Big fish in small pond OR small fish in big pond?

[sharonkhoo]

I’m happy to read this as it agrees with what I have always felt, but never had any real evidence to back it up. I told my kids when we were choosing sec schools that we should find schools where they could probably be in the upper half. In practice, this has meant that one child is in a "top" school and another is in a much less well-regarded school. Especially for the one who is not so academic, that choice has been right for her as she is not always at the bottom which makes school a much less harrowing experience.

[ngl2010]

slmkhoo:

I'm happy to read this as it agrees with what I have always felt, but never had any real evidence to back it up. I told my kids when we were choosing sec schools that we should find schools where they could probably be in the upper half. In practice, this has meant that one child is in a \"top\" school and another is in a much less well-regarded school. Especially for the one who is not so academic, that choice has been right for her as she is not always at the bottom which makes school a much less harrowing experience.

It only works on the low ability and high ability children. According to the research, the middle-ability students outperform their peers if placed against superior competitors.

[mathtuition88]

Best is to rely on internal metrics of success (like improving oneself day by day) rather than external comparisons with others.


"If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself."

[Funz]

Have to stick our heads out now and then to see what is happening around us and with our neighbours. Else may end up being complacent and out of touch with reality. Cannot be too internally focused also.


Anyways, I think I shared quite a long time ago about this big fish or small fish pond.

Funz:

Big pond or small pond. Truth is I will always choose big pond and want kiddos to work at staying in the big pond. I do not need them to be the big fish in the big pond. Even if they are among the smallest fish in that big pond, that is fine by me, of course if they can be the medium fish, that will be ideal.

My way of thinking, if they are among people of that kind of calibre, they will work towards that calibre, teachers will teach base on that calibre, chances of them being of that calibre is high. I also have selfish reasons. If kiddos are in that group, my job is a bit easier, I can leave academics largely to be driven by her school and I play the supporting role.

Every pond is a pond in a pond. The class is the smallest group of ponds in another group of ponds which is the school. DD is in what is considered a big pond school. She did well enough last year to swim in the biggest ponds in that school. Along the way, the rest of her friends grew a lot bigger. DD grew but not as much as the rest and in the other ponds of the school there are others that grew to be bigger than DD. So DD was put into one of the medium ponds for next year. But looking at her, she is among the biggest fish in that medium pond now, so her teacher told her. DD felt good on hearing that. She said she prefer being the big fish instead of the small fish.

I have yet to really talk to her about all this pond and fish talk. Got to find a way to explain to her my thoughts and why I prefer her to be in the big pond even if it means she is a small fish there. Like it or not, in Singapore school system even if you are the biggest fish in your medium pond, you will be just medium. You will be given medium calibre teaching, medium calibre resources, medium calibre challenges. And you will come out medium but thinking you are BIG. Even if you have the potential, you may not be able to grow to be big enough because you are given the medium growth kind of nourishment. And because you look around you and see that you are already the biggest, you feel you do not need to swim that much harder or faster so you just cruise along. You are lulled into a false sense of achievement. When the walls from all the other ponds come down, as with every pond, it will, you suddenly find that you are not at all among the biggest. And to play catch up will be all that much tougher.

DS on the other hand is in what I consider a small pond primary school. So for him, I think it will be even more important to ensure that he is in a big pond in that school.

My wish for both my kids is, at the end of the day, when all the walls come down, that they at least be among the medium fish, well hopefully they will be the bigger ones of all the medium fish.

[TWU]

It's important to know about strength and weakness of a child as well as to attend open house in order to know more about a school during principal's talk before making selection of school (either via DSA or results of PSLE).


As shared in other thread, it's learning attitude of student that determines his/her future instead of school. Students equip with good attitude - self-directed, self-motivated and self-disciplined will definitely have brighter future than those lack of good attitude.

Student will be demoralized if one is keeping on being tail of cohort, teachers will give poor comments too and such will affect self-confidence level of the student.

Some suit for IP, some suit for Express and some suit to choose N(A) or N(T).

If a student equips with Suzuki engine but is asked/forced to choose IP which requires student to equip with Ferrari engine. Do you think this student will excel for next few years? :imdrowning:

Most important, student must choose right size of pond that on a par with his/her ability.

[waiyean]

While I generally agrees with some of the concepts in the original article, some of the conclusions derived from the research conducted seems flawed and superficial. For example, the comment about middle ability students: "What is surprising from our experiment is that middle-ability students outperform their peers if placed against superior competitors."


I didn’t see anywhere in the article where author shows that the middle-ability students performed well because of superior competitors, and not because of the presence of lower-ability students which boosted their confidence.

Furthermore, the author makes no reference to sub-division of the school population into abilities-segregated classes. "Given your child’s ability, going to a prestigious school may place him "below average" in his class. This might discourage him from competing with the better students because of the wide performance gap." This can be mitigated when that child is placed in a class of similar or closer abilities, even if it might be one of the lower ability classes in the school.

Assuming that the right school does matters, then when should that segregation take place? Does it apply to choosing the secondary school, which is effectively the first opportunity you get to choose basis abilities? However, six years would already be spent in a primary school, where most of us don’t have much choices anyway, subjected to proximity to school, affiliations, and balloting results. Does that mean that we should have a pre-primary evaluation test to identify the abilities of our pre-primary 1 students so that they are placed in the right school in the first formative years of their school lives? I am sure most of us will disagree with that.

[zulu]

i actually asked my DD the question when we were looking at secondary schools. she was in a neighbourhood primary school (big fish small pond) and she specifically told me she wanted to try a big pond.

[janet88]

zulu:

i actually asked my DD the question when we were looking at secondary schools. she was in a neighbourhood primary school (big fish small pond) and she specifically told me she wanted to try a big pond.

my son was a small fish in a big pond in primary school. he felt like an outcast.
in lower secondary, he was very miserable because his classmates were not keen in their studies, he wanted so much to do well and move into the top class in sec 3. he is in the 2nd top class and doing reasonably well now. his self esteem has improved.

[nicnac]

janet88:

zulu:

i actually asked my DD the question when we were looking at secondary schools. she was in a neighbourhood primary school (big fish small pond) and she specifically told me she wanted to try a big pond.

my son was a small fish in a big pond in primary school. he felt like an outcast.
in lower secondary, he was very miserable because his classmates were not keen in their studies, he wanted so much to do well and move into the top class in sec 3. he is in the 2nd top class and doing reasonably well now. his self esteem has improved.

Big fish, small fish. I don't even know what kind of fish my dd is