Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Getting ahead of the pack

After 7 days of formal schooling in Singapore, I'm getting a little worried.

Today, Estelle brought her English language worksheets home. She not only learnt about pronouns (like female = she, male = he) but had completed a cloze passage: this is when she had to read a short story and fill up the blanks with helping words. Looking through the list of new words she will be learning, one of them is 'exasperation'. I am exasperated she is learning this word at Grade 1.

I'm happy to say that she had all the answers right. At this point, she can quite easily cope with the English exercises. Many thanks to her teachers at ICEC who have helped her so much!

So what am I worried about?

Do all 6 or 7 year-olds in Grade 1 already know how to read? If they can't read - and I don't mean simple words like cat or dog but stories - they can't do their English worksheets at all. Pitching the level this high, it is little wonder Singaporean parents send their children to prep schools months before they start Grade 1.

How much flexibility are the school and teachers giving to students who are not up to mark to catch up with the syllabus? I'm furiously resisting tuition. But if Estelle can't cope in time to come, I may have to change my mind. I hope and pray I don't have to.

Since we came back to Singapore 2 months ago, we caught up with old friends and long-lost friends whom we have not seen for a decade (or more). For those with children, when they learnt the school Estelle is going to, their responses range from "Wow, congratulations, that school is really hard to get into" or "Well, good luck!" The school does not achieve glowing results through fun and games.

Our friends ask which school she is in and how we gain entry. For the record, we submitted the necessary forms online and were chosen in a balloting exercise. We learnt that our friends sacrificed to get their children into the school of choice. We heard real-life examples of parents who spent tens of hours "volunteering" to serve the school, some paid premium real estate prices to live near the school, and others paid (one told me he spent S$1,000) to join the school association. The highest "donation" I've heard of was... S$200k.

I am thankful we got things easy. If we were living in Singapore and didn't get in the school, we'd probably blame ourselves for not trying harder. I am grateful we didn't have to think about Plan B. Truly grateful.

In Finland, and in other Scandinavian countries, children are not expected to have learnt to read, count or write when they start Grade 1. Children play all day before 6 years old. Some children are obviously ahead of their peers, but the rest are given ample time and opportunities to catch up.

In Singapore, we pride ourselves as a meritocratic society where the ability and talent gets one ahead of the game. Egalitarian Finland, on the other hand, believes that everyone is equal regardless of economic, social or political status.

The Singaporean system exalts the educated and wealthy; the Finnish society helps the less abled, sometimes at the expense of the better-off.

People living in Singapore are urged to excel in the rat race; the incentives to move ahead are limited in Finland.

Merciless meritocracy vs forgiving egalitarianism.

The complete argument should be multi-faceted and would reveal that each society has its pros and cons.

I wish for my children to shine in their strengths and allowed to grow where there are weaknesses. Where is my perfect world?






3 comments:

  1. I'll vote for forgiving egalitarianism!
    Finnish education is the best of the world as the PISA result shows:
    http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2008/2008016.pdf

    The quality of the teachers are also far better than the ones in Japan, for instance.

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  2. Finland is very proud of its PISA results.

    Despite a late start to formal education (7 years old w/o reading or writing skills) and short school hours (sometimes just 4 hours a day and long holidays, summer is 3 months!), Finland has the highest scores among countries taking part in the test. Also, the score gap between the best and weakest students is the smallest, meaning that there is little difference between them.

    Don't want to compare the quality of teachers, though. We tend to be self-deprecating sometimes : )

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  3. I believe there are many capable teachers even in Japan though the problem is the system; Becoming a teacher is ridiculously easily in my country and has no special programme for them before nor after (only a few weeks superficial training and a few courses they have to take) whereas in Finland, you have to study and be trained at least six years for it means you need to obtain the master's degree.

    Also, Japanese teachers are too busy to concentrate on only teaching and taking care of children but have to do other miscellaneous matters in the shool e.g. teachers meeting, report for principle and committee of education and so on unlike those of Finland.
    There are also special classes for the children who cannot catch up the course which we haven't....

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