I realised, after talking to parents and kids, that there are two groups of kids who are most bored and poentially disruptive in say maths class - the kids who totally do not understand what is being taught, and the kids who spend 3 - 5 min reading the worked example and totally get it (then there are the 3rd group whose tutor has alread taught them the topic, but that’s for another discussion).

Juxtaposed like this, then answer would be for the latter to teach the former. So kids who already understand the concepts can be challenged to teach the kids who do not get it , to explain he concepts in a way that his/her classmates can also “see” what they “see”. To come up with activities/ games that can help this process,

For example, I play a game with my kid and now young grand nephews and nieces while waiting for food to served. I grab the peanuts, we count the total number of penuts, then use an inverted bowl to cover some of the penuts and asks the kid to “guess” the number of peanuts under the bowl, after counting how many peanuts are not covered. This, of course, is the concept behind modeling. Its great fun, especially when the victor gets to eat what’s under the bowl.

The kids who teaches gains a lot of skills. Just teaching the topic deepens the undestanding of the topic. And social skill broaden, and boredom is delt with.

Life is complex, isn’t it. Red Crescent, World Vision, other non-religious NGOs, you and I think that we are doing the right thing by sending aid to one side. But the other side may consider that we are sending aid to terrorist, or parents of future terrorist.

People are complex. To me, I may look like a freedom fighter, a hero fighting to improve the lives of my people. But to the families of the people I fight against, I am a terrorist, a criminal.
The world is complex, especially now. But, … I would like to think that if we all could slow down, think a bit, try to imagine ourselves in another parson’s position, … and when I muck up I would like to receive some compassion, so I should also try to be patient when someone else mucks up and causes me hurt or inconvenience …
So, I hope that this festive season we teach our kids to embrace the complexities of life. That one solution can both solve the problem, but cause other problems; that one problem often seems to have one cause, but often has many other contributing factors; that things are complex, everyone will have a solution, but a different solution from the next person, and no one solution is perfect for everyone.
Unlike in exams, where there is only one answer, one 100% correct answer.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-66655572


This sort of entitled behaviour is repeating itself to teachers, restaurant and retail service staff, healthcare workers and all other other services. That is why more and more people are leaving service industries making services more expensive and service standards harder to maintain.

Yes. More high net worth individuals = higher COE = more business for businesses that cater to them like restaurants and shops and services. The trickle down effect. But also the not so nice stuff such as more competition for places in good schools, beds in hospitals (but they go private, right?), more road congestion etc.


Similarly the trickle down effect also takes place in other settings. Like a patient ( or his family member) behaving aggressively to get faster access to a bed in hospital. Yes, he will likely get what he wants because the hospital staff want him stop such behaviour. Trickle down, other people also behave aggressively because they also want (or think they deserve) prioriety treatment. So more patients start to throw tantrums. Trickle down, patients who are too ill and really need immediate treatment get pushed down the queue. Trickle down, staff who are in the line of fire get mentally affected. Trickle down, more older staff decide they have had enough and decide they do not want to do this any longer. Trickle down, senior healthcare staff leave. Trickle down… I think we should get the picture.

This picture is repeated across all service sectors.

I’m happy to see this discussion where different points of view and different experiences are brought up. I hope to see the next step, where we apply what take back from these discussions in our lives. To recognise that all of us have different views and to respect the different views and choices and change our behaviours and actions to be more considerate of other people.

I think its great the there are so many different "take away" views after watching this congressional hearing. My take away is


1. In real life, there are no "yes or no" answers to most questions. And yes, even to the question of was that dress color black and white or blue and gold.
Most answers are "yes but…" or "no, but…" Its like saying "the average annual wage of an Ivy-league University school drop out is $500,000" because one Standford dropout now owns Facebook and a Princeton dropout ran Microsoft. Same thing applies to average monthly income of graduates from different university courses. Also ask if the 90th percentile get their income solely from the their salary (or professional fees received) or from various streams of investments (or should it be called speculation?).

2. I think while the outward rewards are great, the personal stress and sacrifices are probably quite heavy too.

3. Whatever the congressmen and women think the Chinese government can do with data they can get from Bite Dance, the American government (or any other government) can do with data they get from companies domicile in their own country. Including setting up alogarithms designed to psychologically infludence our opinions and decisions. (As I am typing this, images of the lastest Trump headline is flashing on CNA.)

I hope that with this reduced emphasis on academic achievement (how many of us can do better then Chat GPT ) students can learn more to think about how the theoretical subjects they are studying can have real world applications. For example, when they learn about electricity (is it P5 or P6?) they can also be taught how to change a plug. I hope our kids can also learn to link how simle actions they do can have a bigger impact. For example, how to check if the electrical rice cooker is not working, it may simply require a change of fuse in the plug (or is there another fuse somewhere else?). No need to throw away the whole appliance and contribute further to our growing pile of waste. Or simply be really bored enough to sit by a stream and philosophise that water is made up of tiny, indivisible particle (which thousands of years later led to the discovery of molecules, atoms, quarks and quasers).


Actually, I think that all of us should try to think about the "BIG PICTURE". Too much focus on the details and how to get one up from tweeking the details is taking our society down a path of individual selfishness and short term gain at the expense of the larger long term improvement for all.

I think in theory these changes sound great! But things may not turn out as hoped for in real life. Just as how in theory including Project work in university entrance requirements sound great, but in pratice, well, …

So it maybe a good thing to delay implementation for a bit while we in this forum debate what may happen when the theory is put into pratice.
I can foresee a great number MORE people getting the maximum number of points; and most, if not all, shooting for the prestigious professional courses, as they already do. FYI, for the past few years, students do not need to score the max 90 points to get the coveted "interview".
Then the "plus" becomes important. I hope that the lessened academic workload frees up time for the students to apprentice at whichever profession they wish to pursue, and not at the big, successful pratices, but at the smaller, "neighbourhood" pratices. Afterall, over 50% of graduates will end up working there.

I think that it is impossible to eradicate all unpleasant people or incidents from our lives, just as is is impossible to eradicate all virulent pathogens. Everyone then has to make the choice of how far they will go to avoid the virulence, how much they hide from it, how much they will try to sanitise their environment, and what they do when they encounter such virulence. Everyone has a right to live their livf, decide what they want to do, what is right for themself, and I would hope that other people do not fault their decision.


So if I know that someone has encountered verbal (or physical) abuse I would gently suggest that they have a choice in how to proceed. The person can
1. Continue to stay in that situation and plot to kill themself.
2. Stay in that situation and plot to change the situation. In this case if the teacher says that the child is too fat, then the child may want to prove the teacher wrong by dancing more, eercising more, try mindful eating and improve her weight. Or she can (inside or outside the CCA) form another dance group of kids with a similar appearance and gain recognition that physically divergent people can succeed in dance.
3. Remove herself from the situation. In this case, leave the CCA. You can always find success elsewhere. Or join another CCA meanwhile take provate dance lessons and go on to perform in public with the latter to show that CCA teacher that you can do it.
4. Make enough noise and fuss so that someone in authority (the HOD, parents, Principal, MOE, the SIngapore Government, everyone reading your post on the internet) takes notice and disciplins the teacher.
5. All of the above. The above list of possible actions is by no means exhaustive, or mutually exclusive. I can choose option 1 and 4. Or to go from option 1 (because crying and starring in my mental movie of revenge feels so GOOD!) to option 2, to 3 etc.

Life is not a choice between an answer that is totally right, or totally wrong. Neither is it a mutiple choice question where only one choice is correct - unlike academic tests that we all know but too well and are too well trained in. Actually, I suspect every answer is right, can give joy and satisfaction; and at the same time wrong as in it may also result in undesirable consequences. For instance, if option 4 results in the CCA teacher being fired from his job, well, the teacher may be horrid in the CCA, but great in teacing his or her academic subject,; or other students may think that this teacher is a great dance teacher, or a particularly dedicated and enthuaistic dance teacher.

I think that almost all of us can recall instances where we were hurt by a teacher’s comment or action. The HOD sarcastically commented on my poor PSLE results. Well, I did not agree with her assessment, and set out to proove her wrong by doing well in my O and A levels. In the meanwhile sometimes I enjoyed running that movie in my mind of suicide and revenge. In later years, that HOD was happy to count me as one of her successes.

Different people find motivation in different guises. Some through encouraging words, some through disparaging words, and yet other need to feel it to do it, or to go through the experience of failure to find the drive to succeed. And we are our own arbitor of how to define success, or indeed when to define if we have succeeded. As long as there is life. there is always opportunity to turn things around.

Beyond the immediate feeling of wanting to protect our child from feelings of hurt and pain when a teacher makes a mean comment or disciplines our kids, we should also consider the future effects on our kids. Like would our kid grown into an adult who can take criticisms in the workplace, can they grow up learning how to winnow out the kernal of truth from mean comments and make constructive changes in their work, behaviour, attitude to better thier lives.

How can we avoid bringing up a generation of strawberries who cannot take the rough and tumble world of work?
I am not belittling feeling of hurt we ourselves experienced when we were young and the painful memories they bring back, but I think it is good to look at things from another perspective and try to make these experiences more constructive.

The thing about any field is that is a never 100% level. Our playing field, grass field, even the walls and floors of our house is never 100% level. It may look and feel level from a macro perspective, but if you examine if from a micro perspective (to be totally transparent) there are always little bumps and grooves and cants on the surface.


And just as it is possible for a 12 yr old who does poorly at PSLE to achieve the highest university entrance score of 90 at the A level (or 45 for IB), it is also possible for an 18 year old with far from perfect A level (or IB) grade to go on to graduate top of his or her graduating class (in fact I think this often happens). And beyond the classroom/ lecture theater, I know of many of our top consultants in these fields will admit to not getting perfect scores at their university entrance exams. So it follows that candidates with a range of grades should be allowed to gain admission Medical/Dental/Law school. Perhaps the media can do a quick poll of the Medical/ Dental senior consultants, our Justices/ Senior Judges university entrance scores, anonymously if they so desire.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think Singapore-Cambridge A level exam questions are set by both UK & Singapore exam boards and is an exam that only students in Singapore sit for. Whereas the International Baccalaureate exam questions are set in ?Switzerland ?France and all the students in any country in the world sit for the same exam. So an A level student taking the Cambridge exam in UK does not sit for the same exam paper as an A level student in Singapore. Whereas an IB student in Switzerland will have the same exam questions as a student in Singapore (assuming that they both take it at the same time).

Besides, with the world facing a chaotic future, perhaps it is better to teach our children RESILIENCE. Real life experiences of failures, and rising physically and mentally from our failures, would be a better determinant of future success than a grade on a standardized test.