Noelle De Jesus lamented about our schools' methods of learning in Weekend Today. I do agree with her in certain aspects.
"Why can't they take Mandarin as a foreign language?" That is so true, especially for expatriate children. The local children take German, French or Japanese as a foreign language, so why can't these children take Mandarin in the same context too? They are foreigners and though they should try to fit into the system, since they are in our country, it won't hurt to give them the option of taking Mandarin as a foreign language. Local students are allowed to take Chinese Basic for the O'levels, if I'm not mistaken. Why shouldn't this alternate situation materialise for expat children?
The marking scheme in schools is rather rigid in certain cases. If unusual but "grammatically correct" sentences are used in a piece of work, they are marked as incorrect. Compositions especially, are supposed to evoke creativity in the students but where is the creativity allowed in their marking? Quite ironic, don't you think?
From my experience as a tutor, comprehension cloze passages too, suffer a similar fate. Answers outside the given set of words are not accepted as correct, even though they make sense and fit into the structure of the passages. What is there left to say?
Teachers seem not to be open to curiosity in students. The author's son was merely clarifying his doubts, since he had problems understanding the way certain things were taught here. For that, he was seen as a "trouble-maker"? That's rather narrow-minded and superficial, I feel.
I remember being made to feel stupid as a student when I wanted to clarify what I didn't understand. Other students had no problems but I was a slow learner especially in Math. This fear of asking questions accompanied me to my degree level and it took some coaxing and assurance from my lecturers before I was courageous enough to learn to ask questions again. Thank goodness I did or else I wouldn't have obtained my degree!
He was also not given a chance by his teacher to give his point of view when he was framed as a bully by his so-called friends. So he just resignedly allowed himself to be accused. What does that say about our teachers in general? I hope this is just an isolated case.
I disagree with her in terms of how she feels about the root problem of our education system. The high teacher-student ratio happens because there are insufficient teachers who are willing to give their hearts to our future generation, and this stems from the rebellious children they have to deal with. No matter how hard they try, their efforts go unappreciated and they feel they are fighting a losing battle. I was a relief teacher and so I understand this feeling.
Of course, it is not the children's fault. Such children are the products of parents who place work commitments over their children's development. A line between supporting the family and not spending enough time with their children has to be drawn. Thus, the neglected children turn to the media or bad company to fill their void of loneliness and unwittingly get imbued with the inherent values in these alternative sources. So there's a reason why the ratio is so low.
I'm reminded of an episode from CSI:Miami where the mother was busy working and hired a teenage baby-sitter to take care of her child. She didn't even want to carry the child and wasn't very concerned when her child was involved in a crossfire incident. That is so sad. This scenario isn't just limited to fiction. It happens in reality. I hope Singapore doesn't reach this level.
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