back to the point. in America, they try too hard to be fair. they don't want to make anybody feel bad, so they spend a lot of money polishing up the lower, less proficient classes. a lot of money gets spent on special education for underprivileged children. because of the "no child left behind" bill, which states that everybody (child) should be allowed to reach their potential. only problem is, that everybody's oohing over the poor underprivileged kids, the ones who have learning disabilities, and the unfortunate result is that the topmost bracket gets ignored. ignored? yes, fine, that's all very well. problem is that when people try to allow for the top-top students, the special express classes, OUTRAGE! "you're wasting the taxpayers money! these kids already have all the opportunities they need! if they're so smart, why don't they go to private school?" and that's the inflexibility of the american system. because these kids need their education too, right? but they're not getting it at the level they should. with private schools costing between US$8000 and 15000 a year, that's not a very viable option. private schools only offer so many scholarships. streaming, which is something that *might* help, gets rebutted every time it happens. when we had our state-wide exams, the newspapers were filled with parent protests about how their children might be emotionally traumatized by bad results, or how unfair the system was. the truth is that [i would swear this to you, hand-on-heart] most american children are about as bad in grammar and vocabulary as singaporeans at their age level. or maybe even worse. don't even get me started about math and science and computer technology. [but then again, look at sports. every day after school for at least 2 hours.]
america, in her trying to portray an all-embracing (read between the lines: especially poor, underprivileged children who need all the help they can get) society, backfires on herself by denying the bright, intelligent children who need just as much help. the american system is at least as rigid as the singaporean one. and let's not even go into all the [true] stereotypes of race, athleticism, popularity.
now for the singaporean system. this is something commonly denounced as rigid. stressful. quite rightly. but it does give its students a very strong foundation in what they learn. the standards are exacting, and some of the curricula have been taught the same way for a few years now. you know how you can show some of your primary school worksheets to ex-gepers now in university and they'll remember doing the same kind (if not the same) worksheet? yet it seems to work pretty well. the best thing about a rigid, step-by-step "i tell you what to do and you follow" system is that you get standard results. in america, you pick what classes you want. you can do all the easy ones and breeze through school with all As or all Fs. or you can pick the hard courses and come out Bs and Cs. and unless people ask discerningly which courses you took you can say, truly, that you got all As in high school. in singapore, standard standard standard actually "compared to the rest of the bunch" results. perhaps more simplistic and easier to generalize. but i thought it worked. singapore's forte is they give you something to learn, you learn it, and they test you on how well you've learned it. did it well? very good. didn't do well? study harder. the supposed phenomenon in singapore is the ubiquitous pressure to excel. parents, teachers, peers keep pushing you to bring out your best. and it's expected, because.. because everybody wants to do their best, don't they? asian mindset and in the asian mind it's true. do well and don't lose face. which might just be the foible of this system. because times are changing, and it's beginning to be established that there are more things in life than just "Get an Education, Find a Job, and Stay Employed" [sounds like a good propaganda maxim] what's beginning to appear, is that there's more than one way to skin a cat. and there aren't just cats to be skinned, there are rabbits, elephants, and loch ness monsters. things are different, and although school is still important what employers are looking for nowadays is all-roundedness. thankfully the government's starting to change that already, but in the singapore system, what i think could be improved is the availability of volunteer work and more chances for kids to see outside of the "perfect, futuristic" singapore; the rural areas with the little modern amenities and technology that we've become so accustomed to.
very basically. the difference is that one emphasizes helping those on the lower rungs climb up a little, and the other glorifies the top few rungs so that they are seen as the shining ideal.
i'm starting to get stiff now, so i won't talk any more for a while.
point to ponder: did you know an A is a percentage above 93 here? compare that with >75 for RGS. and yet, As aren't a particularly common occurence. except among the -A-sians, i wonder why.
posted by anne @ 5:40 am
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