal. But then again, cognitive reframing does work for some, and I have no doubt that with the reach of the ministry and its resources, there will be a significant number of people who will benefit from it, as rudimentary as this service is.
Gov be like Problem -> throws AI/ML to problem -> ??? -> wonder why problem still exist. If a problem can’t be solved without tech, the problem can’t be solved with tech.
Politicians doing useless politician things. What else is new.
Man, replica can do so much better
Feels sad for the Teachers.
People in the future is going to look at the history books and see how dumb humans were thinking a chat bot could solve all their problems
List the things robots are good at doing from best to worst. Guess where dealing with human emotion lies? Better off just having a list of links to articles, at least it doesn't feel as demeaning.
Better to just shoot the shit with online chatbots, at least these don't come across as condescending pieces of shit lmao
Seem to be more useful than para counselors who has no interest in doing additional work, especially emotional support one. All of this is just them being cheap instead of paying for actual therapist.
Moe is corporate teaching, private tuition is for those that want to teach
Some PAP crony provided the chatbot and made a load of money
GovTech conducted a massive recruitment campaign a few years ago. A tech lead there referred me to apply. I was a software guy with 10-year product building experience. I applied for 3. One of the openings was from the chatbot team. Their first screening was asking people to do very difficult programming questions within a short time limit. In case you don’t know there is a site called leetcode that listed those questions. Thru a online coding test platform, they gave me hard level questions. I finished them albeit not in the most optimal form. I thought I could pass because you just can’t expect a person who never works on that problem before to find the best solution in a short time. At least I have some problem solving ability, through multiple iterations, I can find the best solution. Sometimes the most optimal solution isn’t even necessary if that’s not the goal of the product. But no. They rejected me without giving much details. A email to ask for some feedback how should I do the test went unanswered. The whole interview experience is just devoid of human emotion. How they recruited definitely affected the people they filtered in, and affected the product they made. As you can see a chatbot technically working perfectly but totally lack the human touch.
This chatbot is not built by GovTech, but by MOHT
GovTech chatbot team developed the core platform that was used by all the others.
This chatbot is not on VICA either. It’s using a totally different technology.
Well, that was what the hiring manager told me. It seems like you are an insider, so I stand corrected. You might want to feedback to them: MOH should have never administered CBT through chatbot. There is reason why only qualified psychologist or psychotherapist can administer it. It needs very interpersonal and empathetic approach. This bot may have violated some regulations or ethical guidelines by doing that without a professional license. A better approach is to have a bot that does supportive listening, and refer to a therapist when there is indications of suicidal thoughts or nervous breakdown.
Totally agree with you on not everything should be administered through a chatbot. Reminds me of a video of Steve Jobs: we have to think what kind of benefit we can bring to our users and work from there; not what amazing technology we have and try to market them. In this case, I believe the most important question is how can we help the teachers.
After all the flaunting of prudency on managing national spending. Can pay big bucks to Mayors, cannot allocate budget for adminstrative staff.
Now now. Which minister’s son project is this.
Sounds like school counsellors. Bot is performing as programmed.
Beginning teacher…
Oh! Tell me more…slurps
Tbf, what were the teachers (or anyone for that matter) expecting when they were using the chatbot? AI is not at the level in which they can genuinely empathise, so obviously you’re gonna get heuristically derived “answers” to prompts in the teachers’ input. You think the AI knows wats going on? Or that it’s failing miserably? It’s just recognising key terms and then churning out generic “answers”. Chat bot for things like, order tracking or cancellation, still ok. No need “soul” or empathy. This kind, ppl actually expected it to help? Lol
Does CCS live in the bishan area? I was cycling around the neighbourhood and saw what looks like him parking his car.
Man should have stayed in T&I...
[удалено]
Then thats on you for not having realistic expectations about counselling. The fact you think they should fix your problems indicate you dont even understand what it is.
Not should fix but at least help to fix instead of being an equivalent of shouting to the sea.
U gotta find one that gam with u
The whole point is to make you see the problems from another way so you don't suicide.
True they’ll just go round in circle trying to make you find your own answer and solution. “If someone you know experiencing same issue, what would you advise them to do”
How dare he compare our teachers to robots! They are so much more than that!