Tianni on Play: Academy of the world

Headline translation of report in Singapore's My Paper: I can become a Superkid!

I can never quite make up my mind on whether I had been a good student or a bad one. As with many areas in my life, I can only conclude my student record has been unpredictable.

On second thought, no -- I take that back. I was definitely a bad student. Only, I was good enough to pass exams (at least the important ones) without really putting in the work. Yeah, go ahead, kill me.

Okay, now that I’ve got your attention…

My formal education – all 16 odd years of it – was largely received inside Singapore. It was also rather unfortunately, largely forgettable.

No, I don’t mean the lifelong friends whom I’d picked up along the way, or the opportunities to engage in numerous extra-curricular activities that allowed me to explore interests that my parent-sanctioned courses of study (Commerce!! Business!!) didn’t allow for.

I am referring to the Accounting classes and Business 101 lectures I’ve had to sit through half asleep, the Operations Processes homework I copied from classmates that I’ve handed in, and the Financial Accounting exams I didn’t turn up for.

I’m not proud of my nonchalance toward the most part of school. On the contrary, I look back on the last decade of my formal schooling with a truckload of regret that I'd walked away not learning more than I could have, simply because I was mostly studying subjects I had little interest in.

I had started out pretty motivated, often topping classes in primary school. I also had an affinity for language and was inclined toward the arts and humanities. My conservative parents however believed in the conventional path to success and more than that, in the conventional measure of success. Basically, in secondary school, that translated into "no arts stream." Later on, this was fine tuned into "Business = $$ = :-D."

So when it came time for university, out went my preferred choice of theater studies, and in came full-blown truancy. What had started mildly in junior college during which I would regularly excuse myself from classes in subjects I loathed for the endless "track training" became a way of life in university, a period during which I spent approximately 60 percent of my time engaged in countless hall and extra- curriculum activities -- running, swimming, drama, dance, you name it -- and only some of the remaining sitting in lecture halls. My disinterest grew to a point where I went through an entire term without attending a single class in subjects I highly disliked. When examinations came round, I decided to simply not show up for the papers (read: two glaring ‘F’s!!). During the last days of the final semester, I stepped for the first time inside the faculty library to photocopy a term's worth of handouts I'd missed, only to realize I actually needed a library card. What I see looking back on my uni years is a shameful waste of precious time and limited resources, and not just mine. I sincerely apologize to that student who didn't get a place in Biz Ad despite a genuine interest, because I accepted mine out of expediency.

Every parent's dream (if they work) - 'model' answers for the PSLE exams

Why I'm even bringing up this sorry history is the earlier online furor in Singapore over whether to reduce the weighting of the mother tongue (i.e., the compulsory second language subject) in the all-important Primary School Leaving Examinations. I didn't follow the whole debate closely, but what I generally grasped is this: some are concerned reducing the importance of Chinese (or Malay, or Tamil, or Hindi, whatever the case may be) in exams will lead to students paying less attention to their mother tongue, deteriorate an already dismal grasp of the second language and so further dilute our already weak cultural roots. Others argue reducing the pressure to score in the subject will make it more enjoyable to learn a second language and so boost standards. Still others fear taking away the need for good second-language scores for admissions into secondary schools will further fan the competition for limited seats in top schools in favor of those with a strong foundation in the English language (generally seen as being from English-educated, more advantaged socioeconomic backgrounds).

To me, the arguments all miss the most basic point. That just as there are students poor in maths or sciences or literature, there are students poor in languages. Just as there are backgrounds where the parents communicate with their children using Chinese, there are parents who use English; just as there are those who are comfortable crunching numbers, who surround their children with literary novels, or who instill an early love of natural sciences in their children. If there were as many diverse backgrounds and as many varied interests, why do we persist in holding young children's abilities and worth to standardized examinations that demand they perform equally well in everything, and penalizes them should they fall short on even one? If there is debate over the fairness of a compulsory second language, why not also debate that of measuring unique individuals with a generalized, standard measure?

I guess it means you can get 4 'A' stars if you memorize all the answers. Duh.

Of course, I'm hardly the first to question the standardized assessments of children. In China, some 10 million 17-year-olds sit each year for the college entrance examination, or gaokao, after spending their entire childhoods swotting for what has been criticized as nothing more than memory tests. The gaokao is seen as about the only way for rural families to break out of the poverty cycle, yet questions are being raised over whether they promote rote-learning over creativity and the ability to think for oneself.

(Read this interesting critique of the traditional Chinese education system)

There are as many arguments for standardized assessments, and truth is, until there is a better alternative of applying or assessing learning, the current vanguard will likely continue to be used.

But, as in my case, the possible consequence to enforcing something without an appreciation for "natural" talents or inclinations is a backlash, and at its worst, the potential hijacking of an individual's full potential. And that would serve the interests of no one. Fortunately for me at least, I've found one can try (or be obliged to) but never truly run away from oneself.

Over the past decade or so, I've found myself embarking on a real-world education, one that has proven far superior to any I'd received within the confines of educational institutions. Much of it had come from traveling and living in countries with cultural and political orders starkly different from home, and from interacting with a whole society's spectrum of people. I've been given crash courses in civic participation while witnessing public movements from Bangkok to Taipei, and realized politics isn't just restricted to an educated minority; in the developing countries, I've been sobered by inequalities in wealth distribution with both extreme poverty and wealth on display along a stretch of a single street. In rural Thailand, I was humbled by the grit of prepubescent muay thai boxers determined to rise above less than fortunate circumstances; in Taipei, I was educated in the inconvenient truth that taking responsibility for environmental degradation also involves a nugget of personal discomfort.

Throughout, I've read furiously on an array of books that pique my interest -- International Affairs, Development, Economics, Psychology -- not because they are mandated readings for a course, but because I personally desired to know more. Not surprisingly, most of these subjects fall into the Arts and Humanities department.

In a way, I've come full circle through my exploration of the world.

The people I meet outside of textbooks

But of course I can't explain that to my parents. They're still wondering when I'll end my gallivanting and begin a proper career in the business world.