SingCitizen » students

Unfair to stream at early stage

singcitizen — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 02:59:06 +0000

Source: The Strait Times Forum Page, Page A32, 28 Nov 2009

Letter by: Lewis Wong

During my daughter’s Primary 1 orientation at Edgefield Primary School about a month ago, she was made to sit through a test of English and mathematics. A week later, when the school announced the Primary 1 class allocation on its website, I discovered the school had used the test as a means to stream (or ‘band’, as the school calls it) these pupils.

According to the school, the top 62 pupils were grouped equally into two classes and will undergo an ‘accelerated programme’. The rest of the cohort were randomly divided into six other classes…

Don’t sacrifice sex education

singcitizen — Sat, 09 May 2009 01:07:50 +0000

Source: The Straits Times Page A18, 8 May 2009
Editorial

It would be a huge setback to teenagers’ personal development if sex education, per se, were to be pared back or sanitised because parents do not want their children to be given the ‘wrong message’. This is not a debate about liberal versus conservative. That is a digression. At issue is how best to guide a teenager through a delicate growing phase.

Why MOE suspended Aware project

singcitizen — Wed, 06 May 2009 23:26:42 +0000

Source: The Straits Times Forum Page A25, 7 May 2009
Letter by: Jennifer Chan (Ms), Press Secretary to Minister for Education

However, MOE’s assessment is that in some other aspects, the guide does not conform to MOE’s guidelines. In particular, some suggested responses in the instructor guide are explicit and inappropriate, and convey messages which could promote homosexuality or suggest approval of premarital sex.

Teacher in topboys’ school set poor example

singcitizen — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:52:55 +0000

Source: Todayonline.com Voices 20 Apr 2009 Retrieved 23 Apr 2009. http://www.todayonline.com/articles/314788.asp
Letter by: Trina Tan Ker Wei

What got to me, though, was how the VS boys did not clear their trays when they got up to leave. Some placed their empty drink cups and wrappers on the trays, but no one bothered to empty the filled trays.
The trash bin was next to the tables they were occupying — at most three steps away. The appalling thing was seeing how the teacher did not bother to ask the boys to clear their trays — she just stood there talking to the boys.
Then they all left. The area they had occupied looked as if a tornado had swept through it.

Mum worries over son, JC anxious about exam

singcitizen — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 03:40:33 +0000

Source: The Straits Times Forum Page A31, 7 March 2009
Letter by: Karen Ong (Mrs)

We knew it was no use forcing him to attend school. We arranged for him to see a psychiatrist. He is currently on two weeks’ MC and has been prescribed anti-depression medicine.

We met the school principal and civics tutor again and explained our son’s situation. To our disappointment, they insisted that he return to school after the MC expires and stressed that there were only a few months left to the A-level exams.

We were so disappointed to hear this. We worry about the well-being of our child, but the school is concerned only about study and the A-level exams. What has happened to the school system?

Of pre-university students and CIP

singcitizen — Mon, 14 Mar 2005 02:12:25 +0000

I was flabbergasted last Friday when I read1about the student volunteer who collected the donation tin and, instead of going around asking for donations, went home, put some coins into the tin and then took it with him when he lunched with his parents. At the appointed time, he returned the tin to the collection point.

That act of his satisfied the minimum six hours of the community involvement programme (CIP) that pre-university students had to do each year for points needed to enter university.

In putting in place the compulsory CIP activity, the Ministry of Education (MOE) had a greater goal in mind – that of imbuing in students sound values and developing in them strength of character. But, calculative students managed to circumvent the good intentions of the programme and the CIP ended up a victim of some students’ self-serving motives.

In the end, MOE had to put to rest the idea of making CIP compulsory for all pre-university students. Now, junior colleges and centralised institutes have autonomy in integrating CIP into their curriculum to best meet and respond to the needs and interests of their students. But CIP will remain an integral component of the JC curriculum.

The Education Minister said in Parliament recently that the change “will encourage students to take greater ownership over these activities, follow their passions and build camaraderie, rather than engage for the sake of gaining points for university admission”.

We can take heart that CIP remains compulsory for primary and secondary students. It may be too late to inculcate in pre-university students desired attributes, but, there is hope yet that given time, the younger ones will gel on to the idea of authentic and enriching involvement in the community.

A day after the article appeared, I was having afternoon tea in a fast-food restaurant at Burlington, next to Sim Lim Square, when I saw a score of upper secondary students from Maris Stella High School soliciting for donations for the Children’s Medical Fund.

The boys were stationed at various spots around the area. They caught my attention because they were moving around in the hot afternoon sun although covered walkways were within reach. Yet, they didn’t seem the least bothered by the searing heat, for their minds were single-mindedly focused on the passers-by thronging the area.

These boys from Maris Stella were busy running up to the young and the old. You could see the eagerness in their faces as they went about their task. Each approach was energetic, and though some pedestrians did not donate, the boys were not disheartened.

In these boys, I saw the same enthusiasm which gripped me as a secondary student some thirty years ago when I was selling flags for charity. These boys from Maris Stella were certainly not of the same grain as the one who took the donation tin to lunch with his parents.

So, there is hope for the younger set of Singaporeans. We may be able to count on the younger ones to embrace CIP with the right mindset.

That schools have to turn to making CIP compulsory in the first place shows up a weakness in the typical Singaporean family unit. Parents have to take responsibility for the way our students turn out. How they are raised at home, their experiences and relationships with their family members will shape their character. Schools cannot do it alone.

1. The Straits Times 11 Mar 2005 (1)

Still envy our children?

singcitizen — Mon, 03 Jan 2005 02:23:31 +0000

School starts today for more than 500,000 children across the island this new year. As these children stream back to their schools and begin looking around in their new classrooms, some of them may notice a classmate or schoolmate missing. And they may realise that the tsunami which took place far from our shores over the holidays has something to do with that student’s absence from school.

Yes, our children return to school nowadays to face situations which we did not face in our time as schoolchildren. The year before last year, it was Sars. Children suddenly found their term holidays extended and home quarantine orders slapped on holidaymakers returning from Sars-affected countries.

I used to be red with envy when I saw students whip out their mobile phones in the classrooms and corridors of schools. Simply by flicking their fingers on the phone pad, they could instantly message classmates, schoolmates and friends, be these chaps in the same school as theirs or any other school in Singapore. The entire island’s schools had become a very personal communication network for the students.
These students could share news and gossip about their teachers and friends in real time, though they were in their own classrooms and far away from one another. They could even snap pictures or video-record scenes and send these instantly – remember the teacher-scolding-student incident in a JC?

And when you were teaching them, you suddenly realise that it was possible that their minds might be far away, for they could be looking blankly at you while their fingers were doing the communication work for them – sms-ing their friends on their mobile phones which were hidden from your view.

Yes, indeed, I thought these students were a privileged lot – to be born in this time and blessed with the tools that today’s technology had made available to them. But, now, I do not envy them.

It’s true that in my time – in the 1970′s – we had no gadgets to indulge ourselves in. Why, we didn’t even have electronic calculators in class. They didn’t exist then. At secondary school, we were using logbooks which we had to flip through for sine and cosine calculations.

It’s true that television for us was black and white till 1973 when colour was introduced in Singapore. I remember I was in secondary three at Victoria School that year. It was a year I could not forget, for that same time, my family had our first telephone in our flat in Toa Payoh. Wow! I thought, what a thrill it was, being able to call my schoolmates on the telephone and talk to them in the comfort of my home.

It’s true that looking back, I realise that these were simple thrills indeed, pale in comparison with what’s available to the young of today. But, while it’s true these gadgets have made living a luxury of a lifestyle for students of today, it’s also true that the ills of today – Sars, birdflu, Tsunami and their lot – were practically unheard of in my time as a student.

The young of today are saddled with these problems and so they learn to grow up faster than we did in our time as students. It’s not precocity, mind you. It’s just that they have found themselves in an environment which is not as conducive as that which we had when we were as young as they are now.

Whether it’s Sars, birdflu, tsunami or whatever nature may throw in their paths in future, our young will have to face up to these afflictions for it’s a world they have inherited by virtue of their being born in this day and time. Pluses and minuses considered, I think these chaps do not have as good a time as we had as students decades ago.

So, should we still envy our children?

Fumbling through Mother Tongue

singcitizen — Mon, 06 Dec 2004 02:26:03 +0000

Over television last weekend, I heard Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew remark ‘I used to believe we could learn two languages…I was wrong’.

Minister Mentor Lee’s admission did two things to me:

1. It made me feel at peace with myself – I could tell the world I wasn’t such a failure after all. You see, I have been fumbling my way through my Mother Tongue, Chinese, for as long as I can remember. And all along I have been thinking I am stupid or slow because I can’t manage two languages.

2. It made me respect him more than ever. We all make mistakes, but if I were in his shoes, I would have found it extremely difficult to tell everyone in the face I was wrong, but, not Minister Mentor Lee. It wasn’t beneath his stature to admit such things. That’s perhaps, one of the reasons why Singapore has progressed thus far. Singapore does not hide its cracks. It faces up to them, makes corrections and then moves forward.

Though I had been scoring F9s for my Mother Tongue, I did pretty well in English at school so much so I topped my school in English in the ‘O’ Levels. I just can’t explain this anomaly. How can a person excel at one language and fail so miserably at another?

I thank my lucky stars that when I was at school, in my time, I did not need to pass Mother Tongue in order to go to the ‘A’ Levels. Thousands of Singaporeans who went to school in the 80s and beyond must have had a hard time grappling with two languages. I do not envy them.

I admit I have sincerely tried to learn the language in my adult years. I have bought English-Chinese dictionaries and Primary One School workbooks – you see, I thought I should start at the bottom of the ladder again. But, regrettably, I gave up after some months of slogging.

As I grew older and realised that I could read English newspapers with one eye shut but would hesitate at every line in a Chinese newspaper, I told myself, I was missing out on my heritage, Chinese culture, for without a basic understanding of Chinese literary works and thoughts, I could not develop an appreciation of the culture.

So, I set about starting my Mother Tongue learning programme again. But, I did not get to start at all, for my wife was concerned that any progress I made in my Mother Tongue would be at the expense of my English.
Yes, she’s right. My English will get worse as my Chinese gets better. And as one who writes for a living, this expense is one that I can ill-afford. That’s why I have abandoned efforts at learning Chinese before I have even started.

I must seem rather selfish for having done so. I have put the English Language first before my Mother Tongue. But, then, English is a language I have been excelling in for as long as I can remember. That’s an accomplishment in life and in my life, I must admit, I have had few accomplishments and many failures.

Oops! I just said something nasty about myself in public. Is it because I have just picked up this new habit from MM Lee? But, it’s alright. I feel good after saying such things. I realise I have to move on, despite my previous failures. And first things first, I must put aside my urge to learn my Mother Tongue, pick up the other pieces of my life, and move forward into 2005.

I reckon that’s the way we should handle life – accept our own short-comings and failures, and march forward, instead of fretting about the past and letting it control us.

Are teachers always right?

singcitizen — Mon, 10 Feb 2003 13:54:56 +0000

Just last week, a nephew of mine asked for help in his school science homework. He’s in Primary 3 at Sengkang Primary School. The question asked in the workbook was: Describe two differences between a zebra and a tiger. I told him one of the two differences was that a zebra had a mane whereas a tiger did not have one. He wrote down the answer accordingly.

The next day, he came to me with the following remark: My teacher says that a zebra does not have a mane. Only a lion has a mane. My nephew further volunteered that he had erased the answer on the zebra’s mane and written the teacher’s CORRECT answer in its place.

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Immediately, I went onto the Internet and surfed to sites with pictures of a zebra’s mane using the Google search engine. I showed my nephew these pictures and pointed to him the mane behind the zebra’s head.

Granted his science teacher might not have seen a zebra before. I thought perhaps the teacher should get back to my nephew after getting the facts first, but instead she took it on herself to assert that a zebra had no mane.

I am relating this incident because I know children at Primary 3 tend to be impressionable. And they tend to think that what their school teacher says is always right – after all she’s a teacher at school! And those at home can’t be more knowledgeable than their school teacher!

I am sure such incidents are commonplace. At least, now, my nephew knows I was not pulling a fast one on him.

Whither literature in our schools?

singcitizen — Mon, 14 Oct 2002 13:42:46 +0000

Another batch of literature students will be sitting for the subject at O level in early December 2002. This year’s batch of candidates is expected to be less than a quarter of the cohort of O-level students here.

Lately, there has been some interest in the dwindling number of literature students. A working group for the Economic Review Committee has suggested that the subject be made compulsory.

That, I think, will not stop the fall either in the number of students taking literature or the overall grades for the subject. The simple reason is that students nowadays are not sufficiently proficient in the English Language. Making the grades for the English Language is already a hurdle for most students here, and literature is generally regarded as a subject that’s more difficult to study.

So, if it’s entirely up to the students to choose, I am afraid they will rather drop the subject than risk failing it in the examinations.

There has been talk that literature as a subject has been on the decline since ranking in schools was introduced in 1992 and the statistics appear to support that point.
I wish to differ. I think ranking in schools merely exacerbated the fall in interest in literature among our students. I suggest that our students’ interest in literature started waning when the Speak Mandarin Campaign was introduced in Singapore.

In the seventies, Chinese students spoke dialect at home with their parents, relatives and friends. They watched dialect programmes, in Hokkien and Cantonese, on television. At school, they formed bonds with other students through the English Language. Chinese students spoke to other Chinese students in English, as well as in dialect.

As a result, there was a strong grasp of the English Language among those who went to school in the seventies or earlier. Of course, Indian, Malay and Eurasian students then used English as a medium of communication with their Chinese peers. Even now, this remains the case.

However, the use of Mandarin slowly but surely permeated all levels of society in the eighties with the introduction of the Speak Mandarin Campaign. The popularity of Mandarin has continued right to this day.

The evidence is all around us today. Parents and grandparents speak to their children in Mandarin. At school, students chatter away in Mandarin both in the classrooms and within the school grounds. Outside school, our students use Mandarin at stalls, shops, fast-food restaurants, on the bus and any other place you can think of.

So our Chinese students now have a better command of the Chinese Language, albeit at a price – the fall in the standard of spoken and written English in schools and at the workplace.

When I first met my wife, I found she spoke only a smattering of English although she was from the English stream. Mandarin would rattle from her tongue. She was ill at ease with the English Language. In the six years since, she has not only picked up better English from me but also become proficient enough in the language to use it to fire away scoldings at me in rapid succession. I was a student of the seventies and she went to school in the eighties – she’s 13 years my junior!

There’s a point in me bringing up that story about my wife and me. It is this – to arrest the decline in interest in literature, I think we must first tackle the falling standard of English among our students. Get them to use English more often both in school and outside. Imbue in them a greater interest in English so that they become proficient enough in the subject such that they will not think twice about using English when they are with their friends or their siblings.

It is only when our students have gained confidence in their use of English that we can embark on the task of getting them interested in literature. If they have no fear of English, then, in all likelihood, they will embrace literature with open arms.

This is a big about-turn. Can it happen? I certainly hope so, for, in the words of Life! arts correspondent ONG Sor Fern writing in The Straits Times of 7 Oct 2002, “literature is the repository of humankind’s collective heart and soul. It deepens our understanding of alien cultures; it allows us to recognise that the fears that unite us are more enduring than the misunderstandings and quarrels that divide us.”

Yes! We need doctors, engineers and technocrats to sustain our society. But, we also need these chaps to know they are not in it just for that purpose. They are in it because they belong to a group that goes by the name of humankind with the capacity for love, romance and beauty. Literature is love, romance and beauty – in short – life itself.