How many of us remember our primary one days? Given that I am frigging forgetful and my brain is really not working well in terms of its ROM space, no I don't. But I remember roughly the feelings associated with each stage of my education. There were both good and bad feelings of course, but as a human being, I tend to harp on the negative and churn it in my head and turn it into pessimistic thoughts. How delightful.
Anyways, point is the webbie is promoting stuff like "Teach Less, Learn More" but I don't really see it =-= and I recently read a column in Straits Times (i think, don't remember) where someone was replying and agreeing with what another person wrote in before. That person compared Singapore's education system as becoming similar to that of Korea's (of cuz I talking about SOUTH of the 38th parallel, if not?) where tuition out of class is becoming a critical part of education rather than an "accessory", an "add-on". Well I don't see where teaching less in school would help.
According to the webbie, "We will encourage our students to learn more actively and independently. We want to nurture a curiosity that goes beyond the formal curriculum, and a love for learning that stays with the student through life.". That is very ambitious. And given the competitive nature of our society, that is also hardly possible.
To get ahead in life, to get first, you gotta beat the rest first, and for most people that means that we have to study as hard as the rest (clocking a certain number of hours outside of school mugging, cut down on the telly, the net etc). And of course, as society dictates, we also have to take on tuition =-= and with everyone taking tuition, it starts to become a norm and then we have the current situation now. Everyone will attempt to take more tuition, pay more for better teachers just to get ahead. According to one of the two who wrote in to the paper (don't remember since that guy did reference the other), this isn't based on meritocracy, since richer parents can afford more or better tuition, their children stand to gain more. But really, sometimes the education doesn't matter, it's how willing the child is to work for him or herself. Ok, that aside, we will continue to be competitive, and if we don't, there will be comments saying that our society will soon become stagnant cuz no one wants to move upwards, yea yea wadeva. So, who the hell will care about a kid's curiosity and love for learning?? The main purpose of education seems to always be about the grades since that is after all the benchmark used. Yea they are trying to make us all into all-rounders by including civics and moral, PE, Napfa tests, etc but seriously...no one measures the amount of curiosity you possess and give you an A. For those lessons that "promote active participation", they sorta force even the quiet thinkers to open their mouths to ask some smart question just to get participation marks. Seriously?
I think that CCAs/ECAs are the ones that really add colour to our lives because it is there that we actually make friends, go through shit together and triumph at the end of the day. It just brings people that much closer. For the academic part, all I know is that I needed to score thus I needed to mug. I still get my satisfaction from finally understanding a certain topic etc but seriously, when I really really cannot understand, I stop doubting and take it as it is, no more questions asked. Sadly, that is the case even now. If you continue questioning and stay "curious" as to WHY the frigging hell an apple is called an apple (bad example), you will get nowhere in life. I can just see the day my kid asks me something that stumps me and I reply with a "because it is what it is". Not that the teachers give up on us, not many do, they still patiently explain stuff to me, but after a while I start to feel guilty about taking up too much of their time and make a self-note to just go back home and try figure it out again. I dare say that 90% of the time while multitasking (listening to kpop, replaying the moves in my head, and perhaps munching on something while thinking about that problem/question/query), I suddenly see the light and I'll be elated. But that 10% of the time I can only sigh and tell myself to move on, just commit that part to memory and I'll survive the exams. Actually, I think that perhaps memorising isn't such a bad thing. For me, I think I did mostly memorising up till JC? But somehow through the memorisations I managed to learn stuff, and also because I really repeatedly tried to memorise stuff (and also perhaps because I am interested), I still do remember some stuff like how carbohydrates is provides 16kJ of energy per gram, proteins 17kJ, fats 34kJ. Not sure about the units but I am pretty sure, around 99% that my figures are correct. Or perhaps although I thought I was doing memorising but actually I was UNDERSTANDING, THEN COMMITTING THEM TO MEMORY, just that I myself was oblivious to what I was doing. Only when I reached uni that I told myself sec sch and JC seemed more of memorising, I should try to LEARN instead and started ASKING questions when I didn't understand. Don't misunderstand, I am not a child prodigy who is so interested in knowing the history and the beginnings of science and such. I simply asked questions related to the notes, I didn't dig deeper and I often find the history stuff that teachers attempt to tell us to "interest" us and "invoke curiosity" in us extremely boring and useless for our studies (which is true. who the hell tests us on that? it really was not necessary for our learning). And perhaps the type of thinking we have adopted is actually the one that is stopping our society from progressing further despite competitiveness and whatnot. Because we fail to question, we accept these laws and theories. So we will not come up with new stuff to contradict and oppose the current stuff we learn. What if they are wrong??? The earth was considered flat for a while too until it was proven round. So how do we know gravity is what it is?
I might say a lot but I think like a lot of youngsters out there, or maybe just Singaporeans in general, I have opinions but I do not act on them. *shrugs* I don't even see how it will happen at all.
Another point:
From the webbie
"Desired Outcomes of Pre-school Education
At the end of pre-school education, children will:- Know what is right and what is wrong
- Be willing to share and take turns with others
- Be able to relate to others
- Be curious and be able to explore
- Be able to listen and speak with understanding
- Be comfortable and happy with themselves
- Have developed physical co-ordination and healthy habits
- Love their family, friends, teachers and kindergarten
"
Yea right, I totally do not buy the fact that primary school kids are as cute and innocent as those in the video above. PLEASE. It was not even the case during my days when we had limited access to the internet and TV shows were still pretty clean. We are considered innocent. The kids now? Please.And asking kids to be comfortable and happy with themselves? HOW? When they might already have been bullied in kindergarten thanks to other innocent angels. Self-esteem already lost at a young age. Bullying might not even be visible to the teacher at times so how do we even stop it. And bullying doesn't have to be physical. The emotional bullying is the worst. I really hate how the majority is always right and they are the ones who set the rules and how the teachers don't even notice. If I were a teacher, I would like build a child robot to spy amongst the students and really, I'll slap those bullies.
No comments:
Post a Comment