L'oiseau rebelle

Love is a rebellious bird that cannot be tamed

In Search of Respect, Part 2 Monday, June 27, 2005

I wrote this post about a year ago on my now-defunct blog. Reposting it here as it is relevant to my current topic. Last post I focused mainly on the JC system, now let's see what the little tots are up to. You don't feel good about yourself and then get your self esteem wrecked in JC right? It's a long drawn process.

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All that talk about not letting children play in school in the Straits Times today struck a chord. Not just from my long almost-forgotten (and hopefully never remembered) experiences, but from what I observed as a relief teacher in a premier primary school last year.

I dare admit, I experience a great culture shock when I entered the primary school. A greater culture shock than when I first came to America. Primary school was an artificial environment where children are treated merely as puppies. Sit! (and read your long drawn high flown novel). Quiet! Listen to me, listen to us, you have no voice of your own. Sounds like dog training to me.

Silent reading wasn't an entirely alien concept to me, having survived two Chinese primary schools, one of which was more like boot camp than education. But the way it was carried out - that children could only sit and read whatever boring book their well-intentioned parents picked out for them, without making even the slightest whisper to their classmate - was so didatic and authoritarian.

Then was the walk to class. Walking to class wasn't just standing up, picking up your bag, and move your legs at the speed you are familiar with. It was more a ritual than a natural action. First, the teacher would order the class to stand up, where the students were already in their prescribed position in the queue. Then was the walk, where again, students aren't allowed to open their mouths. The queue order was to be strictly followed. No one could walk faster than the teacher, the shepard.

The shepards weren't at liberty to deal with their sheep either. As a relief teacher who stood in for a day, normally I wasn't given materials to cover in class. I was instructed that the girls are only allowed to do their homework or revision. Reading is acceptable. Drawing is not. And I could not bring my classes to the library unless it's their prescribed library periods! Then what's the fancy library for?

So, to summarize, students are merely sheep that are to be sheparded around by teachers. They are to be seen but not heard. A sense of inferiority must be instilled in them, so they won't have the guts to talk back to the shepards. The shepards have absolute control of the sheep, right down to their final destiny (hauling up to the principal? suspension?). The shepard's opinion is the only one that matters, after all, sheep have no minds of their own!

I'm not exaggerating. My students sentences normally start with "Teacher says...", and not "I think..." I couldn't flip around the carefully-drawn duty rosters. If Mary was due to clean the blackboard for the day, I couldn't ask Jane to do so, even if Jane was sitting in the front row and Mary right at the back. If I ask Jane to do so, Mary will come and tell me, "Teacher says it's my turn today. She can't do it," pointing to the parchment on the notice board.

Independent thought is seen as rebellion, against the order of nature in this artificial world. Creativity? Children are not allowed to draw! Risk takers? The whip puts you back in your place if you dare to even step slightly out of line. Children are meant to be moulded to the model prescribed by the higher authorities.

And the worst thing is, I realize, is that this model of discipline and education is taken from traditional Chinese culture. Opposing it, according to some factions, is tantamount to rejecting our heritage. Our heritage? Whose heritage is it?

How can Singapore train a creative workforce if the population's creative juices are completely squeezed out at the age of seven?

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Part 3: Personal experiences, and coming to America.


L'oiseau rebelle 1:13 AM Permalink | | |



In Search of Respect, Part 1

I can't remember where I read this, but I came across a comment in a Singaporean's blog recently: The major flaw of our education system is that it destroys the self-confidence of the students.

Unless I'm conflating this with someone else's post, I think the blogger talked about a recent article in the Straits Times by some scholar, who wrote about being rejected by the elite when he did not get the grades to apply for the PSC scholarship. And about the "top students" who also don't have confidence in themselves.

Sad, but true.

One of the fundamental assumptions of the Singapore education system is that one should never be satisfied with their achievements. Getting 99% is not enough, there's still a percent more to go. 100%? Then make sure you maintain that. This assumption, of course, is not an artificial construction by some bureaucratic idiots, but sadly, it's a reflection of society.

Sitting on your own laurels isn't exactly the best idea for success, but an obsession with marginal benefits could easily backfire. My brother had this friend in primary school whose mother would cane him (at worst, and best give him a shelling) if he doesn't score 100% on his exams. Needless to say, he didn't exactly turn out very well. This is probably an extreme example, but it illustrates my point: why kick up such a big fuss over that 2%? Why obsess over the marginal benefits at the detriment of the self esteem of the student?

There's also a common belief, especially in the top schools, that internal exams must be infinitely more difficult than the national exams. Then when the students take the PSLE/O Levels/A Levels, they'll find it a breeze and ace the exam! It is not entirely uncommon to have internal exams with a very low passing rate (and I'm not even talking about As), or at the very best, demand superhuman concentration and chao-mugging abilities from students.

I remember F Math exams on techniques of algebraic manipulation. (I am so very tempted not to call that algebra. Algebra, to me, is a beautiful subject concerning groups, rings, fields, modules, etc. Not ugly equations.) Many of the math exams are not conceptually hard, they just demand accuracy in manipulating strings of symbols, solving unnecessarily complicated equations, and many times you need to memorize certain tricks in manipulations. Usually, the "difficult" exams bear all these characteristics, and not because the concepts are difficult.

Seriously, what's the point of failing half the cohort in an internal exam? Especially in a top school, where you know majority of the students can ace the standardized exam. Although I'm certainly not an advocate of let's pass every damn bloody student so as not to destroy their self esteem that is all too common in America (and so far, has only led to this), setting an overly tough exam is counterproductive.

The other self-destructive aspect of the Singapore education system is the value placed on students. You're not successful if you're just a 4A student, the benchmark for the highest form of success is the Scholarship. And according to some ST writers, apparently it's not just any scholarship, but The PSC Scholarship, The SAF Scholarship, and for the very bestest of the bestest, THE President's Scholarship.

I remember in JC 1 I was invited to some PSC talk, because my O Level results were considered good by them. I think I took some assessment test and performed pretty decently. But I totally bombed my promos and I was never invited back in JC 2. I didn't really care because I was not gunning for a scholarship, even if PSC let a scholarship drop from the sky into my hands I wouldn't have taken it up. (Hmm... scholarships dropping from the sky has been a topic over here.) But I can imagine how devastating it could be for a student with straight As in O Levels who has high hopes for a scholarship, but performed poorly in the bloody promos for some reason or another. It's not the A Levels or even the prelims! #%^#, is the worth of a student based on a (relatively) minor internal exam?

What the worth of a student to a school? Another statistic on the list of 4A students? To add to the ranking of the school?

I criticize, however, I currently cannot think of any suggestions to improve the system. The American system is almost the polar opposite, in the sense that every student is overvalued. However, there's also overemphasis on standardized testing, learning by rote, you know, all those annoying things that don't appear in a Singaporean's romanticized view of America. But for all those who hated math in school, good news: you don't need to be able to add, subtract, multiply or divide in order to learn "math" in America! That's the function of a calculator!

However, I think that this self-esteem problem isn't just about The Education System, but is also a lot about societal norms and expectations. It isn't just about overhauling the System. The over competitiveness, and ridiculously good grades needed into get into my alma mater (last I heard, straight As isn't quite enough. I barely slipped through), the dismissive attitude towards students (and youth in general), aren't just Policies Created by Bureaucrats. (They helped, though.)

Part 2: Primary School! How children are socialized.

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In Search of Respect is the title of a work by Philippe Bourgois, about the drug trade and Puerto Ricans in East Harlem. Although I don't agree with all the views expressed in the work, the lack of respect given to these people resonated with me. Hence the title of this post.


L'oiseau rebelle 1:11 AM Permalink | | |



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