Read the following letter:
http://www.temasekreview.com/2011/07/12/an-open-letter-to-the-education-minister-from-a-secondary-4-student/
(1) Comment on the Janalle Lee's view on the education system in Singapore.
(2) Is an ideal education possible? Explain.
Post your 500 word response on your blog.
The Singapore Education system has always been rigid and traditionally result-oriented. Over the years, the "Singaporean way" of doing things have influenced generations that things have to be done in that way, never in another. In the context of the education system in Singapore, students have been told and forced to put facts into their brains without needing to really understand it. This leads to them becoming dead thinkers who are able to recite facts of their minds without being able to explain most of them.
As I read through the article on Janelle Lee's view on the education system in Singapore, I found out that it closely relates to my opinion on the Singapore education system too. In my two years in HCI, I realised that the Singaporean education system trains us to be very materialistic and result oriented. These days, the "Only for an A1" attitude leads to students asking a standard set of questions. "Is this graded?" "Because my notes say so". Students now study for the sake of scoring well in their examinations instead of the process and essence of learning. As Janelle Lee has mentioned, "The beauty of education is to ask ‘Why?’ and have those questions answered. To be aware of knowledge one never knew about. To constantly discover new insights and new things every day, to answer questions lurking in our minds. But far too often, we are taught not to ask why, to just memorise. To get an A1, all we have to do is memorise our textbooks inside out and upside down, and be able to regurgitate them on the very day, tweaking them minimally to answer the questions asked. In the pursuit for grades, I believe we have lost the beauty of education: The ability to ask ‘Why?’" Students, trained to be "robots" which memorise have lost the interest in learning, the beauty of education, the ability to inquire for more knowledge.
Another point which Janelle Lee states also set me thinking. She states, "How do we cultivate talent in this manner, by not giving youths a voice? By memorizing tons and tons of model answers and essays to be submitted? In this way, the education system is sending a message to Singaporean youths that it is not wrong to have a voice, but it is wrong to use this voice in the system of education. What it does not realise is that it is the education system that is supposed to give Singaporean students their voice! By educating students, we are giving them the ability and knowledge to speak their minds, yet take this privilege from them away all at the same time." I have heard many time from Language Art teachers to always choose the topic and pick a point of view where you are able to score the highest amount of marks, even if you do not believe in it, because it fits into the answer key Cambridge provides. I have always been annoyed by this. I have always believed in having our own voice, our own feelings from our own thinking. If examinations in the form of essays put students in a situation where they pick the topic and view point which is politically correct and might score them the highest marks, they would have the mindset that things HAVE to be done in a certain way, never in another. How then, will we be able to see a change in the world in the future? Does Singapore's education mean that what we have now is enough and perfect, such that no change in anything in the future is needed? In order for us to see a change in anything, the difference of opinion has to firstly be there. Which means that we should be given our own voices and opinion.
How then, should the students be assessed and graded such that we are able to train them to the greatest potential with allowing them a space for their own opinion? This concept lies within the "ideal education". Firstly, the mindsets of Singaporeans have to be tweaked. Parents have to start training their children to go through education learning and not only knowing. They have to harbour the sense of thought. We humans are thinking beings, not thoughtless creatures. An "ideal education" is definitely impossible, due to the difference in opinion of how one's education should be like. Then again, this contradicts my previous point on parents training their children to go through education learning and not only knowing. Different people have different opinions in opinion, some opinions being drastically different. Thus, an ideal education for everyone, catering everybody's needs is impossible.
An ideal education, for me would be that we be graded and assessed according to how in depth our opinions are, and not how convincing it is. Being convincing is bounded by the way society educates people, thus far from the ideal way in my opinion. By accessing the depth of thought a student put determines the quality of thinking process he has put through. Instead of essays which grade students according to how convincing they are, students can also be graded according to how much thought is put into it. For example, has the student considered different factors which are different and contradicting his argument? How has he been able to use more concepts he learnt to counter this problem?
The education system in Singapore today, I would say, is effective in forcing facts down the students' throats, without them travelling through the nerves and into the brain. Put a student in a situation which requires them to use their knowledge to solve the problem in front of them today, and we would see how much they actually have thought about what they have been taught, what they presumed they have "already learnt".
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