Recently I came across a 'complaint' letter from a mom in TODAY newspapers about how her son is asking her to buy teacher's guidebooks for all his school's subjects from the net, so that he can get all the answers from the guidebooks for his school workbooks. Apparently, her son claimed that alot of his classmates parents bought the guidebooks online and they always know the right answers to complete their workbooks.
She then went on to complain that the authorities need to ensure that these guidebooks are not readily available for purchase online, as it is unfair that these children get the advantage.
I was appalled to read something like that on the papers; not on the premise that children was getting the unfair advantage over others, but rather, how parents' kiasu-ism have 走火入魔 and have resorted to the easy way out to ensure that their child excel in school. I wonder what kind of values these parents are imparting to their children? Something to the tune of; it is important to always have the right answers and it does not matter how you get it. Or maybe getting the teacher's guidebook does not constitute as cheating as the parent have the license to the right answers to help them to coach their child at home.
As for the mom that wrote the complaint, she seemed more concerned about other children getting the unfair advantage (sounds like another kiasu parent who gets extremely concern when other children seem to be doing much better than her own), rather than being concerned that parents were imparting the wrong values to children.
So many thoughts crossed my mind when I read this article; these parents were just victims of the Singapore educational system, a system of meritocracy, a system where parents fumble to get their child ready for primary 1, ensuring that they have the necessary 'skills' and 'knowledge' before they enter primary school. A system where teachers will be calling you up to tell you that your child is lagging behind when your child got 95/100, while the rest of the children got 98-99/100 for their test. It is important to encourage children to give their best effort for everything that they do, however, is constantly telling the child that he/she is 'never good enough' the only way to get that message across?
There is something fundamentally wrong with the educational system when parents prepare children for education, rather than allowing what education is suppose to do in its definition; to develop the knowledge, skill, or character of students.
Education in Singapore has been confined to the four corners of subject content of math, english, chinese and science when children enter primary school and will be further confined when they reach higher levels. Late developers rarely get a chance in our system. They often get stream-lined in lower secondary, and most will not get a second chance unless parents can afford an overseas education during university.
Think about this quotes about education;
“The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think—rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with the thoughts of other men.” ~Bill Beattie
“The one real object of education is to leave a man in the condition of continually asking questions.” ~Bishop Creighton
Is education in our local context really helping children to think for themselves, or encouraging them to ask questions? Maybe some things have improved these few years, but there is still alot of room for improvement. One way to start is that parents' need to take stock of their actions. I cannot understand why many parents are in a great rush, always anxious for a greater development in their child. Does it make a whole world of difference when the child is an early reader at 2 or 3? Is it really to the benefit of the child is he/she learns to read well ahead of their peers or are achievements like that there to feed their parent's ego? Is this something to be so proud of when a child in primary 3 is able to do primary 5 or 6 workbooks and assessments? And the one that really takes the cake is that of parents that send their child for gifted enrichment to ensure that they ace the gifted exams in primary 4.
I understand that parents all care for their children and want their best for their them. But surely this is not the way to ensure that your child gets ahead in life. We have to reflect by doing all of that, our child will indeed have a great future ahead of him/her. What good is a person to society if they are highly intelligent and are great academics, but have no regard for integrity, shows no responsibility for their actions or the world around them, no compassion for the poor, old and sick or have no respect for young and old. All they will care is for themselves. Is that how future going to look like? A vast population of selfish and conceited adults?
Despite all these whinge-ing about the education system in Singapore, my child will still go to in mainstream school when he enters primary school. The only difference will be that I will be that mom who will be concerned over the process rather than the product, will want my child to have a love of learning (most likely not acquired from school), will give my child ample time for fun and play, help my child to learn about life and hope that he will one day become that person of character and integrity.
So what if my child is average? What matters is that he will be happy. And I will not be expecting that he will become a teacher's pet anytime soon.
