Education as Top Priority: The Challenges of Education Reform

Education has a critical role in the society. By cultivating future generations who will be able to express their individuality and creativity, this improves society in general. However, this goal is often buried under the people in the nation obsessive pursuit to raise test scores. This is an indicator of improvement of the education system. There are many problems in education. These are the main improvements that people feel needs to be taken: Improving existing public school system by increasing national standards, improving the existing school system by providing adequate funding, as well as challenging the existing school system by offering other choices. One of the best ways to meet the ultimate objective of the education reform is by reforming the public school system by creating student-centered schools, solving the problem of the teacher-centered traditional school system that imposes a standardized curriculum on students which is believed to be the underlying problem. Students are cultivating a capacity to think, enabling them to handle real-life situations.

Blog task 2

To what Sir Ken Robinson said about education, I entirely agree with it.

The modern world isn’t like what it was before, where in Singapore it isstill conservative and having the Chinese values and doing the best in whatever you can. The fact is that working hard won’t get you far, it is working smart that will. The old stories of working hard and getting a good job in some good company of your choice isn’t the truth anymore. This fact is no longer true due to modernization and a change in the global culture.

Kids are getting smarter and smarter with each passing generation. In the past, they would ask “Is this the correct way to do this question?” or say “It’s all right, I will redo it to understand it better”. As of now, the present, we will ask “What is the point of studying biology when we are going to be working in the financing aspect?” or “What’s the point of school when we just waste 12 years of our life getting ready for tests and exams and in the end not learning anything useful to our future job scope at all?” This is the inherent difference between the current and past pupils.

We do not see the purpose of school. That is true.

But why?

Is it because school is useless? No it is not, or else why would the oh-so-successful government still make it compulsory for the citizens in Singapore to go through primary school?

Is it because the pupils are lazy? No it is not, or else why would pupils still go to school and still bear the brunt of scolding and the piles and piles of homework that teachers often give?

Is it because we are forced to go to school? No it is not, we have rights to defy our parents (but it not that I am advocating students to go against their parents) and we have the rights to speech and freedom and act.

Actually there is no one obvious answer to why we do not see the purpose of school and education. It is a mixture of small, small answers.

The current system in Singapore and all over the world hasn’t had a major remodelling since like the Stone Age? For Singapore, although the government has done very impressively in our one-path studying way which is going though PSLE, O-Level and A-Levels, but what the government has to do is create alternate and better paths for which students are able to go as well. The government has done fabulously with creating ITE, Polytechnics and many other alternate choices.

But what they have to do is to persuade and debunk the myth that it’s the end if they follow the other path, because it is as good or not even better for the student’s future career.

Blog task 1

Alienating millions of kids who don’t see purpose of school

The usual story work hard, college, work, however, its no longer a guarantee

Marginalized ourselves

The current system designed, structured for different age in the intellectual culture of enlightenment, industrialization period

Many brilliant people think their not because they are considered non-smart

Economic and intellectual model is chaos

July 13 Online Learning

Writing Task 2: David Orr proposes 6 new principles for education. Referring closely to 3 principles, discuss to what extent you agree with them in your response of at least 400 words...

David Orr. He proposed the 6 new principles for education. I agree fully about the six principles that he has proposed.

Firstly it would be “The goal of education is not mastery of subject matter, but of one person”. This is one of the most important ideology of the whole education is necessary in Singapore. As we start off as children, as small and innocent Primary 1s, we start to realize that this is our path, and that education is our life for the next 12 years. As we continue on, progressing from Primary 1 to 2 and the on to 3, we realize that we are just chasing the perfect score of 100%, or in other words, absolute numbers which determine whether we would be scolded by our parents or not. As we start to grow up, we then start to listen to our parents who start to become philosophers, or trying to be, who talk about how education changes our lifetime. As we start to mature, we then understand that learning Mathematics is not just about the formulas, but about your analytical skills, and your logical thinking. The same applies to Chemistry or Biology experiments, it teaches us how to be procedural, and how to do things in a step by step process. By understanding the topic or subject at hand, you understand yourself even better, understanding your character and personality and this is the ultimate aim of education.

Why do we learn new things everyday? Why do we bother to attend school? It all boils down to the hunger for knowledge. We learn in order to gain new knowledge and why so? It is for your future, our kindergarten teachers say. It is for your own good, our parents remark. It is for your own use, our teachers say. They all make sense and they all possess one common characteristic. That it requires responsibility to know how to use it in order for it to be beneficial to us and our future. Mr Orr has also touched on this topic, when he said : “knowledge carries with it the responsibility to see that it is well used in the world”. We learn knowledge not for ourselves, as the exact opposite of it is engraved in our minds due to the myths that we grew up with. We have to use it for the greater good and not to be selfish. An example of a person being irresponsible with the knowledge he owns would be the Fukushima Nuclear plant disaster as well as the Chernobyl incident. Both are similar in a sense that these were possible because of the knowledge created in science for which no one was ultimately responsible. With knowledge, comes great power and with it, comes great responsibility.

Lastly there are many common characteristics amongst all the subjects that make them so similar yet so different. They are all environmentally related. Well a simple example would be like Mathematics and Geography. Mathematics is essential in our daily lives and by learning trigonometry, it allows us to calculate how short Bukit Timah hill is or by using differentiation, able to find the difference between two objects. Geography not only allows us to read maps if we are lost in the jungle but also know how it is related to economics with the demand and supply curve when studying about distribution of food. All the subjects are all related in one way or another, directly or indirectly, obvious or not obvious, to the environment and everything around us that revolves. It is the core of the point of education.

Analysing Arguments

The link is provided here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18t-DGC-7iTnH1x5K8arvJLuUzazr4dvnFaGzdmPjHDM/edit?hl=en_US&authkey=CIyipzs

Leaders -- Born and bred

Summary

Are leaders born or bred? There are three theories surrounding this myth. The Great Man Theory, where leaders are born; The Trait theory, where leaders possess several traits since birth and are bred to be a leaders; The Behavioral Theory where leaders are bred. There are no leaders who are exactly similar, as they have different traits. The most common traits are trust, motivation, clarity, action, encouragement, decisiveness, resilience and the likes. Though these are traits that most leaders possess, however their presence alone does not make them good leaders. The thing to this is that people need to know who the leaders are instead of judging them solely based on their actions. A good example that epitomizes this would be a born racehorse being sent to a workhouse instead of racing, thus not being able to race. This will backfire and there may be conflicts as it is being bred. Leaders need to realize this instead of being told.

General Elections -- Cost of living

General Elections – cost of living

Firstly, we have the topic of the cost of living. There are many people that believe the cost of living is directly proportionate to the standard of living. As the standard of living improves, the cost will inadvertently increase as well. That is one misconception that most Singaporean have and this is epitomized in the Peoples’ Action Party Facebook Page whereby few people commented on PM Lee’s status, mixing up the cost of living and the standard of living.

Now what is causing the constantly increasing cost of living? There are many pertinent problems that has caused this issue that is implanted in many Singaporean’s minds. First up, we have the inflation in the global economy. The Singapore dollar is getting stronger and stronger against the US Dollar, which is the mark for comparison in this global market. Why? The US economy has obviously not been able to recover from its economic slump ever since 2008. This has caused the Singaporean dollar to become stronger and therefore this has caused the cost of living to rise.

With the cause of it out, what are the effects you may ask. Well housing has increased. GST is going to increase, apparently. Birth rate is going to decline. Well, well, well, what do we have here? Unhappy Singaporeans… as always. The government has done well in the global market, making Singapore currency more valuable and making it stronger than ever. However has the government ever thought about what will happen to the Singaporeans who are affected, in which all Singaporeans are affected. What will happen from now on? Coffee will constantly increase in prices, and there are no more 70cents kopi-o. HDB flats will constantly increase in prices, with 5 room flats being around 500,000 at this current moment.

Birth rate will also be affected. As the cost of living rises, who gives a d*mn about giving birth when they can’t even survive and lead a luxurious life on their own by their own salaries and by their own abilities and capabilities. Thus I empathise with them. Even though the government has provided various incentives for the people to give birth and have babies, however it will not be beneficial for the people to have children in the long run. Money and financing is not the only benefit in which the government can aim towards to do.

Thus what everyone was looking out for in the GE 2011 was mainly about the cost of living and how the government was going to solve it. Looks like the PAP has gone back to government again. Sighs Everyone please work harder and earn more money cos the government ain’t gonna help you solve ya problem :D