Is GEP really necessary?

[jtoh]

Chenonceau:

My DD had 8 distinctions at A levels... Prize-winning sportswoman... 2 research awards amongst others. Rejected by Cambridge. Her best friend was VP of student council in secondary... She took a top tier PSC scholarship even BEFORE sitting A levels. Rejected by Princeton AND Harvard.


Ivy leagues want you to be top of your school. They don't care whether you come from a school where you compete with the best of the nation or not. It's the bell curve in YOUR school that counts. It doesn't matter that the average in RI is better academically than the top in another school in China, the top in the other school stands a better chance. DD's tutor explained that Cambridge reduced intake of Singaporean students greatly last year. The places went to PRC students instead. Pam's kids went on alternative paths where they don't compete like crazy. They had differentiated paths and this differentiation has put almost all of them in Harvard on scholarship. I am not sure Pam's kids are smarter than DD's best friend. They're just so lucky to have Pam. This is what Pam meant by we may be an island but we are part of the world.

That has been our experience.

But if you're not sticky about Ivy League then a good A level certainly does get you nice bond free scholarships to NUS and various Australian unis. We're not sticky about Ivy League in our family. We reckon that after 5 years in the workforce... Unless you wanna be in academia... No one cares which uni you went to.

Hi Chen,

Thanks for sharing. Can you help me with the following scenario.

Student A & Student B both have equally excellent A level results, sporting and leadership achievements etc. Student A is from RI/HCI. Student B from a less academically competitive school. Student A is an above average student in RI/HCI, but not the top student. Student B is a top student in this average school.

Does that mean that Student B will be offered a place in Cambridge, Oxford, Princeton, Harvard and the like over Student A? Has this actually happened, ie a student like Student B was offered a place in Oxbridge and the Ivy Leagues this year?

What if Student B has less outstanding A level results, sporting achievement etc compared to Student A but is still the top student in his less competitive school. Will he still be viewed more favorably than Student A by these top universities?

Thanks.

[corneyAmber]

2ppaamm:

ksi:

Dear 2ppaamm,


Appreciate and like your sharing of your children's less travelled path for Singapore kids to be inspired....but...

If your GEP son is still in GEP today, will you campaign so hard against GEP? :? Just wondering....

Firstly, I am not championing against GEP, I am saying it is time to revamp and do something about the system, and I have given reasons why it does not work. Giftedness can be handled in a more equitable and sensible way, with the gifted kid's needs met.

Secondly, my kids do not fit into the current GEP, though I used to think that's the only place suitable, since they don't fit into mainstream, but now, I have grown to understand they don't fit into school in general.

Thanks for sharing again.
I believe your children are exceptional and given the support they can get from you, they are doubly exceptional. I believe the GEP platform does serve its purpose for the MOE defined giftedness for the GEP. For highly exceptional case where a child is very skewed towards certain interest, this requires another sort of academy like the x-men academy where each child has their own area of specialization. Special individual attention would be required by different experts of the field. For example, MOE has correctly left out Lim Jeck in its testing because Lim Jeck would have done better in pursuing his love.

Due to MOE's defined boundary of giftedness and its fixed quota of about 500 kids every year, I am personally not convinced that all kids are truly gifted as well. Some are indeed high high ability but it does not matter to me because when a line is drawn, the ones at the borderline will always fall between 2 regions. What is important is that those not at the borderline are indeed given an opportunity to leverage on their giftedness to learn differently. These are children really born naturally gifted without brain training programmes and has been exhibiting such traits since baby days. Getting into GEP should never be a surprise for parents who know their children. Some parents struggled with such children for a long time until GEP took the load off them.

GEP is not perfect like all systems. Like what some parents have mentioned, it is good to be able to blend in and yet do extraordinary things. This is a difficult feat indeed. Gifted children are not problem-less. They are far from God-sent angels, they need more attention to make them blending. In the absence of a differentiated system to bring up such children, I feel that GEP has its place in our education system. Bringing up gifted kids and making them not looking \"gifted\" is an expensive journey that not all parents can afford or know how to afford. JMHO.

[2ppaamm]

Imami:

That is probably because their kids are not in the first place. What one doesn't have, is always the best. How many parents can be totally contented who their children are and leave things as it is?

Actually, I am contented with whatever what my children are gifted with or without. For those things they are gifted with, my job is to help them find a way to bring them to the fullest. For those they are without, I know there must be a reason I am not aware of NOW, and am contented to not even know why. No matter what the world views our children, there are good things in every child, and a reason behind each forte and a chance for us to help them shine. There are also weaknesses in each child, and our job is to help them realize them and help them to still achieve their hearts' desire and mitigate these weaknesses.

[2ppaamm]

ammonite:

I think the school experience has changed over the last 20 years. And once you have tasted and seen a different system, you realise the drawbacks of our system. it is not without its strengths, and I think it did a good job providing high quality basic education to an entire population in a very short time. But it is not perfect. My main gripe is that kids will burn out too early and the entire mode of teaching at the lower levels do not support the higher thinking skills required at the tertiary levels.

Let me see... yes I agree the system has changed a great deal since I knew it. I was born to illiterate parents who made good. My parents knew nothing about reading English, though they speak it being natural linguists. Though both my parents speak at least 3 languages and 5 dialects fluently, they knew nothing about what were taught in schools. Therefore, like most parents during my time, we left all the teaching to the teachers and schools. I remember one time when I returned home from school criticizing my principal - the way she sang the National Anthem, I was 10. My father didn't even bother to listen, he just gave me a slap across my face and told me to be respectful.

We had a lot of respect for our teachers in those days, because our teachers far exceeded our parents in academic knowledge. Teachers were empowered to teach, even disciplined us whenever they saw the need. I remember in those days, whenever I was marked wrong in Math, which was seldom, as I scored full marks for every Math test, exam and papers all the way to PSLE, I would just go to the teacher. They would normally look at them and decide if they would accord me marks, though I used a different method from them. Often, they would just change the marks and then put a star there, since it was always full-marks in the end. They were only accountable to what was right and what was wrong, not encumbered. When I could not do my work, since I was relatively weak in Science, they would explain things in detail and taught me how to answer each question. In fact, I learned how to bake and cook in school the same way: I learned creaming, rubbing, whipping methods from my teachers. In turn, I taught my mum. All because, teachers were smarter than parents and they were left to do their jobs.

But I had so much problems in school. I was a misfit as well. My teachers punished me, and even penalized me, taking away my awards and gave them to the second placed child - twice. There was discrimination in schools in those days, but because of who I am, I couldn't conform to school, teachers expect 100% compliance, I liked to challenge. Now that I am an adult, I realized because I had no respect for status quo, I began making innovations and filed some patents. Those skills that were not respected were the exact skills that were needed in our world, but in Singapore schools, questioning were never endured. Fortunately, back in those days, it did not matter what our attitude was, as long as we passed a standard exam, we get to move on to the school of our choice.

Fast forward to today. The power has shifted to a large extent. Our education WAS so successful in raising a generation, most parents are very educated, informed and capable today. The ability of the teachers has improved too: many primary school teachers are graduates today versus our 'O' levels teachers in those days, but the teaching profession has not been able to attract good candidates. How do we adapt to this change? I can think of two solutions: one is for the MOE to recruit very 'powerful' teachers. That means, teachers must be very qualified and highly paid. There are many merits in doing so, and one fantastic example of such a success is the Finland education and reform. They successfully created an education system which then feed into a great workforce. However, this means $$$, government money, and, from the many debates and discussions, we know it is not going to happen. The merits of making teaching the MOST desired professional (in Finland, the second most desired is Medical Doctor) has many advantages, and these are well-researched, but we know that is not going to happen in Singapore. The other solution I can think of, is to hold a tighter rein on teachers, tell them exactly how to handle these more learned parents, their endless questions, and if the teachers cannot handle, escalate the problem, which is the phenomenon in schools today - GEP or not. If the teachers cannot handle - refer to HOD, and the line of command goes all the way. Marking? Stick to the answer sheets, and as long as you do that, there's no way people can challenge you. If challenged by parents who know their work, teachers just say that the answers are not in the answer sheet. So, my take of teachers not being able to mark properly is because of their fear of making mistakes, and by sticking to the answer sheets, they are in a safe harbour. Consequently, we have a bunch of highly qualified teachers, incapacitated by the KPI system and their own inferiority complex.

The bell-curve, which is used in PSLE, or whatever curve they choose to use, has the same purpose and effect. To use the Education Minister's own words, is to make people compete for the best. With all due respect, education is not about competing with each other, it is about bringing out the best in each. Regardless, with this curve hanging around parents' neck, and since the ministry is so aware of the Singaporean kiasu mentality, it is therefore effortless to have high performing students, riding on parents all wanting to push the kids to the right of the curve, wherever the curve maybe. This is the best automated machine in the world if you think about it. As long as parents 'play ball', the results will be sterling: parents will push their kids to excel, and send their kids to tuition, GEP preparation and enrichment classes so that they are better than their peers of the same age. I shudder to think that very soon, many Singaporeans will have to study 24x7 if they were to stay at the top. As of now, even very gifted children have to study till late and have tuitions. During our times, I remember not having even 1 assessment book for PSLE and only 1 for GCE 'O' Levels, and I still did very well. This will keep going until the 'bubble' burst. Don't know when. Hence, children get burnt out.

I have seen and studied many education systems: Chinese local, international schools in China, local system, local international, foreign public and private schools, because my kids were enrolled in them one time or another. I have come to realize that our system has its merits (I agree) but it is not sustainable. It is scary, and has no meaning. Children lose their childhood, passion and love for what they love through hothousing across the island. There are better systems out there, just if the policy makers would come down from their ivory towers and understand that the masses is made up of average people, not all scholars. There are people we can learn from, just if those who set the policies would recognize and admit to that, and stop fooling themselves that we have the BEST policy in the world, when the current academic success is fueled by the hard work of parents and a shadow education system. We don't and can't have the best education system in the world, no country can ever claim she does.

[Imami]

Nebbermind:

Chenonceau:

It is the truly gifted that suffer. Like Pam's kids. But then well.... I dun think God let Pam choose.

Well, does pam believe in God?

By the way, just wondering if you or Pam went thru our own pri school system yourselves coz some of your writings seem to give me the impression that u only 1st tasted our school system thru yr kids.

Do you think it will make a diff if Chen had gone thru our pri sch education system?

[Imami]

ammonite:

I think the school experience has changed over the last 20 years. And once you have tasted and seen a different system, you realise the drawbacks of our system. it is not without its strengths, and I think it did a good job providing high quality basic education to an entire population in a very short time. But it is not perfect. My main gripe is that kids will burn out too early and the entire mode of teaching at the lower levels do not support the higher thinking skills required at the tertiary levels.

Good observation. Summarized nicely.

[Imami]

2ppaamm:

Imami:

That is probably because their kids are not in the first place. What one doesn't have, is always the best. How many parents can be totally contented who their children are and leave things as it is?

Actually, I am contented with whatever what my children are gifted with or without. For those things they are gifted with, my job is to help them find a way to bring them to the fullest. For those they are without, I know there must be a reason I am not aware of NOW, and am contented to not even know why. No matter what the world views our children, there are good things in every child, and a reason behind each forte and a chance for us to help them shine. There are also weaknesses in each child, and our job is to help them realize them and help them to still achieve their hearts' desire and mitigate these weaknesses.

Yes, nicely put. :goodpost:

[Nebbermind]

Imami:

Nebbermind:

[quote=\"Chenonceau\"]
It is the truly gifted that suffer. Like Pam's kids. But then well.... I dun think God let Pam choose.

Well, does pam believe in God?

By the way, just wondering if you or Pam went thru our own pri school system yourselves coz some of your writings seem to give me the impression that u only 1st tasted our school system thru yr kids.

Do you think it will make a diff if Chen had gone thru our pri sch education system?[/quote]Well, knowing it will help me better understanding some of the things she's saying. Eg, in the case of forum writer, knowing his backgrd allow me to understanding why he's making certain remarks even if I donch quite agree.

[PiggyLalala]

Just my views.

There are pupils in the GE program that come from the humble family background. Maybe in certain GEP centres, there are more kids that are the middle upper class families. But in other centres,l ike Rosyth, Catholic and Nan Hua, I believed there are many pupils staying in humble HDB estates like Woodlands, Serangoon, Yishun and Chua Chu Kang. Families like ours, where the children’s IQ may be higher than the parents, we are grateful to have the GE program to enrich our children’s education.

If for example, in every year, there are ard 60 GEPpers who got into the top schools, so called through the ‘unfair DSA’, (which i do not think so, because I believed that if these pupils are not in the GE program, they being high ability, with enough drilling for all subjects from P5 to P6, they could also get into the TOP schools through S1 posting. ) there are also 60 grateful students from the humble background that have benefitted from the program.

[PiggyLalala]

2ppaamm:

Secondly, GEP robs me of time. Though none has ever gone to tuition, there is a ton of homework to do, a lot of projects I found meaningless, not because of the content, but the expectation of the teachers. They expect kids to put up professional work which then require adult supervision. I believe they should just submit their own work for marking, instead of having the teacher mark and re-mark and then submit to MOE and the 9 schools compare. Whose work is being marked? Teachers', parents' or kids'? Also, my kid won't do the homework, because it is repetitive. My kids have 'character' :frustrated: or whatever you call that. Once they have learned something, they expect to be fed new information or moved to the next level. There is no way they will do that thing again another 20 times. While I understand high ability kids will, my kids won't and most of my time was spent asking them to comply and do those, knowing they have already mastered the topics.

I think you are refering to the drafts 1, 2 and maybe 3 for the SS projects and the English Compositions. You seemed like against the idea of the pupils doing a few drafts and you think that the reason why the teachers did that is because they need to submit a list of good grades for MOE to review. ( I hope I did not misunderstood what you have written above.)
However, for me, I am very appreciative because with the teachers' feedback and comments, my boys can improve his work after each draft. I thought that was something positive in the GE program. However, on the other hand, because of the higher standard and the time spent in improving each piece of work, the pupils have lesser drilling time for PSLE.