Education nonsense

Hah.Who will have thought that the pleasant memories mentioned in the previous entry came from a loner who was determine to spend the rest of her school years alone because she could not get along with anyone at all? That violent, bad tempered, rebellious weird geek who had tried so hard to fit in only to be pushed away so many times that she just gave up and told herself never again. Gah. My early school years were a nightmare. LOL. Suxin probably saved me during the first day of secondary two when she turned round smiling and asked my name.

It's funny how MOE allocates the most cruel teachers to teach primary school kids. When I think back now, I think it's probably part of the conditioning process, to produce the next generation of obedient, submissive people who were brainwashed to accept their "roles" in society. Hmm. Let me explain further, by comparing the education system here with the concept from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. In Brave New World, the human population were conditioned even before birth to their future roles in society, with the Alphas being the smartest, allowed to developed to the fullest potential to be groomed after birth to run the population, followed by the Betas, conditioned to work in various high technology environments such as genetic engineering, the Gammas and Deltas, which formed the working classes of the society, conditioned to know only about serving the society, never to understand or appreciate things like art and nature, followed by the Epsilons, semi retards cruelly starved of oxygen during foetal development so they will never be able to think and can only do repetitive work.

Of course, this is the most extreme scenario, but if you look at the way the education system is like here, you will be able to see several similarities. The Alphas will be those who were streamed into making up what we know as GEPers, supposedly gifted kids groomed to receive the baton to hold high position in the public sector. The Betas, consisting of people with enough intelligence to become the future specialists and major contributors to the nation, they will be those streamed into the EM1 or the Special stream. The Gammas will be the majority of the population, THOUGHT to be better as the higher working class, they will be streamed into EM2 or Express. This will be followed by the Deltas, better known in our world as the Em3 or Normal,forming the lower working class and ASSUMED to be hopeless and only capable of manual labour. I shall skip the Epsilons for now.

Do you see the problem? Such streaming and segregation will be useful if humans are born in such a way that fit the system, and an utopia society will thus be possible. But obviously in our society we are not even close to that. Everyone is born with different talents and abilities. But the education system choose to rely solely on the academic ability of a child to determine where he/she will be streamed to. This is where the problem begins. Because your IQ does not represent your academic ability. The result will be that many kids find themselves streamed into the wrong place which does not match their real abilities at all. Now that's the scary thing. Take for example a kid who with a high IQ but was incredibly lazy, thus he was streamed into EM3, made to undergo a series of conditioning to become what was thought to be fitting by the powers that be. It's like putting someone in a room and playing a recorder that spew sentences like "You are a loser, EM3 sucks, you will never be as good as the others" continuously, 24 hours a day. Unless the kid is someone who is very sure of his real abilities and remain unaffected by everything else (Ok, no kid will be able to be so clear headed), it is inevitable that the kid will fall victim to the extreme conditioning and start convincing himself that those sentences are true afterall.

This is what I really hate about the education system. The elitism behavior that led to stigmatisation and sterotyping. Which I'm ashamed of commiting. To be honest, I have never thought very well of people coming from the other streams, neither do I have much interactions with them during my primary school or secondary school years (I was in EM1 and Special, my secondary school dont even have Normal). When I think about it, all the people I know from other schools when I was in secondary school were the GEPers or fellow specialists.(Good word huh?) People from Express or Normal seems to be from another planet, and even my teachers or parents conditioned me to think that people from the other streams were never as good as mine, not to mix with them so much because you will end up as stupid as them etc. (Yeah, a primary school teacher actually told me that) Perhaps it's a good thing that I ended up where I am now. It really opened my eyes and allowed me to meet people whom I would years ago have snobbed at. (Ok, please start slapping me now, I totally deserve it) Hmmm.

Order and obedience. That's what this stupid system is based on. How many of you had in your primary school days was forced by your teachers to put your fingers to your lips, shouted at to shut up, punished just because you talked during lessons? Made to raise your hand to ask for permission to go to the toilet, where your teacher had the power to deny you? It's just absurd to think of it now. Denied of the right to even communicate or relieve yourself? Naturally it would not go well with people like me. I was beaten with that damn wooden ruler in primary 3 so many times that it broke once when I got tired of everything and pulled my hand back just as the teacher brought it crashing down to the table instead. Publicly humiliated in class, my books and bags thrown out by a furious teacher, forced to stand up and announce to the class my lousy marks, while she laughed and that bunch of girls whom she favoured giggled at me. Condemned to three years of solitary confinement by the same form teacher who made me sit alone right at the far end of the class so that I cannot talk to the rest. And the worst of all, being scolded and punished just because I dared to challenge the prefects and monitors who were abusing their powers while sucking up to the teacher, or to question the teacher's choice in choosing them in the first place.Gah.

All that come out from those painful years was the sweet revenge at the end of it all. When someone tells me that I cannot do something, I will prove it to you I can.I will never forget that day when those bunch of fools came up to me and asked my PSLE score. My reply wiped the smile off their faces. Even the teachers were shocked that I ended up as one of the school's top achievers. Heh.

I think this is why I ended up so badly when I went on to secondary one. The idea of cliques and friends had not occured to me yet. And I thought that I would be better off alone. I did attempt to make friends though, but it was too late. I guess those three years sitting alone in class probably harden me. I was the loser, and losers ended up bullied. Gah. And I guess it made the situation worse. Sigh.

But to look on the bright side, some good did come out from it all. Even those bleak and torturous years. I was able to find myself in the end. I might not be certain of what I really want yet, but at least I do know who I am, and to be proud of that. Heh. Now that's a great achievement yeah?XD

Hmm, I think I'm really ranting too much. Hahaa. Anyway, I started this entry because I heard my neighbour beating her son just now because he failed his test or something. And he's in EM3. =/


Screw the Singapore Education System. I will never make my kids go through that hell man.