Here I am, officially a student again. Ironically, my first thoughts were "Great, student discounts!" -- but enough of my miserly tendencies -- I want to relate the incident this week that I shall come to think of as "The Unbearable Leetness of Being".
My second act after the whole matriculation walkabout was to discuss what courses I should take with my advisor. Being the hyper-organised man he is, he miraculously summoned a list of possible courses I could take from various departments, including a number from a program I shall call the "Superior Student Pontification" (in no way related to the Singapore Stanford Program, mind you), which involved a collaboration between NTU and a foreign university. I was rather enthusiastic about the courses Superior Student Pontification was offering, since they were directly related to what I was doing, and sent them an email asking them about the courses.
The terse email response I received was that they did not offer the courses to "normal students".
I felt irritated. What is a "normal" student? From my point of view, every student is a student. How do you quantify the quality of "studentness" a student is imbued with? Are there "normal" students, "abnormal" students? "Supernatural" students"? "Hyperbolic students?
Of course, I do know what the email meant. Those courses were for the students in the program, judged to be elite and worthy of collaborated courses with a foreign university. In Singapore, foreign is always good, especially if it is white. Caucasian skull features reveal -- where was I, nevermind.
One of my pet grindstones is why the education children received in the now removed Gifted Education Program was not made available to all children. In my eyes, there are only children, not normal, express or gifted children. Somehow, a mysterious test administered by the Government decided that I was "gifted" and was "elite" enough to enter the Gifted Education Program, and therefore worthy enough to be educated in a certain way. Every child needs to be taught as much, given as much opportunity to advance themselves, as they possibly can. The idea that young children were immediately streamed by some silly, boring test into the Normal, Express and Gifted streams where artificial glass ceilings were slapped on them, was repulsive.
This made as much sense as how graduate numbers were limited long ago; when Singapore was a third world country and had limited resources, it was acceptable, but now that it aims to be a first world country, it is no longer acceptable to impose artificial glass ceilings. The Government bemoans the fact that Singaporeans are unimaginative and lack drive and spirit. Perhaps it needs to examine why this is so.
I do not believe this is the result of limitations in the educational system. I do believe that this is the result of artificial glass ceilings in the educational system. When children and young adults are not given as much as they need to grow to the full extent of their capabilities, when resources are withheld and only offered to an arbitrary defined "elite", you will indeed find a large majority of the population unable to rise to their full potential.
"Elite", by its definition, has to be a minority, otherwise it will not be "elite". When glass ceilings are imposed from arbitrary measures of capability, the "elite" are artificially cultivated. The "elite" in Singapore did not arise because they had such outstanding talents that it took them naturally that far beyond their peers, but because their peers were artificially depressed to make a selected subset stand out.
There must be many undergraduates wanting to that those elite Superior Student Pontification classes, but were too "normal" to take them. How does the Superior Student Pontification program decide these students are too normal to take the classes? By the sole fact that they do not belong to the Superior Student Pontification program and are therefore not good enough to take the courses. Meanwhile, the superior students will be taking those superior courses because they want to be superior...not because they actually want to take the courses. I doubt if they actually care as much about the content of these courses as how good being in the Superior Student Pontification program would look in their C.V. Meanwhile, I get to read some textbooks.
Such is the unbearable leetness of being.
1 comment:
Ever so steadily, schools are moving away from this old fashioned system.
Ever since I got entangled up in the whole science education 'business' so to speak, I've been noting a number of schools that are extremely equal opportunity and sending entire cohorts of students for various specialized enrichment programs and so on. Some have found various niches, such as a heavy robotics or life sciences focus, etc.
Yet some of the old clunkiness remains. In the mindsets of those that lead or teach other schools. And despite MOE directives, which no one really listens to anyway, some of the old unfavorable institutions and prejudices still lurk. I guess it's just a matter of time.
Let me assure you that children are not all just children, though. There -are- high ability children and low ability ones. Now how much of this is due to labeling, and how much already innately there, I'm not sure. It's both.
In some EM3 classes, you can immediately tell the root of the problem. Many do not have basic mastery of English. They chatter in their mother tongue. They look at you with blank incomprehension. It would be like forcing me to take an entire school's worth of classes in Mandarin or something. :)
Some of it is attention span. Again, whether due to innate nature or just simple lack of training (parental or teacher-wise), I don't know. Some kids cannot sit still after 30 mins, some can and have the ability to focus for long periods - which, no doubt, lets them rise far in the current education system.
And some of it is a discipline problem. This is more obvious in the secondary schools. Some have evidently become so jaded with the system that they no longer want to participate, they've rebelled within, and just lack the courage to actually walk out of the class due to fear of punitive punishment.
Again, part labeling, part mindset already there.
Ultimately, I think parents play a part in creating this developmental asynchrony. Then the education system picks up on it and ascerbates it further by streamlining them off.
Oh, and I'm backdated. There's no longer any such thing as EM3. They're now called 'foundation' classes. And EM1 and EM2 are mixed together these days.
However, the one good thing about labeling is if you use that labeling to offer special attention and nurturing to the kids that really need the individual attention and help to improve. It happens. Sometimes. A few rare classes come in with a boatload of parent volunteers, and you can tell the kids are getting really good support.
Or if you use the labeling to slow the class down to a point that builds up understanding in the lower ability classes, while remaining patient with them. That's what I try to do, personally. Most seem to like it.
But there are some classes which just won't respond to that. They've already lost the desire to learn. They're just in the system to be rebels against it.
And that's the real tragedy.
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