Society and Education

I was reading an article whereby the author, Fareed Zakaria mentioned that his friend had recently brought his children back from America and put them in one of the Singapore's well-known school and was saw the difference between American education culture and Singapore education culture. " In the American school, when my son would speak up, he was applauded and encouraged. In Singapore, he's seen as pushy and weird. The culture of making learning something to love and engage in with gusto is totally absent. Here it is a chore. Work hard, memorize and test well."

These words struck a chord in me. Thinking back of the school life I had experienced when I was a young BZ, all I did was to keep quiet in class and pray hard that the teacher would not ask to answer any question. Questions raised were seemed as stupid questions. Blunders made were magnified. Schools terrified me then (still do). Somewhere down the line, I ceased to think. There were model answers and model essays. Why bother? The teachers had THE STANDARD answers in their answer sheet. I happily stayed in my comfort zone. I was like a sponge - absorb all the information required for tests and squeeze them all out after tests. I can frankly say that I don't remember much after the tests. I don't think I can proudly proclaim that I have benefited from the education then. It had turned me into a parrot -- merely regurgitating what the most people were saying. It didn't encourage me to think further. Education is viewed as a passport to jobs in the future. What was written in the report book every half a year became the most important element in the education process.

There were only THREE teachers in my life that truly taught me the joy of learning. First, my Primary 6 Chinese teacher, who came out with lots of materials of her own. She didn't stop at what she ought to teach by the guideline. She went all out to teach us Chinese idioms and Chinese sayings. She encouraged us to apply what we have learnt in our essays. She printed out Chinese song lyrics and told us that learning Chinese is not to be viewed as a tedious process and we can learn Chinese in our everyday lives. She went an extra mile to prepare games or puzzles for us to do in class. Mind you, this took place during the 90s, where Chinese language is viewed secondary in our education by most people then.

Second, it was my Secondary 4 CDAC English tuition teacher. He printed newspaper articles for us to read in class and asked us questions like "Who or what is considered a beauty?" to make us think out of the box, when most teachers would ask us to concentrate on writing descriptive or narrative stories in our examinations. He entertained all my nonsense questions in class without viewing them as nonsense. He encouraged class participation. He was the one who told me "the process presides over the outcome". I wonder if this young teacher is still pursuing his dreams now or has he lost his passion for teaching like some young teachers did.

Last but not least, my writing class teacher in polytechnic. It was an elective module, not a core module. He encouraged us to analyse what the writer was trying to say and asked us our views on the various literacy works he had printed out for us to read. He is very encouraging in asking us to speak out our views and was not critical of what we had to say.

It is very sad to say that there are only three teachers who had truly inspired me in my long, grueling sixteen years of education. I feel that teachers have a very important role to play in education. It is not an easy task to teach and inspire. The society has a important part to play in shaping our education system. Grades were still deemed to be omnipotent. Society pressures the school to concentrate on academic results only. Although there have been several changes made to the education system in these years, it still takes time for the society to change. I’m waiting in anticipation for more changes to be made in the education system here. If not, Singaporean youths will lose out in the global world out there in the future, sooner or later, where it is talent meritocracy and not exam meritocracy. Singapore still has a long way to go before it can truly be known an education hub internationally.