Is it me?

Or are people from Montfort politically inclined?

Take a look at this pic from The New Paper on 31st March 2007

Amongst all the RIs and the ACS(I)s and the SJIs, appears not 1, but 2 Montforts.

What is this world coming to?!?!

Today I was on my way to Sembawang Park with my church youths, taking bus 882 from Sembawang station.

Also on the bus were foreign tourists, families going on a fishing trip and most notably, 2 chinese girls, no doubt siblings, probably 7-10 years old, accompanied by their mother.

Why are they notable?

Because at the bus terminal, the 2 girls were walking around asking people to keep quiet. People as strangers walking about, waiting for buses and all. And their actions did not stop when they got on the bus.

When they boarded the bus, a very friendly and helpful Bus Captain greeted them and they said "You better keep your mouth shut!"

The 2 kids were, least to say, an absolute nuisance on the trip. They were going around saying in their broken and accented English

"Eu batter shut yor mawth ah!"
"Evreebirdy kip kwai-et!"
"Shaddup, eu!"
"This is nort farny ohkay! Wai are eu luffing?!"

Everybody in the bus tried to ignore them but they would walk down the aisle and point in the person's face, telling that person to keep quiet. The amazing thing is that the mother didn't even do anything to stop them except for a lame "Talkative lah, you two." and a gentle reminder of "This is not school, you are not a prefect here."

What is this world coming to?

I was probably spared the reprimanding because I was standing in a corner with my friends talking. If they dare shouted at me I'd've gave them a not-so-gentle reminder and clouted them in their face for their cheek (as would any sensible person)

After some thinking, I reflected that the actions of the 2 girls were probably influenced by primary school life.

Remember the bootlicking prefects/monitor/monitress and their line "You better keep quiet ah, or else I write your name on the notebook/whiteboard and tell the teacher ah!"?

The 2 kids were probably just taking it to the extreme, having just been chosen as a prefect or something.

The above case is a real good example of how school life and culture affects society, and further emphasise on the point that education is a very very heavy responsibility and should be taken extremely seriously, not as a pawn for political games.

Tharman Shanmugaratnam better wake up his ideas. And Lui Tuck Yew too.

Sponginess

The Singapore education system can be very fittingly described as a test of sponginess.

Isn’t it the case? A student gets a certain amount of time to absorb the tested things, ‘squeeze’ it out during the test, and remember the very little amount retained in after the test, the rest being returned to the teacher.

The more you absorb, the more you regurgitate, the better you do.

What a great system eh? Students are able to get A’s for all their subjects. Well, the spongy ones are able to anyway.

What about the rock solid ones? Those who are talented in their field and their field only. They are unjustified by this system because an A among C’s count for nothing here.

There IS a difference between a 90 point A and a 75 point A, but it is not recognised in this system.

Of course, when asked about this, the Ministry of Education will throw some rabble about language subjects not being regurgitate-able and are creative subjects.

That is not entirely true. Take Chinese for an instance. The teacher gives students formats, quotes and ‘chim’ words to memorise and put to use! Which part of it is creative? Which part of it cannot be regurgitated?


What about English? It is much worse. The average students’ standard of English is so bad that the overall standard has been brought down so much. According to several sources (school principal, MOE workers, students) 60% of O level takers flunk English but moderation saved their skin.

This IS a big problem.

Personally, I feel that the minimal passing standard for English would be to have perfect grammar, give or take an error or two. But people now can hardly speak proper English! I feel that having perfect grammar as a minimal passing standard will be the perfect step for the Speak Good English Movement.

Moreover, it is also extremely easy to score 28/30 for English compositions. (28/30 is the maximum amount)

Step 1) Have perfect grammar
Step 2) Make the teacher reach for the dictionary with moderately uncommon words

Voila! Maximum points in the bag! And most of the time, the teacher’s English is worst than the top students’ English and they don’t have proper grammar at all.

This goes to show how proper the MOE is being run now.

The Ministry of Education must really “Wake up their ideas”

Tharman Shanmugaratnam better do something fast.