Me. Myself & i

i jus had the chance to read the pprs today, thou i haven been too busy, din really felt like reading the news these few days.
anyway>> the forum today has a whole lot to say about the recent changes in teaching chinese, some mother complaining about the chinese programmes in singapore and a teacher's response to his fellow colleagues on the teachers in singapore being too stressed out.

the recent changes in how to betta teach mandarin in order to allow our younger generation to master the language looks really promising. it actually aims to combine the idea of creative learning and at the same time cultivate students' interests instead of forcefeeding them, like they do with other subjects. it seems like a really big step forward for our education system. chinese is no longer about knowing how to write the words, merely learning how to read them, it's more about conversing in mandarin, instead of writing - as our education minister claimed. so our system is goin to emphasize on daily usage of mandarin, the students no longer have to learn how to write the words in the "ci yu shou ce", which accompanied me though my years of studying the language. words that are less used in daily conversing will be taken out of the syllabus, which makes me wonder what is goin to be left. NI WO TA? who is the one deciding what is being used daily anyway?

promising indeed.
our system has once again bowed down to the students.
this means that if our students continue to show no interest in chinese, we're goin to change the system once again.

but i'm afraid this kind of flexibility is only limited to teaching chinese.
is it because other subjects are already flexible enough? that the teachers teaching other subjects have nurtured enough interests in the youths, such that they have no problem with interest? is it because the syllabus for other subjects is what we need for life?
i really wonder.
let's talk about flexibility.
i dun remember maths having alot of flexibility while my teacher teach them. perhaps there was interests, but we all know that we cant fail maths - that's the biggest push factor. we are, after all, product of the institutionalised kind of education system in singapore.
sciences, flexibility? if u call powerpoint presentation flexibility. tell me again, how many of us pulled though because of the ten years series? i bet those that got A for sci in a level must have done them at least twice, plus alot of prelim pprs from other schs.
now about GP, i cant say for other schools. because apparently, where i came from, we had really weak english grades in O's. Hence, most of the time we were concentrating on how to write a good argument instead of debating about how piracy will actually affect the economy.

look, there has neva been flexibility in the system. when u start somewhere, u start with the most useless subject that you think. so what if china is the nez super power, they're goin to learn english anyway. when u wanna implement creative thinking and not know how it will turn out, u use chinese as a white mice, to test out how it will work with the students. if it doesn't turn out well, then blame it on the family, the lack of interests of student. it's never the system's fault.

i'm not saying i'm all for rote learning of chinese. but when u say there's no interests, can u say that you have interests for all the subjects you're taking? it's a simple excuse for not trying. parents engage a tutor for a subject for their children as long as it counts towards their aggregate. it's wrong. but they can go so far even if the students does not have interests. they only started complaining they have no interests because it's no longer a subject in the criteria. i really think they should be taught about shame. the kind of shame of not knowing one's mother tongue. it's not about blaming them or their background, it's not about shaming them. it's about "lian chi". they should learn that when u call urself a chinese, even a singaporean chinese, when u go out there, u'll always be a chinese. Even if u speak the most fluent english, the best english, french, german - ultimately, u dunnoe ur mother tongue. it's called the mother tongue for a reason. u can tell the world "hey, you noe what? i've mastered french, german, japanese, korean and everything." and u dunnoe ur mother tongue, you're really not that great after all.

well, the mindset of being cool not knowing mandarin should also be changed. i'm qt sick of hearing "i dun understand chinese, please dun speak to me in chinese" from fellow chinese singaporeans. sometimes i feel that there's a tinge of arrogance when they say that. where did all these superiority sprung up from? i should look down on u for not knowing ur mother tongue, not the other way around.
dun get me wrong, i'm not trying to start a hate club for those who knows their MT against those who don't. i guess the former will def lose out in numbers anyway. who wants to be in the 'loser crowd'?

anyway enough of the chinese topic..

to the mum that complained about the chinese programme on channel 8 with the word "bastard" in the subtitles:
guess what? ur kid is not goin to be protected forever. protecting them and censoring what they see or hear are not goin to help them. when u see someone smoking, u tell ur kids never to touch cigarettes. do u jus cover their eyes and hope that they neva see cigarettes in their life? u teach them to differentiate the good from the bad, to choose to be good, to learn to be good to themselves. u tell them why not to smoke, why not to use vulgarities to punctuate their sentences, you teach them what u learn from the tv is not always rite.
it is your job to educate your kids at the family level. dont expect other people to look after your kids.
if u think that the producer should change the time of the programme jus because ur kids are watching tv at 7 o'clock in the evening, mayb it's easier if u write to the forum and tell the mothers to sit there at 7 pm and educate the kids while watching the show together?
dun blame everything on others.
dun blame it on interests, the society, the system, the media, the teachers.
if u have not thought about where did u go wrong, u've most probably already gone wrong.