Thursday, September 20, 2012
What's so wrong with our education system
Parents today are anxious about their children's education to the extent of being paranoia and damaging to their children's wellbeing. They see scoring good results as a mean to an end. They push, pull, punish their children through rigorous studies, tuitions, school works thinking in doing so it will help their children score good marks in examination.
Today I just heard of one exasperated parent recounted how her daughter was reported as a slow learner, poor in academics by her preschool teacher. But she proved them wrong after her daughter emerged to be otherwise.
I share my experience as I have been there and through all the experiences as a student from primary to tertiary education. I never did well in my examination in my primary to polytechnic except for mathematics which is an innate gift, the rest just managed a C or P3 score despite studying very hard. But to the surprise of many who knew me and with unbelief that I would emerged as top student in my late 40s when I studied for my degree.
Did I studied till overnight as some of my classmates did, no, in fact I went to bed at about 10am and woke up just in time to sit for my papers.
So what's the secret and how did an average or below average student like me beat all students, part-time or full time campus students all over the world from Dubai, China, Malaysia, the West countries to come up top.
So what's so wrong with our education system. I think it has to do with our leaders. Our leaders are not able to see clearly what's so wrong. After all they are also victims of the education system. They strived hard in their studies and many were scholars themselves. So how would they be able to see what's wrong with the education system.
Even one executive director of a national body told me that my part-time degree course is not recognized as it is only a one year course whereas the campus full time 3 year course is recognized by the national body. See how warped their thinkings are. How could a similar course be viewed differently. What is the logic. Actually they failed to see that there is different between a student who has no industry experience and one who is a matured student with 20 years of experience before she took her degree. How I managed is because I already understand the full aspect of the course studies and taking the degree is like writing a biography of my work experience. That's why I was able to do it with speed and ease whereas my younger classmates had to struggle and can barely finished even 60% of 3 questions examination that required 12 pages of writing in 2 hours. Moreover I am gifted in this profession. I did not go to school to learn, it is all innate.
Our education system is too obsessed with ranking even at preschooler education now. And they thought that once our educators are trained they are qualified to rank a student. You see knowledge kill, too much knowledge destroy a student. Children have very high ego. Once their egos are bruised it destroyed them...their confidence, motivation to study, their self esteem. And it takes years to repair a damaged child.
What I am saying is it is absolutely nonsensical to rank a child. It is alright to expose a child to all studies but it is not necessary to excel in every study. You only have to find your one gift, talent to excel in life. They can find that out after they try all the subjects. Once they know their talents and choose a course that suit their gift they will excel effortlessly. Children in preschool, primary to secondary 1 and 2 age should be a time of building on their social, character, emotional, physical well-being. Hard study should only start from secondary 3 to college, polytechnic and tertiary education.
(I have not touch on how to study to excel...to be continued)
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