I'm Glad I'm Not Singaporean!
Today I watched pretty much all of a movie I found called I Not Stupid (Chinese name : Xiaohai Bu Ben) and after watching it I feel I can say that I'm glad I'm not Singaporean. Not that I have anything against the Singaporeans - in fact, I have two friends from there - but their educational system is scary! At around 11 or 12 years old, children are streamed according to their academic abilities and the movie deals with society's low view of those who end up in that bottom stream (EM3 in their system).
I also feel that this talk of streaming is quite relevant to how education systems in some countries are beginning to resemble Singapore's and how a low view seems to be taken on those who don't get straight A's in every subject. There seems to be a somewhat worrying view these days that the 'arts' are useless and those who fail at school are even more useless. While I agree an education can be a very important thing, shouldn't we also be encouraging people to make use of their talents? After all, not everyone is suited to be a doctor or physicist. One of the kids in the movie was an excellent artist and yet he was constantly shunned by his mum and the education system because he was bad at Math. Exactly what can we judge intelligence on? Must it always be Math and languages? Or should we all take a much wider view of natural intelligence and support it?
I'm rambling a bit but that movie did provoke some thoughts....
Anyway, I did get an offer from Berlitz to join their team so I'll be starting my training sometime next week. While I had my reservations about working there (and still do to some extent), it would be very good work experience and it might boost my own confidence in my abilities. Plus I really could use a bit more money as my consultancy job is only part-time and I'm only getting one assignment per week (at NT$3000 a piece, it still doesn't make much of a wage). So I'm going to go ahead with it and see how far I get. I guess they can always fire me if I'm utterly useless...
Well, time to try and do something a little more productive than refreshing my Live Journal community pages every few minutes!
I also feel that this talk of streaming is quite relevant to how education systems in some countries are beginning to resemble Singapore's and how a low view seems to be taken on those who don't get straight A's in every subject. There seems to be a somewhat worrying view these days that the 'arts' are useless and those who fail at school are even more useless. While I agree an education can be a very important thing, shouldn't we also be encouraging people to make use of their talents? After all, not everyone is suited to be a doctor or physicist. One of the kids in the movie was an excellent artist and yet he was constantly shunned by his mum and the education system because he was bad at Math. Exactly what can we judge intelligence on? Must it always be Math and languages? Or should we all take a much wider view of natural intelligence and support it?
I'm rambling a bit but that movie did provoke some thoughts....
Anyway, I did get an offer from Berlitz to join their team so I'll be starting my training sometime next week. While I had my reservations about working there (and still do to some extent), it would be very good work experience and it might boost my own confidence in my abilities. Plus I really could use a bit more money as my consultancy job is only part-time and I'm only getting one assignment per week (at NT$3000 a piece, it still doesn't make much of a wage). So I'm going to go ahead with it and see how far I get. I guess they can always fire me if I'm utterly useless...
Well, time to try and do something a little more productive than refreshing my Live Journal community pages every few minutes!