My First Skool’s spelling is cruel and nonsensical

Posted on March 11, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Teach kids proper spelling from young’, 11 March 2013, ST Forum

(Estella Young):…A renewed interest in proper English might push pre-schools and childcare centres with misspelled names to reconsider their policy. Names like “Twinkle Kidz Kindergarten”, “Kidz Playhouz”, “Jenius Kindergarten” and NTUC’s “My First Skool” are not modern or cute. They are an eyesore.

Reifying common spelling errors only imposes an adult’s definition of creativity upon a young child already struggling to learn the basic rules of his world – ranging from social behaviour to grammar to mathematics.

Teaching him that his school’s name must be spelled “skool” is as cruel and nonsensical as telling him that red is blue, or that one plus one is four. Such a child would have a nasty shock when he enters primary school and discovers quickly that correct spelling does matter.

In 2009, NTUC childcare rebranded itself as ‘My First Skool’, explaining the deliberate typo as reflective of its philosophy of ‘encouraging children to be creative’ and ‘not penalising them when they make spelling mistakes’. That’s over-explaining it. I think it’s just simple marketing in an attempt to make pre-school sound, well, ‘kewl’. Critics bash the Skool for confusing small children and setting a bad example, but this ‘skool’ trend was started way back in 1994, by another brand known as ‘The Little Skool-house’. Well that explains our generation’s horrible shorthand spelling on Whatsapp and Facebook then; It’s because our educators told us it’s OK to spell something the way it sounds, u know, like dis. Wadever.

Purists argue that distinguishing variations in spelling to deliver tone or ‘style’ wouldn’t work for kids, who need to develop the fundamentals in the language before they start listening to rap music and get traumatised when they find out that ‘dog’ can be spelt ‘dawg’. Some work, while others, like the writer complained, are indeed an eyesore. ‘Kidz’, for example, has a zany exuberance to it, and is the ‘fun’ plural you’ll find on children’s TV, camps or breakfast cereal. ‘Playhouz’, on the other hand, sounds like Nazi kindergarten where they serve booze instead of milk and cookies, while ‘Jenius’ is the kind of slangy abomination that bimbos type on their status updates, as in: ‘Einstine is such a Jenius!’ I guess the people at Jenius have good reason could deny that they mis-spelled ‘Genius’ on purpose. I mean, who would have the ballz to give themselves that sort of pressure? J is also not a ‘hipper’ G. Joat, Jorilla, Jirlz all look jod-awful.

People who frown on ‘skool’ are also likely to take offence at neologisms like ‘skratch’, ‘rox’, ‘luv/lurve’, ‘teenie-weenie’, ‘midnite’ and argue over ‘hurray’ and ‘hooray’, yet are unable to account for the numerous ‘errors’ that abound in the same literature text that they hug to sleep with. Even if one did drill into kids that Skool should be ‘sCHool’, they will have to find out the hard way that the ‘CH’ sound is different in ‘chair’ vs ‘choir’ vs ‘chaise lounge longue’. English itself is exasperating in its usage, as explained in a 2009 piece by ST’s Janadas Devan, who revealed that the old ‘school’ used to be spelt as ‘scole, skule, skoole, skoll, scolle, scoile, scwle, schoule and scool’. Skoole, in particular, sounds like a nursery for pirates. If there’s anything that’s ‘cruel and nonsensical’, it’s not just the people at First Skool screwing up the language and hence the way we spell for the rest of our lives, but the creators and contributors to a confusing universal language themselves. Blast you, ye ole swill-sippin’ dandy scallywags!

Besides, which kid would want to go to the grave sounding ‘My First SCHOOL’ anyway. It’s like celebrating puberty with ‘My First Period’.

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Filed under: 2000s, 2013, It Should Have Been.., Kids, Singlish/Broken english | Tagged: , , , , | 3 Comments »

Literature a casualty of an economically driven testocracy

Posted on February 28, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Is the subject worth saving?’, 28 Feb 2013, ST Forum

(Warren Mark Liew, Dr): AS A literature educator, I am troubled by the huge drop in the number of students taking pure literature at the upper secondary level (“More subjects to choose from, so fewer take pure literature”; Tuesday).

Senior Minister of State for Education Indranee Rajah explained that this decrease was the result of more curricular choices being offered to students over the years, particularly in the form of combined humanities. Students taking combined humanities at the O levels study compulsory social studies, but have to choose one of three humanities subjects: literature, history or geography.

Given these statistics, one is left wondering: Did “more curricular choices” lead more students to choose history and geography over literature, or even to avoid combined humanities altogether? More than 10 years ago, media reports suggested that literature was becoming less popular because many perceived the subject to be difficult to score in. According to official data, however, the pass and distinction rates in literature have increased slightly over the last 10 years.

…Educational research suggests that our nation’s economic growth has depended in part on a tried-and-tested “testocracy” – a system of meritocracy based on high-stakes tests such as the Primary School Leaving Examination; the O, N and A levels; and increasingly, the Scholastic Assessment Test and the International Baccalaureate. If literature has, in fact, become a casualty of an economically driven testocracy, then the real test is to answer the question: Are the “returns on investment” for literature profitable enough for the MOE to promote it as a subject in the national curriculum?

Being a bookworm doesn’t guarantee a calling for English Literature, as I found out for myself the hard way, when mugging for the subject made me lose interest in reading other works by Shakespeare. Instead of being left in a pristine manner as all great classics ought to be, my copies of Julius Caesar and Merchant of Venice were vandalised with scribblings and yellow highlights. Unlike the rote ease of history and geography, literature requires the flexing of a different set of brain muscle, and if you’re selective in your readings just to score in the exams, you’ll find yourself not just failing to appreciate double entrendres or the subtleties of human conflict, but embarrass yourself in trivia quizzes where you’re forced to recall names of Shakespearean characters beyond Shylock, Hamlet and the proverbial lovefools Romeo and Juliet, and the only line you can recite from the entire collection is ‘To be or not to be…’.

Besides having a vested interest in promoting the subject, the writer also suggests that our being a ‘TESTOCRACY’ has something to do with the decline of Eng Lit, though Testocracy sounds like a system of chest-thumping government where the only way to ascend to the elite is getting pumped on steroids and there is a clear bias towards alpha-people with balls the size of young coconuts. I would hazard another guess as to why Literature no longer enthralls us like it used to: Kids just don’t READ any more. If they could find the time to squeeze in some books outside of Facebook and online gaming, it wouldn’t be based on material that would be adapted into plays, but blockbuster trilogies in 3-D with all the nourishing nuance replaced by explosive visuals . Hardcore literature isn’t for the faint-hearted nor those with the attention span of a gnat. It struggles to remain relevant in a fast-paced world saturated with social media, shorthand messaging and other flashy, addictive distractions that cry for your fleeting attention rather than an in-depth analysis of character. It’s like flower arrangement class for race-car drivers.

If you have kids reading Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings for an exam instead of A Tale of Two Cities, you’re likely to get high scorers, because students would willingly form communities to discuss JK and JRR’s works without being forced into project groups in class. You don’t see fanboys and girls gushing over King Lear, yet you can’t choose a subject that kids actually LIKE reading for fun. Yes, a literature text is meant to be ‘appreciated’ like one siphons insight off the Bible. A ‘breezy’, light-hearted romp would make literature class a bookworm club that dabbles in the exact opposite of literature: Pop fiction. It would make a stuffy title like Professor of Literature sound like Chief Librarian of the Teenagers section.

The standard argument for literature is that it’s the Chicken Soup of O Level subjects; good for the soul. Some advocate it for ‘inculcating moral values’ and ‘enriching’ us all with ‘independent thinking’ and ‘creativity’. In that sense, Eng Lit puts the ‘humanity’ in our ‘humanities’. History never teaches us anything objective and Geography teaches you what an isthmus is but not how flash floods occur. It is, however, impossible to prove that literature actually makes us better human beings or speakers/writers of the language as lovers of the subject like to claim. I would argue that having responsible parents, a benevolent religion, keeping up to date on world events, well-travelled, a volunteer, a general lover of non-fiction or philosophy or even joining the debating club would make you a ‘complete’ human being without the hassle of memorising what Brutus said before he slew Caesar for an exam (which you may even have trouble passing).

It’s not so much the pursuit of excellence that makes Literature unsexy but the runaway treadmill that is modern life. Literature should remain strictly for those who love it, like vintage cheese that smells sweet to a epicurean but like sweaty underpants to the novice. Many highly successful people have no shame declaring that they have never read a single novel in their life. So what good is the subject for in this age of the 140-character limit? To me, it’s knowing how to cheekily slide your way with semantics out of a mutilation (pound of flesh), impressing a date (a rose by any other name…) and being absolutely essential if you wish to pursue a career as a ‘hip-hop artist’ or a lyricist for a crossover New-age choir of Gregorian monks. It also comes in handy if you intend to craft either the most touching proposal letter to your fiance, or the most heartbreaking suicide note in history.

Filed under: 2000s, 2013, Kids | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Primary 6 maths exam question too tough

Posted on September 10, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Don’t hurt pupil’s self-esteem with tough questions’, 7 Sept 2011, ST Forum

(Stephen Lin): AS A PARENT, I wonder whether some teachers who set exam papers are really interested in gauging the ability of pupils. Sometimes it seems as though they are simply intent on making life miserable for them.

Take a look at this maths question in a recently concluded Primary 6 preliminary exam:

‘Three halls contained 9,876 chairs altogether. One-fifth of the chairs were transferred from the first hall to the second hall. Then, one-third of the chairs were transferred from the second hall to the third hall and the number of chairs in the third hall doubled. In the end, the number of chairs in the three halls became the same. How many chairs were in the second hall at first?’

I challenge readers to solve this problem in five minutes, which is all the time a Primary 6 pupil has to do it. I challenge school principals to do it, without the help of equations, which Primary 6 pupils aren’t equipped with yet.

Setting such difficult questions serves no educational purpose – it only undermines the pupils’ self-esteem.

The writer didn’t say how long he took to solve this himself, but the ‘chairs in a hall’ problem is a puzzle that can’t be solved by mental sums alone unless you have a precocious maths whiz for a kid.  At first glance you would think this calls for algebra, though I’m not sure what’s the status of algebra as an ‘easy way out’ technique now.  In 2006, algebra was frowned upon as a cheat-sheet to the so-called ‘model method’ (When rules foil creative students, 26 May 2006, Today). In any case, a sturdy grasp of fractions and logic was all that’s needed to uncover the answer.

A sense of incompetence could explain the frustrations of a parent who would think that any question that they can’t solve is equally, if not more challenging for their own children. I suppose such brainteasers were never meant to be relevant to real-world situations; if I had to arrange chairs equally among three halls I’d forget about the fractions and sort them out manually with mere approximation. The real world has no place, nor time, for precision in fractions. Useless maths questions are more a gauge of one’s adeptness in application of heuristics and mental agility, which also trigger certain neural networks in the child’s brain which have become rusty with obsolescence in adult brains like mine. Our utility of primary school maths has been confined to splitting bills (inclusive of GST) with fellow diners, figuring out insurance pay-outs, or computing if mass purchases of discounted items amount to real savings. Other than such everyday puzzles which affect our bank accounts, we’re hardly ever going to make a meal out of sharing candy or distributing water into cylinders, as seen in past papers below. I’m even having trouble reciting the x12 multiplication table now.

More hall chairs in 2007

This was a question posed in a 2009 PSLE paper, using the typical ‘sharing sweets’ scenario which, supposedly, all Primary school kids could relate to:

Jim bought some chocolates and gave half of it to Ken. Ken bought some sweets and gave half of it to Jim. Jim ate 12 sweets and Ken ate 18 chocolates. The ratio of Jim’s sweets to chocolates became 1:7 and the ratio of Ken’s sweets to chocolates became 1:4. How many sweets did Ken buy?

Suffice to say I would have flunked this paper even with a calculator, an abacus and physical sweets and chocolates in front of me.   Looking at the modern  solution, not only do you need to know your Excel tables, but bar graphs too. If you take a closer look at these problems, it’s not just technical maths being tested, it’s also the child’s grasp of the  subtleties of the English language and his ability to visualise text to facilitate the crafting of a solution. A well designed question should be coherent in terms of space and time i.e you know where and when the chairs are being moved, or who has the sweets or chocolates at any one time, otherwise all the complex differential equations in the world won’t get you anywhere.

It’s not easy to raise the standards of maths without overly stressing our kids to depression or even suicide, and likewise moderating difficulty levels without letting everyone off too easy. It’s inevitable that in the midst of this juggling act, there will be balls tumbling out of the routine, and even a single, obligatory ‘killer’ question to deter perfect scores will drive a top-student to depression given the ridiculous demands parents impose on their children these days. It’s no wonder we have such a high rate of kids with mental disorders, and parents sending kids to tuition even during holidays.

Filed under: 2000s, 2011, Kids, Parenting | Tagged: , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Children learn about nipples in kindergarten

Posted on July 18, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Parent outraged by the word ‘Nipples”, 17 July 2011, article in insing.com translated from SM Daily.

A parent is complaining that her child in kindergarten 1 is learning the word “Nipples”.

The parent found this word in her child’s practice book as an example of words starting with the letter “N”.

The parent confronted the principal of the kindergarten about this. The principal replied that there is no issue with children learning the word. In fact, the principal feels that children should be learning the names of their body parts without prejudice, including words like “Penis” and “Vagina”.

The parent, on the other hand, feels that examples under the letter “N” could have easily been substituted with “harmless” words like “Neck”or “Nose”.

I wonder what euphemism such parents use whenever their kids ask what nipples are, because I can’t think of any reliable substitute without invoking the breasts, or cows’ udders. ‘Penis’ and ‘vagina’ have cute replacements, like ”wee-wee’, pee-pee’, or the nullifying ‘private parts’. The nipple, however, always comes in a package, it’s prominence dependent on the euphemism used to describe a woman’s breasts. Men who say ‘boobs’ really mean cleavage, while those who mention ‘tits’, like the sound suggests, are also focussing partially on nipples. To put it crudely, men describe porn stars as having a great pair of ‘tits’ but swimsuit models or celebrities as having nice ‘boobs’, though that doesn’t necessarily make one more polite than the other.

But back to nipples. Nobody calls these anything other than nipples, whether it’s erotic novels or pornography. Every other thrashing body part can be swathed in metaphor or a dirty word, but the nipple remains stubbornly clinical.  Other than perhaps ‘mouth’, no other body part in erotic literature is addressed with the respect and scientific accuracy like the elegant nipple.  There’s simply no other word that comes close to the perky sensuousness about the triple consonants ‘ppl’. It’s also the easiest to pronounce amongst all known erogenous zones (think thighs, anus, vagina, testicles). Even greats like D H Lawrence couldn’t bear to be creative with nipples. One could describe an orgasm easily in a 100 words, but struggle to write two lines about nipples.

According to the Online Ethymology Dictionary, ‘nipple’ is derived from ‘neble’, or ‘a small projection’ (1530), while ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’ emerged later in the 1670s. i.e Nipple is an older word than either penis or vagina, which doesn’t surprise me because it’s probably the first thing everybody notices other than your mother’s face as a baby. On the contrary, it’s impossible without a mirror to view our own nape or neck, nor our nose without squinting, and it’s likely that the only body parts beginning with the letter ‘N’ that any child will first notice are their own nipples, and yet here we have parents disapproving of the N-word, parents who probably feel the same way about ‘Chest’ or ‘Buttocks’, maybe even ‘Lips’, or any body part that has some function in foreplay or, in this case, lactation, ironically the essence of motherhood. Still, I’m dying to know what these parents use as a ‘nipple’ replacement. ‘Fleshy protrusions’ would be quite a mouthful for any kindergartener. More nipple fuss here.

Filed under: 2011, Foul language, Kids, Nudity, Parenting, Sex, Teachers | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Holiday tuition is the rule of the game

Posted on May 29, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘What holiday? Students sign up for tuition instead’, 29 May 2011, article by Cheryl Ong and Amanda Tan in Sunday Times

IT’S the June holidays, but for some students, this month-long break will be no vacation.

Eager parents have already signed them up for tuition and study camps, said tuition agencies. A big slice of the demand comes from students due to take major examinations at the year end.

…(MRS YANG L.Y., 47, a mother of three’): There are so many distractions nowadays – phones, computers… Tuition pushes them and helps keep them focused. If you want to go to your dream school, you must work hard. These are the rules of the game.’

The problem with Mrs Yang’s statement is that it’s not so much her children’s dream school, but HER dream school. If a child is motivated enough, you don’t need tuition to ‘help keep him focused’, and by making holiday tuition a ‘rule’ of thumb in modern parenting, you risk ruining completely a child’s interest in learning, instead molding him into a rule-churning machine who learns for the sake of learning, oblivious to everything else that makes us individuals, or even human for that matter.  A child burdened with a regime of holiday homework or tuition will never learn how to prioritise, practice self-control, regard these ‘distractions’ of daily living as rewards for work accomplished and basically end up a socially impoverished adult without a single original thought in his head or interesting childhood anecdote to entertain his future children and grandchildren with. The scourge that is holiday tuition has existed since the 70′s (See below, Attention parents: Holiday time is no time for study, 20 Aug 1970, ST), and the same reasons against holiday cramming apply even today, citing activities like ‘daydreaming’  as beneficial for a child’s mental health. Today’s parents will tell you not only is folding paper planes (how many kids can do that now anyway) a waste of time, but so is refilling the graphite of your mechanical pencils, collecting dead leaves in a scrapbook or even stacking your own sandwich for breakfast.

Of course, any parent today who subscribes to the hokey-pokey-sounding philosophy of ‘free play’ in their children’s education will be ostracised from the kiasu parent fraternity, with even modern kids feeling the strain hearing about other classmates attending all sorts of enrichment classes while they’re sleeping at home. The sad truth is, in the absence of motivated parents who appreciate that their children need more than just one skill (studying) to survive in our competitive environment, the average Singaporean kid leads a dreary existence if left to his own devices, cycling through Xbox, Facebook, TV, sleep during their holidays while their parents slog away in the office. Few will get the opportunity to help Mom and Pop out in the grocery store, and only the rich ones get to enjoy farmstays and experience milking cows. Most will be ecstatic about completing a Harry Potter book in a day, while for some their idea of learning a musical instrument is conquering all levels of Rock Band on Xbox. Perhaps our children are incapable of leading a meaningful life even if they wanted to, brought up in a sterile society which values hard work over artisan, even playful, pursuits. Most will not have seen a classical painting, spun a vinyl record, caught a grasshopper, tinker with light bulbs, or have their hands dirtied with car grease. It’s utterly depressing, and no wonder that  it has been cited that 1 in 10 local kids suffer from a mental disorder. Mrs Yang speaks for all kiasu parents, and she and her ilk need to be informed of this harsh statistic before holiday tuition drives kids not to her beloved  ‘dream schools’, but to an entirely different institution altogether.

Filed under: 1970s, 2011, Kids, Parenting, Teachers | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Monte-sorry excuse for graduation ceremony

Posted on November 17, 2010 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Palmed off to a different kindergarten graduation’, 17 Nov 2010, St Forum online

(Anupama Pisupati): MY SON will graduate from Little Hands Montessori, which he has been attending for the past three years.

However, he and some classmates were not allowed to attend the graduation ceremony as they did not sign up for a three-week holiday camp (costing $1,110), at the end of which would be the ceremony on Dec 10.

The kindergarten could not explain why the graduation could not be held earlier, like at the end of the school term on Nov 19. Instead, it offered to have my son be part of another kindergarten’s graduation to be held that day on its premises. So, my son can get his certificate then and pose with children he does not even know. So much for memories.

So much for pleasing parents. Mrs Pisupati should be grateful her son even got a scroll and gets to pose in front of the camera. Of course, such formalities, as I’ve previously written, are really for the parents’ personal gratification, parents who like to live vicariously through the trivial triumphs of their children. Perhaps before demanding for superfluous ceremonies, parents should really consider the needless costs that go into organising such an event, the entertainment, the food and beverages, the gowns, certificates, mortars, make-up etc.  If the reason for not attending camp and missing out on all the preschool networking that’s so indispensable to an individual’s social life is cost, hence depriving your child of activities infinitely more memorable than boring graduation ceremonies, then perhaps you should ask yourself if it’s fair to have your child freeloading privileges off the rest of his classmates who have paid for and endured grueling 3 weeks of whatever they make them do in holiday camps.  Imagine how the rest would feel, knowing that whilst they’re in camp, your kid is at home being pampered by Mommy and playing PSP, or away in Disneyland as a treat for scraping through kindergarten.   At least Montesorri has compensatory measures for graduation-ceremony freak parents, while parents of PCF kindergarten would be insanely envious no less. So, for goodness sake, be contented already dammit.

Filed under: 2010, Kids, Parenting, Teachers | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

39 out of 50 is a disheartening result

Posted on November 17, 2010 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Why mark P3 by PSLE standard?’, 17 Oct 2010, ST Forum online

(Tan Tong Jen): …When my daughter came home with her Higher Chinese Paper 2 answer paper on Monday, she was distraught. I found out she did not do well, scoring 39 out of 50. After I went through her paper, I discovered that there were actually three questions which deserved to be marked correct. I queried the school about this and the head of department called to explain that they were marked based on the PSLE scheme of marking.

My daughter was penalised for writing in an informal tone for her sentence construction question. The other issue was in her comprehension; she got the first part of a two-part question correct, but did not pick the exact portion of the passage to substantiate her answer, and was penalised for it.

The school’s practice of preparing pupils for the PSLE early is commendable, but it should be a gradual introduction of standards. Such disheartening results in the name of following the PSLE marking scheme is counter-productive.

As parents, we are already finding it hard to motivate our daughter to take an interest in Chinese. We are language educators and specialists ourselves, yet we are also struggling against the prevailing English-speaking environment to excite her about Chinese.

Language specialist or not, I didn’t think such a fuss would be made over what I thought was a rather reasonable score for a HIGHER Chinese paper. Since when was there Higher Chinese in primary school? Do the kids read Confucius’ Analects or something? Unless we’re priming our kids to become ambassadors to China proficient in Tang poetry and calligraphy, of what use in everyday life and business dealings is it really? I don’t know what’s worse here, the high expectations set by kiasu parents, or the idea of children disputing their ‘disheartening results’ through their parents who’d think they know better than mere primary school teachers and question the exam marking system.

I’m no expert in Chinese sentence construction or education myself, but the writer is clearly under the delusion that the primary school system, or should I say education in Singapore as a whole,  is about teaching kids how to think for themselves, and not about mastering the technique of passing exams and having starting line placing in the paper chase. And perhaps it’s not just the anal workings of our exam marking system, or our ‘English-speaking environment’,  that’s making children lose their love of the language, but rather the terminal kiasuism of parents, and the  fetishist bar-raising of our ministers, who believe anything even bordering on 75% just isn’t good enough. I believe what the writer wants to see is a higher score that justifies his child’s ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking. As long as  she gets that happy A plus that looks good on paper, does it really matter even if she hates the language or never gets to utilise it for the rest of her life? Of course, loving higher Chinese would be an added bonus, but bringing passion for the language into a technical argument over 3 wrong questions is plain irrelevant isn’t it. In fact, if as the writer so claims, it’s so difficult to motivate his child into loving Chinese at all, why the hell is she taking HIGHER and not elementary Chinese then? There’s something suspiciously ‘foie gras’ about this whole matter.

Perhaps Mr Tan should take heart that PSLE is not all that cracked up as it’s supposed to be, that it’s merely a ‘pretty piece of paper’, according to this letter dated 27 Feb 2007, ‘Merely a pretty piece of paper?’, Today. Well, pretty or not, truth is the interviews I’ve been to in my job hunting prospects never seem to take the slightest notice of it, no matter how many ‘Higher’ subjects I’ve been coerced into taking.

And if such smart-aleck parents finally realise that promoting the idea of an education outside of rote technique disgorging is futile, it always pays to turn to the oracle of assessment books, where one just might encounter the fortuitous, uncanny coincidence of a comprehension passage appearing in the exact same form in the exams save for some tiny differences in how fruits are named. Apparently the people who set exam papers have immunity to plagiarism, for lack of a better word, as seen in this letter dated 13 Oct 2009, ‘Was Chinese passage a reproduction?’, Today.

 

 

Filed under: 2000s, 2010, Kids, Parenting, Teachers | Tagged: , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

No graduation gown for son, 6

Posted on November 11, 2010 by gdy2shoez

From Graduation: No gown, scroll or photo op, 11 Nov 2010, ST Forum

(Mrs Yap Wai Ling): I ATTENDED the full-dress rehearsal of my six-year-old son’s graduation ceremony at a grassroots kindergarten, PCF Pioneer Kindergarten, last Sunday.

I expected to see him and his fellow graduands go through the full, happy process – putting on graduation gowns and going on stage to collect their scrolls as the photographer took pictures.

Instead, the ceremony was reduced to a superficial shadow of what such milestones should be.

A pupil went on stage to receive the scrolls on behalf of each class. The focus appeared to be on the accompanying concert.

…Shouldn’t the organisers focus on the primary purpose of the graduation ceremony, which is to acknowledge and celebrate the completion of a child’s preschool education – marking that first milestone in their journey of lifelong learning?

Is the success of a dance item or two more important than recognising a child’s first rite of passage?

…My son’s kindergarten ceremony is tomorrow. Except for the class representative, he and his fellow classmates face the unhappy prospect of not wearing the graduation gowns, not hearing their names called, not going on stage to receive their scrolls and not having their pictures taken

Unlike other graduation ceremonies, I remember absolutely nothing about kindergarten scrolls, proof that such formalities are more important to parents rather than the ‘graduands’ themselves. Seriously, if the one slogging long and hard, conquering all manners of adversity in the dog-eat-dog grinding mill of kindergarten to achieve that ‘first milestone in the journey of lifelong’  isn’t complaining, why should the parent? It’s a farce, really, to start every child’s learning journey with a elaborate fancy-dress graduation before any proper education has actually begun, knowing that almost everybody, whether they turn out to be respectable educated citizens or not, from gangsters and serial killers to unemployed bums or Chippendale dancers, owns one of these travesties: a kindergarten graduation photograph, shown more to relatives and friends as illusory evidence of how brilliant their children are than to the subjects of the photos themselves.

And what makes the writer assume wearing a graduation gown, donning a goofy mortar and being paraded in front of a whole bunch of strangers is a happy prospect? Most kids go through the motion not having the slightest idea what it’s all about, not to mention remember it once they hit PSLE age. All this false inflation of self-worth may even cause psychological damage once they fail their first tests in the schools ahead of them. So, Mrs Yap, save your burning pride for later. Not having a superficial kindergarten graduation is not going to make your kid any less of a champion in your eyes. Of course it would take a completely heartless old scrooge to say all kids look foolish in such get-ups, as you can see from this letter dated 20 Nov 1970,ST Forum.

Filed under: 1970s, 2010, Dress sense, Kids, Teachers | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

Teacher sues MOE for false imprisonment

Posted on October 26, 2010 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Teacher sues MOE’, 26 Oct 2010, article by Khushwant Singh in the Straits Times

LOCKED inside the school building one Saturday afternoon, teacher Sivakami Sivanantham panicked and hurt herself while trying to get out.

Now she is suing the Ministry of Education (MOE) for damages.

Ms Sivakami climbed through a ventilation opening to eventually find herself hanging by her hands close to 4m above the ground in the rear of the building. She then let go, falling to the ground and fracturing her ankle.

The 39-year-old teacher was hospitalised at the Singapore General Hospital for a week but was in and out of the hospital for about seven operations. All told, she was on medical leave for more than a year.

In her suit, Ms Sivakami is claiming that the ministry had been negligent in not ensuring that she had a safe working environment.

Because she was locked within the premises, she also contends through her lawyer, Mr Perumal Athitham, that the MOE caused her wrongful or false imprisonment.

My idea of a safe working environment is one in which one can shit in peace in the school toilets without the cubicle walls collapsing on you, or one can scribble mathematical formulae without having the  blackboard falling on your face. Climbing out of a ventilation opening parkour style, though, is the kind of acrobatic shenanigans that is an obvious case of ‘you asked for it’. I mean, it’s like crashing out of the teacher’s lounge window in a swivel chair after a drunken after hours party, or climbing on the desk to swing on the ceiling fan only to fall and impale yourself on a boxful of staples, and then suing not the school for poor maintenance but, what the heck, since you’re loaded, the WHOLE damn ministry for deliberately installing death traps straight out of Jigsaw’s dungeon in their schools? What the hell, really. And what’s this about false imprisonment, knowing full well that the school is closed over the weekend? It’s like entering a cave in a snowstorm, are you then going to sue the mountain for wrong or false imprisonment? What is it about this litigious society we live in where people don’t accept bad luck anymore, and that there’s money to be made out of closing your eyes and pointing the blame at someone, anyone with the faintest connection to your unfortunate circumstance? That one can get compensation out of the slightest physical insult, be it a twisted ankle, an ingrown toenail, or chapped lips for that matter?

Filed under: 2010, Bureaucrats, Justice system/Lawsuits, Teachers | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

Holiday homework

Posted on June 28, 2010 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Why burden children with holiday work?’28 June 2010, ST Forum

(Kelly Kishor):…We had planned a vacation weeks ago, but before school closed for the holidays, she (my Sec 1 daughter) came home loaded with projects and assignments. These were to be included in her final grade for the term, due in the first week of the new term.

…Why are schools burdening the children with extra work during the holidays? The academic term should be enough to cover the syllabus; if not, the authorities need to take a second look at the content.

… Quality family time during the school term is an impossibility, given the load of homework and co-curricular activities. Why are proper vacations also being denied to families?

If we don’t change this, we will see increasing numbers of stressed out children turning into stressed out adults with little emotional ties with their parents, siblings and extended family.

Interesting to note that holiday homework has existed for at least a 100 years, as seen in the letter below ‘(Holiday Tasks’ 14 Aug 1915, Letter to ST). Probably the same argument would be given by the authorities today, that the intention of holiday homework was to keep kids out of trouble, as if it were the only way of occupying a child. How could you, Ms Kishor, bear to take your child away for an entire month while other parents are sending their kids to enrichment courses, drama lessons, speed learning, foreign language classes to ‘maximise their potential’ and ‘equip them with soft skills befitting of well rounded individuals’? How can one even be certain that children would engage in useful activities like volunteering or helping out at the dad’s workshop in this age of Facebook, online gaming and PSP? Parents without your luxury to afford month long holidays would be too busy at work themselves to promote such character-building activities in the first place, and as much as they would like to see their kids learn some indispensable life skills, they would also like some assurance in the form of Powerpoint presentations rather than live with the fear of their kids picking up a drug habit or knocking each other up during the holidays.

Filed under: 1910s, 2010, Kids, Parenting, Teachers | Tagged: , , | 3 Comments »

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