hm.

http://www.todayonline.com/articles/206218.asp

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What is it that gives us the ability to give others?

The author of this article speaks of going on a community trip with some local students to teach English to teenagers at a small village school in Southern China. He also speaks of them as being very different from the Singaporean students he has encountered. Giving several examples about the Chinese students being very willing to help, generous with what they had as well as being open, he gives the reader an impression of these Chinese students as being carefree, happy, and kind. The writer also compares them to our students of today, and what they’re both missing out on respectively.

Of course, the author does mention that not all the students or villagers “possessed the same measure of open-heartedness”.

Two issues are key here, namely how generosity of the Chinese students was much greater than that of their Singaporean counterparts, as well as whether our efforts at self-promotion have turned into self-indulgence. They are linked because self-indulgence is achievement for one’s selfish gain, but self-promotion promotes oneself in a bid to serve. This will be explained later.

In my opinion, I feel that this sort of environment is highly encouraged by having nothing to lose. Comparing these two groups of students is basically comparing those who are well-off in terms of material indulgences to those who do not possess much of these material benefits. This is related to my reason where the children who have nothing to lose are more easy-going with what they have. Naturally, our commonsensical reaction would be to expect that the students who have little are afraid to lose what they have, but this is clearly not the case. In fact, those who have more than naught, but not excessively more, are more selfish with what they have. And these, of course, are people like us.

Our breed is different because of the competitive environment that we grow up in. From young, we have been taught to score better than our classmates, to do well in CCAs, to look after our needs before others. This is the crunch part, the typical Singaporean kiasu attitude, where we are told to take care of ourselves before bothering about others. Now, how about the students in China that the writer talked about? I doubt a competitive environment exists over there, and perhaps they are taught to share because they live in smaller communities, which are much closer-knitted than our large social groups over here. If everyone does not grapple to be top of everything, the ground is level, and everyone helps everyone.

The other issue is whether our efforts at self-promotion have turned into self-indulgence. Here, I must say, the scenario varies from people to people, and therefore so does this issue. What the majority of us are doing is of course self-indulgence already. In fact, if I had never read this article, I would never have noticed. As the writer has mentioned, “students are encouraged to discover their assets and market them, chalking up awards and qualifications”. When we think of what we want to achieve, it is all about ourselves. We are all aware that accolades are important currency in the world out there, and a qualification is going to do us good. However, when we get an academic testimonial or work profile, does it talk about us on an individual level, or the “whole” level? The point is that when we contribute, we do not contribute for ourselves; we contribute because we want to give others what we have.

And that should be just the case with doctors, scientists, writers; doctors should never give consultations for the money involved, scientists should make discoveries for the good of the world and not for personal fame and fortune, writers write to share their fiction and not for fame and fortune. Not even the cleaners should be working for their profit but for everyone who uses what they clean, not even the construction workers should be working for their profit but for everyone who uses what they build, not even the gardeners should be working for their profit but for everyone who looks at what he sows.

This might sound a little far off from what we have today, but this scenario is where everyone wants to be: it’s utopia to have everyone wishing you to be happy.

Not even Achilles should have fought for Greece in a bid to immortalize his name, and for nothing else.

SHE believes that dreams can come true despite the many setbacks faced, aconviction that clinched a model student award for late bloomer Christina OngLing Yee yesterday.Ms Ong, 22, is the latest recipient of Singapore Polytechnic’s Model StudentAward.Given out since 1997, the award goes to the student who excels in both studiesand co-curricular activities (CCA), as well as embodies SP’s core values likepersonal integrity and responsibility.Ms Ong, now working in a quantity surveyor firm, fits the bill – to an S, and aP.She was “too playful” and kept failing examinations until Primary 5, when shewas channelled to the EM3 stream, which was for academically weaker pupils.It was then that she pulled herself up, and studied harder. She reflected onher poor grades and thought: “Other people are also human. If they can do it, Ican too.”Still, it was not an easy road. In Secondary 4, financial problems forced herto work part-time at McDonalds to pay her school fees. Her father works at acoffee shop while her mother is a cashier.Also, her English grade was not good, and as a Normal (Technical) student at StTheresa’s Convent, she recalls the stigma attached to students in that stream.She was advised against transferring to the Normal (Academic) stream despitedoing well enough to qualify in Secondary 2.So, she went to the Institute of Technical Education (ITE).Call it serendipity, but it was at the ITE that she really blossomed. She feltthat, without the different streams, “everyone was equal” and stood an “equalchance of succeeding”.Her excellent ITE results led her to SP, where she studied property developmentand facilities management. She was also active in the Rotary Club and was theorganising secretary of the Built and Environmental Club, among other CCAs.Her achievements won praise from Mr Lim Cher Yam, 50, deputy director of SP’sSchool of the Built Environment. He said she “stood out in terms of maturityand academic achievement”.Although from ITE, she “rose above those from the O-level route” and wasconsistently among the “top few students” in her cohort.

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In every field, there is the elite, the average, and the bad.

And the way we all think is that when you’re bad, you’re bad. It is just as though gravity is too strong; once you’re at the bottom of the ladder, there’s no climbing back up.

Some of us, however, know this not to be the case.

The above article talks of how Ms Christina Ong, coming from the EM3 stream, was able to pull herself back up that “ladder” and obtain the Singapore Polytechnic’s Model Student Award. It is a blatant exception to what many of us Singaporeans think.

As I mentioned in my first ever blog entry “Teacher, do you think I am too stupid to do well” (below), the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) has been a joke because its acronym stands also for It’s The End. Being the institute that offers education for those who are chanelled to the Normal Academic stream from the beginning of secondary school, it is not surprising to see how skilled Singaporeans can twist acronyms to create such large differences in meaning.

How different people might interpret the story is that we either view it in a sardonic manner, especially if the reader himself is from the educated elite, or, we read the article and are able to understand how we are different but yet still can learn from those people who are both academically higher achieving or “more stupid” than us.

Why did I use the word “stupid”? The current education system in Singapore right now, I feel, encourages the growth of elitism. As I have mentioned quite a few times in my previous entries, I believe, I am one who studies in a more prestigious school. And I do have friends who look down on students from neighbourhood schools, calling them “stupid” or “gangsters” or “uncouth”. This is one way the growth of elitism is spurred; we can write essays (or even blog entries) about how it is bad and should be stopped, but there is no helping it-it is growing. And this elitism is a different breed; it makes students assume that people who do not do as well academically are stupid. Very clearly, academic results is not the sole criteria in determining one’s intelligence, but right now, to the “elite” students, it is.

What I feel now is that the Singapore education system is too restrictive. Currently, once students are sorted into the Normal Technical stream at the secondary school level, there is no going back. One is restricted to the same stream until completion of ITE. The only option is taking the O-Levels after doing well for the N-Levels.

This is the only reason why Ms Christina Ong is considered exceptional. I am quite sure that if students were able to break out of the technical stream halfway through, many of them would be much more motivated and we would have many more such examples.

Even then, we do have much to learn from her. Her spirit is admirable in that she does not want to give up, and is not satisfied with what she has. And of course, no one can or should ever be. You might be at the top of your league, but there’s always the larger picture. Just as Ms Christina Ong was always ranking at the top few students of her cohort and was never satisfied with just that, we should never be satisfied just as well. And so, are you satisfied with where you are, or do you want more?

They were raised in China, learnt English in Singapore and want to go on to the West

http://enewslink.asia1.com.sg/brsweb/read_16.brsw?this=result&QDT=1&QFLST=HD%3AHG%3APD&DB=BT%3AST%4006-07&QSTR=raffles&DTSTR=%28%28PD+%3E=+20061216%29+and+%28PD+%3C=+20070518%29%29&PSZ=10&MAXL=200&SUMY=1&HLT=0&LSTN=10&ID=000021966@ST07

The article speaks of Chinese nationals, as well as scholars of other nationalities, who come over to Singapore to study in our schools, mainly for a more English-speaking environment.

Studying in Raffles Institution myself, this is an issue which is very close to me. From secondary one, there has been no lack of mainland Chinese students in my class or neighbouring classes, and these students have been known to be the most hardworking, the most well-behaved and the worst in English.

My reactions to this article, first of all, is that i want to point out some negative labels given to such scholars from overseas. Many such scholars are ostracised in school by the Singaporean students because they think the Chinese scholars are "uncool", are nerdy, and speak in heavily accented Chinese. This ostracising is very prevalent in my school, and it is important to note that this is a very alarming mindset problem of Singaporean youths today.

What then, is wrong here? Why have we given negative stereotypes to such overseas scholars? A possible reason might be academic jealousy. All of us are students, and we all want to do well and be better than others. Noting this, it is difficult to ignore the possibility that students do not like the scholars beacuse they work harder and do better than the local students. Thus the impression of them being nerdy arises. A point to note here is that this is not something applying only to scholars, but includes local students who tend to "overachieve".

Another possible reason is the ostracism of the "uncool", the group of those who do not have fun, study hard, and pull their pants high. This is a very typical scholar, who because he is not in his homeland, he finds it difficult to socialise in a language he is not fluent in. He stays in boarding, which means he has few friends outside of school and the boarders, and finds it difficult to make more. What a majority of students do is make this job of making new friends even more difficult for him, when we label them the way we do.

On another aspect altogether, i find it ironic that Chinese pupils want to learn English, while English-speaking Caucasians tend to want to learn Chinese. It is a well-known fact that the Chinese economy has been booming and expanding extremely fast, and what my parents always tell me is that i have to be able to speak Chinese well if the Chinese market becomes the biggest market in the world by 2020. And yet Chinese pupils forsake their own native tongue for English. My Chinese teacher spoke of how a Chinese scholar who came to RI scored just a C6 for his O Level Chinese, and dropped it when he went to junior college. Chinese is not like English, where there are alphabets. Rather, it is pictorial, which means that after using it less, one can forget how to read it. This is what an English-speaking environment can do to you; so why do the Chinese study here?

In conclusion, foreign students are a very major addition to our school lives. They definitely play very big parts in everyday school lives, but what they have is the dedication and the drive to want to do well. Yet, i feel they might have chosen the wrong environment to learn, because they learn English here and forget Chinese.

Armed, online and dangerous

http://enewslink.asia1.com.sg/brsweb/read_50.brsw?this=result&QDT=1&QFLST=HD%3AHG%3APD&DB=BT%3AST%4006-07&QSTR=internet&DTSTR=%28%28PD+%3E=+20061214%29+and+%28PD+%3C=+20070516%29%29&PSZ=10&MAXL=200&SUMY=1&HLT=0&LSTN=40&ID=000020986@ST07

This article talks of the dangers teenagers face online. However, unlike the usual dangers like other adults and pornography, the dangers talked about here are other teenage netizens.

I feel this problem is present because teenagers feel a need to blend in with the crowd. Once doing a certain thing is deemed as "cool", many follow and do this thing, be it right or wrong. The example given here is that of students posting videos of beating-ups, fights, etc, just to create controversy and boost the amount of hits the blog will receive. This is a problem with social status, because it is taken that the more hits you have, the more popular you are. Typical people want to be with the "in" crowd and be popular.

Another issue is of how doing such things is not clearly defined as wrong, and the line is thinly drawn between being offensive and minding one's own business. As shown, the girl from Hillgrove Secondary was not punished for saying her classmate "deserved to die", and merely offered an insincere apology. The mindset of teenagers here is that if there are no consequences, anything is acceptable be it moral or immoral. There is no consideration for the feelings of others in their comments.

The way to eradicate this problem is to inculcate a set of values into the youth of today. The value of concerning oneself with others and how they feel. This is a golden rule of "not doing unto others what you do not want others to do unto you", and if the youth of today are able to comprehend what this rule can do for them, the social problem of flaming and posting humiliating objects concerning others online will be significantly less serious.

Also, bloggers have been calling for a clear ruling for blogging etiquette. If such etiquette is enforced, hopefully the situation will be improved. This is by way of creating awareness among netizens of what is acceptable in the blogosphere, and clear guidelines will certainly be invaluable as means to an end.

Results to the survey conducted by The Sunday Times are, to me, disturbing. There are actually 9 out of the 32 teenagers surveyed who feel that there is nothing wrong with flaming someone online. To me, flaming someone online is just like writing offensive letters or comments in a public forum where everyone can view them, and the writer can remain anonymous. This is by no means acceptable in today's, or rather, any society. Thus i feel this is of course an education problem, and thus i conclude that to prevent such instances from occuring, we have to let them know.

Let them know why it isn't right, and how simple words, even on a computer screen, can be sharper than a sword.

Dear Teacher, do you think i am too stupid to do well?

http://enewslink.asia1.com.sg/brsweb/read_8.brsw?this=result&QDT=1&QFLST=HD%3AHG%3APD&DB=BT%3AST%4006-07&QSTR=%28%28teacher%29%29.HG.&DTSTR=%28%28PD+%3E=+20060929%29+and+%28PD+%3C=+20070301%29%29&PSZ=10&MAXL=200&SUMY=1&HLT=0&LSTN=0&ID=000046409@ST06

This article talks of the differentiation between academic standards of students in Singapore, especially with reference to the EM3 stream in primary school.

I feel this situation is plainly one of stereotyping and condemnation. These students take a few tests early, and then they are placed together with others who do not do well. There is then an impression that they cannot do well ever again, and that they are doomed to fail in life. (Side note: many of such students move on to the Institutes of Technical Education (ITE) after secondary school, and certain people dub ITE as It’s The End.) This is a generalization that they can not improve, and they cannot work harder to strive for something better than what they achieved at 10 years old.

The EM3 stream has been done away with a few years ago. However, there is still the case of students taking foundation subjects, or subject banding, as mentioned in the article. Some students who might be good in one subject but bad in the rest might have to take all subjects at the foundation level, because of fixed primary school subject combinations. This is unfair, in my opinion, because certain students with gifts in particular areas will not get a chance to develop.

The main question, however, is what we can do to dispel the impression that they are useless and dumb forever. Coming from an EM1 stream myself, and having been part of the more academically gifted classes for the whole of my childhood so far, I do not actually have the impression of them as dumb goons. Instead, they are very much like us, and have similar interests.

The article also talks about the Rosenthal Effect as the teacher directly impacting a student based on his/her expectations towards that student. I feel this may not necessarily be very glaring in the Singapore education system, because teachers do not focus so much on one student alone. However, in RI, we have yet to see whether the Raffles Academy programme, targeted at students with “intellectual gifts” as well, will produce students who do significantly better. After all, there is a higher expectation of them to do well as well.

I would like to conclude by saying that education is but one part of our life process, and it by far does not mean anything to whether one will succeed in later life. Bill Gates is a stellar example; a man who drops out of university is now the richest man on the world. Thus, we should not discriminate against people who are academically weaker than us, because it is possible that we might end up working for them in the future.

Help for 114 problem gamblers since January

http://enewslink.asia1.com.sg/brsweb/read_9.brsw?this=result&QDT=1&QFLST=HD%3AHG%3APD&DB=BT%3AST%4006-07&QSTR=problem+gambling+XOR+%28%28problem+gambling%29%29.HD.+XOR+%28%28problem+gambling%29%29.HG.&DTSTR=%28%28PD+%3E=+20060928%29+and+%28PD+%3C=+20070228%29%29&PSZ=10&MAXL=200&SUMY=1&HLT=0&LSTN=0&ID=000018124@BT06

I feel this problem will be here, with or without casinos.

This article talks about how 114 people have stepped forward to receive treatment for addiction to gambling, and also how the National Council for Problem Gambling (NCPG) has stepped up efforts to combat such cases, with the advent of the Integrated Resorts (IR). The NCPG is among one of the government efforts to prevent addiction to gambling among Singaporeans. Others include barring people who are not financially secure, as well as imposing a levy fee.

Many people enjoy gambling, because there is the thrill of whether one wins or loses, and of actually having something at stake. People often cannot predict whether they will win or lose, thus they can only pray and hope for a good hand, a lucky spin, etc. The thrill is what gets the majority of people hooked, and also the self-conceived notion that “I can’t be so unlucky!” Thus people continue gambling even if they are on a losing spree, losing their money and still having false hope that they can win it back This leads to them illegally borrowing money from loan sharks, if only to feed their addiction and win back whatever they have lost.

The situation in Singapore currently, is that there are forms of legal gambling in which thousands of people take part in every day-4-D and Toto. These are forms of gambling because winning them is based on chance alone, and there is a stake involved. The odds of winning in such legalised betting are very low, as are the stakes. However, once one wins, there is a large amount of winnings.

There is also illegal gambling, which takes place mainly in mini-casinos and gambling dens. The odds of winning here is like standard casinos, but there is a risk level. Thus people prefer to stick to the legalised form of gambling.

People getting addicted to either are for the aforementioned reasons. A recent Jack Neo film, “The Best Bet”, showcased the pitfalls of problem gambling, including addiction to just 4-D alone. In the article, it is also mentioned that 59 percent of respondents took part in some form of gambling, and about two percent were pathological gamblers.
The new casino will not drastically worsen the situation. How many of us can actually afford a $100++ ticket for just one day into a casino? This probably will make it a once-in-a-while splurge, such as buying a ticket to a nearby casino ie. Genting. With or without the casino, people will have ways to gamble, be it illegal or legal. And the drastic measures taken by the government will not open the bottleneck for gambling to the mainstream population; gambling in the casino will most likely be an exclusive affair.