Ahhhh... it's been so long since I've last written. I blame O-levels, my really busy first year in Junior College, and tests, exams, more tests, more exams, and so much work up too my eyeball I'll be lucky if I even find time to clip my toenails. Ahem.

Unsavory talk aside, today I have (finally!) something to whinge about. The all-too-popular Singaporean grouse: the education system.

As our overseas friends will know, Singapore has an education parallel to South Korea and China: we depend very much on rote memorising, practice and more regurgitation. If our ministers this year tell you that they will be "placing more emphasis on holistic development", don't listen to them. That is an outright lie phrased in a myraid of different ways, and trust me, every one of those permutations will include "holistic", "framework", "all-rounder" and "nurture individual passions" and whatever educational mumbo-jumbo the Proud Arrogant People (not so proud nor arrogant after this year's iconic watershed election, but I digress) to pacify us commoners.

The maraschino cherry on the ice-cream sundae is, when questioned on the alarming numbers of children having to turn to private tuition to cope with the syllabus/ to stay ahead of the pack, our beloved education minister's response is:

"Oh, we aren't as bad as the Koreans."

Trust me, that's not reassuring at all.

I mean, come on. They have cram schools, which are essentially sort of private tuition centers students attend after school hours in hopes of cramming enough to get into a prestigious university. And entrance to these cram schools, diabolically enough, is based on results. Kind of makes you wonder if there is tuition for getting into a cram school, isn't it?

This reasoning, that "we aren't as bad as the Koreans", is akin to saying "Oh, you know what? The American debt isn't that bad, and our high unemployment rates are actually quite tolerable -- I mean, we aren't as bad as Rwanda/ insert-random-African-country-with-high-poverty-rates!" It really pisses me off. Why compare yourself to someone worse off in an attempt to mollify your ego? How hypocritical authorities are! When they're ahead of the pack, the newspaper headlines will proudly run their achievement for the entire bloody nation to see, but when they are somewhere at the bottom? "Oh, no, actually, that standard is irrelevant! It cannot be applied to this country's context you see, (insert some obscure, twisted tautology reminiscient of Catch-22). At least we aren't as bad as ______."

Sweetie, by pointing out the failures of another, you aren't exactly justifying why you are better. This reasoning is ridiculous, and I do wish to slap everyone who uses this argument.

Today, the Straits Times ran a very interesting article. "Homing in on homework!" goes the caption. The article when on to describe the beleagured students, the frenetic parents, eyebrows furrowed, as they passionately proclaim the multiple horrors of the current syllabus and how today's children have too much homework, blah-blah-blah. Yesterday's article was about parents taking enrichment classes on how to help their younger primary school children in their multiple subjects.

The only thing I remember, with much incredulity, is how a mother recounts her helping her primary two son with his math homework, only for the poor boy to return home in tears as the answer was correct but the method wrong. I imagine she used algebra instead of whatever modelling method schools currently employ.

This is ridiculous. It is MATH, for goodness' sake. There are multiple solutions to a task. So what if I choose to approach a question differently? Must I be wrong? Simply because majority of a population designates an answer as right, it does not make the option right. That option is simply more popular. Why must we follow a specific way to solve problems. If I can obtain a solution from algebra or logarithm or what-have-you (assuming all my steps are perfectly accurate, with no inconsistencies) instead of modelling, am I wrong? Simply dismissing a solution as wrong because it does not follow the standard - THIS is what is wrong with the education system.

You want creative thinkers, yet thinkers who follow the limits and established boundaries. You want out-of-the-box solutions, yet the solution has to meet stated criteria, or follow the path verified as the 'right, true' path. Dear education ministry, please make up your bloody mind. It's like saying you want a painting in red, yet no trace of red must be seen. How can one be creative if every step must follow a regulated process? How can one think differently from the pack and learn to approach a problem from another angle if you inculcate in them from young the merits and rewards of following a rigid guideline?

HOW CAN A METHOD BE WRONG? THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG METHOD, BUT RIGHT OR WRONG ANSWERS.

ARGHHH THIS REALLY RILES ME UP.

And parents still wonder why their children aren't creative enough, and bosses continue to outsource jobs to foreigners because "Singaporeans tend to be very bureaucratic and follow a rigid, top-down management. They have no independence. Now, Americans, foreigners - THEY are hungry. They are willing to approach the problem from another angle. They have initiative."

When will those happily shaking their feet in ivory-carpeted offices realise that it is not out of a lack of initiative, but rather a problem of 'nurture' that is causing generation after generation of Singaporeans to be so fearful of offending the status quo?

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot and then jabbing it repeatedly with a knife to ensure the wound doesn't heal.

Speaking of creativity, I was talking with my friend a few days ago over lunch in the canteen. Her sister works in a primary school as an art teacher. She told me something unbelievable: that art is taught in an extremely rigid structure. Basically, every week they would be colouring or doing some artwork from an art workbook, and taught the myraid ways of colouring. "Oh, but Authoress," you must no doubt be thinking, "that doesn't sound too bad! In fact, it sounds quite useful!"

Oh, but it is bad.

Every single week when a different colouring style is taught, the students can only colour their picture in that style, nothing else. No doing it differently. No experimenting. Just follow-the-teacher.

It really amazes me, the extent of rigid frameworks has even permeated one of the freest subjects - Art. Art is about the expression of oneself. It has no restraint, you can do whatever you wish and colour how you like. Of course, many art experts will disagree with me, they feel that for good art, it must reach a certain standard or embody a certain quality. But essentially, art is free, it cannot, and should not ever, be regulated. That is why people are still debating whether that display of a latrine is considered art.

What next? First you regulate our expression, then our thinking. Is the government going to go around regulating the way we dress? The way we choose underwear? The way we shower?

"First, ma'am, you should brush your teeth, and the toothbrush should employ a back-forth motion precisely thrice per tooth. Then, you wash your face..."
"But I like to wash my hair, then my body and face, and let the conditioner set while I brush my teeth. It saves time."
"Ma'am! Deviation from the Laws of Normalcy is highly illegal! That's a fine for Subversion and Disrupting Civilian Life and Harmony!"

Speaking of laws, I never understood how on earth they are going to regulate homosexual sex in our penal code. How on earth would they know whether or not you have sex with someone of the same sex? By conducting some nightwatch programme where the police patrol and knock on every single door to check?

I can just imagine this line:
"Excuse me, sir, we are just here to check that no illegal penetration occurs."

How catch-22.

The tuition situation is ludricuous. Let me deconstruct the situation.

1) Parents are unhappy because their children are overworked, and they are unhappy that the schoolwork is "too hard".
2) Therefore, parents send their children for many tuition classes, supplementary classes, extracurricular classes ("to unwind"), and buy a lot of assessment books so their children can come up top. This also explains the power of Popular and its increasing expansion of assesment book aisles, one shelf for every subject at every level, sometimes more. And guidebooks. Let's not forget the prolific 'underground' trade of past-year examination papers.
3) Parents force their children to do these extra homework, adding on to child's burden
4) Children cannot cope, cannot finish schoolwork/try too hard to finish all the work and neglect other key areas of development e.g. ability to do housework. Parents write angry letters to Straits Times mourning children's inabilities and how they are 'spoilt'. But that it irrelevant.
5) Go back to (1).

At the root of the problem is simply an overemphasis on paper credit. Every single year parents nod along solemnly as school principals outline how they are going to develop the child's other skills. Every single year as examinations draw near the speech is quickly forgotten and parents/ teachers pile on more practice papers so the child can stay ahead of the population. What results is that the child gets steadily overworked. Should the child survive, if you're lucky you'll wind up with a prodigy a la Tiger mum's kids, if you are unlucky you'll get another automaton who will be unemployed after graduation from university and have the huge university tuition debt to contend with, while bosses outsource foreigners who are 'hungry' and 'flexible'.

That is your child's future. That is my future. To stay ahead of the curve I'll have to go to a more prestigious university, ideally in the U.S., and then I'll have to borrow to meet the 40,000+ tuition at a reputable university. If I wanna be successful and rich, I'll have to be a doctor, so let's say I study for about a decade. That amounts to 400,000+, excluding travel fees and housing and miscellanous spending like enjoying the big city life of US, going snowboarding and whatever activity I can't do in tropical Singapore, which is the whole point of studying overseas and not in NUS or NTU. Assuming I'll have to get attached to a hospital and be paid peanuts, and steadily work my way up (IF I find employment), I'll bet I'll be fit to retire by the time I pay off my debt and have a somewhat normal semblence of a life.

So don't begrudge your doctors and lawyers. They deserve earning a lot of cash, primarily because most of the cash probably goes towards paying taxes, their infinitely more ginormous education debt, and staying au courant of the latest medical technology. Correct me if I am wrong but that's what I think.

The only way for me to be debt-free by the time I'm in my thirties or fortiesis if I join the flesh trade!

(Note: I'm just joking. Please do not join the flesh trade.)

Man, if life as an angsty teenager sucks so bad, I don't even want to know what life as an adult would be like. I'd give anything to go back to my whiny, whingy days as a secondary school student when life's biggest problems was getting into some prestigious writing program and attempting to prove my worth. In between verbally assaulting anons and acting like an unlikable, snarky smartass with an ego problem, life was so much simpler.

Labels: education reflections straits times newspaper