(WARNING: MY BLOG HAS SOME PROBLEMS. WHATEVER POSTS I PUBLISHED TAKE ABOUT A DAY FOR THEM TO SHOW UP ON MY BLOG. PLEASE BE PATIENT.)
(Finally manage to publish this after a few hundred tries. Have to delete some old random posts made last year.)
Hello again humans! This is subject 2O301 from outer space. Please stay calm as we come down to your planet Earth to throw facts at you. What sort of facts? Well, particular in Singapore, do you think there ought to be a change of the education system right now? I heard lots of cries of appreciation and support from you guys right now. Hmm...... I love this sort of attention. Now people, there is this student who wrote to the Education Minister, Mr Heng. It sounded like a letter of complain to me. Well, she stated the flaws in Singapore's education system. Read the whole letter for yourself here: http://www.temasekreview.com/2011/07/12/an-open-letter-to-the-education-minister-from-a-secondary-4-student/
Now, I would definitely agree with her points that Singapore had mistaken success in education as just simply memorising and not by clear understanding.
At this current moment, her tone in the letter is still considered okay, most of the times being very polite. However, there were times where she sounded rather irritated(maybe she is too worked up XD), and the way she phrased her words made me think she is throwing the facts in Mr Heng's face as though it is all his fault. I guess she need to calm down a bit more as in this case, she is the one who is asking for a favour.
It will be no good if she offended the person she is seeking attention from. In fact, she mentioned she took about 2 hours to type that letter, which means she typed it all in one go. During this time, she must have typed while she think and well, she might be in a frustrated state. What I feel is that she should have planned out her points, evidence and elaborations first, and then slowly piece together what she wants to say bit by bit in a polite manner.
For me, I myself have a few points to 'throw' at the minister. Well, what I feel is that currently, a student is mostly judged by his or her performance during examinations. Yep, just that few hours of sitting down in a classroom and writing answers will be how a teacher will access and define your capability, instead of that few hundred days of school that will have been much more meaningful. I mean, how can you judge a person based on examinations? This sort of method may not really be fair as the student may be feeling very nervous during examinations and thus will not do well for it which will affect the end result.
To be honest, that is what's happening to me right now. The moment I enter an examination, my mind just goes blank for no apparent reason. In fact, I will really appreciate if the education system can a judge a student based on everyday performance, or at least make it 50% everyday performance and 50% examinations. This will things much more logical in a sense that a student can learn in a much more stress-free environment which will result in much more efficient learning.
Well, I guess that greatly concludes my points. And since life now is so stress, here is a video to release your stress into the wild. Have fun and may more posts come your way!
I really like your way of presenting your ideas. Maybe your rationale behind writing from the aliens's perspective is to show how other people from other country are looking at Singapore and maybe from a "foreigners" point of view. Actually, I agree to your post and I have to stress that exams can be unfair at times. Sometimes, I will also go blank during and exam and i go panicky. This, I feel is unfair to some students. Like ur refreshing style :)
ReplyDelete