Category Archives: Issues & Ideas

There were a few great articles I managed to savage from my old blog, which was unfortunately lost after the transfer of host. I probably be putting them up as ‘montage’ of my 2005 for my blog. Today, we will be looking at one of the longest posts I ever done on my blogs and I believe it still is the longest.

I haven’t been blogging in English for quite some time; and like any other post, this will be extremely long. I realised that I am starting to be very forgetful, or maybe it is just the power of time. I have nearly forgotten how to sing the school song if not for my old dusty planner, which I have dung out from some dirty cardboard box used to store my memories in secondary education.

Life no longer is the same as the past in this school. Everything has changed in this school since the time I came; all except the school song. The name has change, the uniform ‘amended’, the principal replaced, the schools merged, the teachers have moved from low postitions to high postitions (some do move in the opposite direction), others left the school, hopefully getting a better job; of course, there are the great stayers who have remain in the same position and school for more than 30 years, but they have changed their style, their ideas, they have been brainwashed.

Some students remain, some don’t, some left, some enter, others changed. I remained, Mib left, new PRC scholars enter and many friends changed. They become apathetic, restless, tired, lame, less jovial, indifferent to everything and abnormal. I could pin-point a exact reason or cause for such conditions faced by every single of our students; all I can say is that they are no longer the same due to a combination of factors, many in which, involves the school, our teachers, principal, and staff. I suddenly find myself singing the school song, at least I felt the urge to sing it. I felt like I want to sing it to the world and everyone whom I ever knew. But why? Why the school song?

The reason I can find is that I am sufferring from a condition that makes me feel like reverting back to the old days; we had fun, and were much livier. Yet when I sing the song, I start forgetting lines. Something rather odd because I manage to remember every line in the song whenever I sang in school, for all 4 years. I discovered that the song lost its meaning, it no longer applies, it doesn’t speak any word of truth that can ever be fitted into the current situation. I forgot the lines because I no longer believe in them and that they are no longer conveying any sensible message to me. Soon, the song in my memory will diminish. I can try learning it again, and this probably makes me feel even more true that the song no longer works.

I remembered the time when I first hear the councillors sang during my Secondary One Orientation. It was full of vigour, the type that makes us ‘[name censored due to sensitivity]’, the kind that brings out the sense of belonging in us, the class that draws the spirit out of us. I remember the time, my first day of school, which was a Wednesday, when I first sang it properly in school. Though I stumbled on a few words, the idea was generally inside me. But now…

I feel intense fear, and sorrow for such a demise of such a great organisation, with such great students, forefathers, and staffs. I don’t want, and do not know the causes of our being at such a state of existence, revealling them will only uncover more saddness. Yet I see an influx of fools into this great hole that lies right in front of us. I wonder if I should pity or hate them. It is like seeing a great army of humans rushing through the Gates of Hell into the state of extreme helplessness.

I saw the candidates of the general election. I thought they were absolutely nothing but fools, despite having been in this dreadful place for 4 years. They thought they could put out the fires of Hell; they are extremely wrong. Their efforts only fuel the fire, strengthening its power over all of us. They come from almost every single aspect, have a wide variety of talents, it was a display of great diversity of culture. Their speeches, all of different style, brings out their skills and also how naive they are. The most widely used techniques in their speeches were known as ‘crapping’, ‘false appeal’ and ‘manipulation’. Ironically, they are actually manipulated by the school, by a series of crapping of how democractic they are and falsely appealing to their greed for power. Good move, I say, Fat Brother, but it didn’t manage to escape my eyes.

Every single party deserve suppport but unfortunately, we must also see what they can actually do when they are voted. Hence, we can say that it is as good as not supporting them; for they do not have the authority of power to make any changes. Everyone comes out and insult the old system, saying they are ready to built a new one that will remove all the problems and create a utopia. How naive! The past years have also seen candidates doing this and using these tactics, but it appears that within the very short time when they are in power, they still have to struggle with their school work and the authority up there, Fat Brother; I can assure you that they have no time to do anything they sincerely intended to.

Look at the famous Master Rasputin. He convinced all of us to vote for him; but what now, he admits that he did almost nothing within his regime to improve the situation of lack of power in students. Worse of all, he is now still pushing for some Rights Movement. I say, “You have a movement, you gotta move it. Don’t just say move, you gotta really move, even if it is just a step.” Readers, you must think I am crapping, but it is extremely true that Rasputin have been decorating his ideas and speeches so much that they are so impractical to be carried out. Some say transparency, some say have informal feedback collecting. How about you go get out there and give Fat Brother a punch, see if you observe some adipose tissues oozing out or lipids spilling on your hands. Come on, get real, I know Rasputin can run fast, but he just can’t move.

Hey Jack, the beanstalk outside your hut is growing fast, go climb it and destroy Fat Brother before the he attempts to climb down from his high up position and hurt us all by throwing his weight around. You must protect us, help us, use your vision, your beliefs, to make our day a better one. I tell you, I don’t believe you can do it. He has a goose that lays golden eggs and these eggs from crashing down, killing almost everyone that is in the way. Oh, and that golden harp that plays devious music that will brainwash everyone and attempt to blind us from his evil deeds. How about getting an axe to chop down that beanstalk? We are ourselves and he is him; we go separate ways. Oh yah, growing taller helps you run faster when the beanstalk falls, don’t forget to remind one of your member.

And the NCC! You guys are a bunch of disciplinarians who thinks that this school is full of chickens clucking around, waiting for someone to get them to do some push-ups or what. Fat hope! Militants are not welcome in this state of authoritarian. While you might become good friends with Fat Brother due to ‘Ideological Similarities’, he will eventually become suspicious of you, then this suspicion will evolve in to paranoia and and finally the end of you guys. You think this is the “Chun Qiu Zhan Guo” or what? Go home and make kites to fly so that you can invade the enemy’s territory.

So much for Pupils Action. No need to say much, go look at Singapore, the beautiful island that lies in the south of the Malaysia Peninsular. Come on, with a leader who looks like a republican dumbass and members who do not look as though they are satisfied with the current system. Everything in the school is ready for you. The Parliment Model; all seats occupied by one party (our school call it the council), with 3 seats for Nominated people. For your information, nominations are by the school authority. So what can I say? Wear white?

And you think you really are ‘The Party’? I think you guys are the party. The ones that goes partying around. This is not the 1970s, nor the Matrix age. That movie was long outdated. You will end in the same as ‘THE CHS’ – gone for good. Go back home and brush up your programming and fighting skills before you come back. You might like to put some virus in the school network so that some Agent Smiths appear to fight with you all, making you guys ‘The Ones’. Remember, get Agent Smith to convert Fat Brother first, or else there will be lots of fatty data left in the harddisk. They will form the Bad Clusters which will cause your harddisk to stop functioning.

I think this is long enough, I shall stop here. Everyone who has read, sit down and reflect upon what has happened and past. Overcome the brainwashing of the golden harp, escape the golden eggs that are falling, flush the Gates of Hell into the earth by dropping a nuke or two, fill up the hole with these earth, go ahead and punch Fat Brother. Stand up. Remove the lipids, destroy the calories and smash the carbos.

This article covered lots of supposedly censored stuff. It was written on the 18 February this year when I was extremely mad at all the changes I see taking place around me. I probably won’t be able to write such long posts any time soon. But I probably be writting a ‘follow-up’ to report on the current status of my surroundings – pertaining to the same topic.

I must first thank Leonard for his valuable compliment. I am not sure, but his compliment seem to reflect that he agrees with my point of view though I can never confirm. In any case, it is important that he agrees with me. Leonard, being one of the students enjoying (or should I say sufferings?) the merits of the Gifted Education, and also one who have experience the mainstream education almost in its entirety, would be the best judge as to how the two programmes differ. When I say differ, I don’t mean content, I am referring to the opportunities they offer, the assumptions they make (Stuff like ‘all geppers must be from rich families’).

I probably be talking about the GEP issue some other time because I don’t have the information on this programme and personally, I have set out to write something about breaking bonds. It is inevitable to raise the issue of bond breaking when it comes to discussing scholarships. Previously, I also mentioned briefly about how rich people, may decide to break bonds anyway, after their studies. I would say, to have bond breaking becoming ‘common’ in a sense, is a breakthrough for Singaporeans. It is, I believe not a question or loyalty, but promise. Those bond breakers breach their contracts, fine with that, since their are willing to give the compensation. In the eyes of law, there is balance, because both parties agreed on the terms initially. Of course, it is never desired for any form of contract to be broken for most parties, since both sides are stakeholders in a way or two.

Why do I say that this is a breakthrough? It simply shows that our ‘local talents’ are now being valued. At times, if not usually, adhering to the bond would bring down their value. For bond breakers who alliance with MNCs to free themselves, they have gained some form of recognition that makes them worth the price stated for compensation. Their value increase with the breaking of the bond. Many employers prefer freshmen not because of their cost of hire, but the very fact that they do not have any pre-perceptions of the industry that will misled their decision or affect their view of certain actions of the company. Most importantly, they have the passion than a graduate who have undergone ‘training’ at a statutory board for, say, 3 – 5 years. It is important that these organisations tied to the scholarship holders through the bonds do not extinguish this passion, which they usually do.

But how? How do I know that their passion is gone? And is passion that important, you see, work is still work? Well, some may think so, they probably value the money, for ‘work is only a means to end and not the end’, to use a distorted clause from the existentialist. Jim Collins mentioned in Good to Great that if your company is only going to think about growth, money making, profitting from whatever you are working on, you can only become good, if not bad – you never become great. And ultimately, you don’t spin as much money as those great companies do. Passion, according to him, is essential and it is not a individual concept, it must involve almost all in the executive and management. This is why he devoted almost a chapter to explain why every organisation should look into where they can have fun before plunging into the market.

Passion is gone? Or is it not? I am not sure, having made the claim above. But how many scholarship holder manage to climb into MNCs and succeed in the global economy? Oh well, that’s unfair to debate on because most scholarship fund studies in law, medical, or perhaps sociology, less with economics. Even with economics, that guy out of ten probably decides not to enter the financial sector. So the arguement stops there, you got to probe further yourself.

I am not propagating the idea that we should break whatever bond, regardless or the nature, the compensation required. Let’s be pragmatic, these bond conditions and stuff are used to restrict the ‘poor’ scholars, with an additional quality – he would not be able to win over the big corporations to sponser any compensation for him. Then you think again, you such a person be getting the scholarship in the first place? Probably not. I think this sudden influx of scholarship ‘new criteria’: Charisma, Outstanding in presentation or style, and most importantly, I have raise this very disappointing point – they do look for looks, is the source of all these problems. We can never be objective about looks unless we conduct the interview with a cloth or something between the interviewers and interviewees. We have to clear up all these mess created by the lame criteria, because it appears that all these qualities they are looking for simply makes up celebrities. Then we’ll have celebrity doctors, celebrity economists, celebrity sociologists. Think about it, that’s not too bad – the telephone companies can hold a ‘Professional Idol’ to dig more money from naive teens, who are now enjoy the greatest perk of technology – the handphone.

And that’s the whole point of group interviews! They select relatively, never considering certain unique characteristic of anyone in the room that they might be able to tap on. Don’t be mistaken, this are all opinions, for I have never once stepped into a scholarship interview of any form, or even watched a video on group interviewing. I don’t know the techniques, the information involved, and the insiders stuff. What I know, is a combination of the obvious fact, and psychology. Think, how many times have you judged a person without considering his looks? That’s virtually a human impossibility. Face it, we are never objective. And being subjective is good, for that is what made me write all these.

Once again, I am unable to finish what I want to say, I probably continue some time later. In any case, readers might find this post bothersome to read because the thoughts are hardly crystalised and I seem to be spewing random points, jumping from here to there, without a read central theme.

Surprisingly, I have been reading news. Yes, and I came across Soon Sze Meng’s article on our local school’s contribution towards social mobility. As a typical student myself, I shall leave readers to find out for themselves what exactly is social mobility. In any case, the article revolves around the discussion of meritocracy in Singapore and who exactly does our education system benefit.

For ages, we, belonging to the lower band of the society, lived with the idea that education is our key to penetrating the social ‘classes’, allowing us to attain ‘greater heights’. We believe, that wealth do not last more than 3 generations, with the second (in some cases) and third squandering away all the first generation have worked to build. We once thoughts, that as long as we slog and work, we will outshine the ‘rich’ students, who are characterised by their lazy, and apathetic traits. Unfortunately (or should I say fortunately), our society is not so ideal, and so is many others.

A nation founded upon the principles of meritocracy is successful because everyone starts off at the same point, the identical starting line. Whoever runs fast enough, have the perseverence to last till the end, emerges as the victor, and not forgetting those who have accompanied the victor all the way, whom themselves earn the rest of the honour. Others are left scattered around the track – some gave up halfway, some sink into some kind of crisis purely by chance, while others who may have tried the shortcuts got lost. For this point, I am also suggesting that people do win with shortcuts.

That was then. The second generation don’t differ much from the first except that they had a more stable life, and were able to enjoy what the previous generation know as luxury. They are able to enjoy in their late 50s or so. But as we step into the third generation, the disparity is getting wider. We see that everyone has a different starting point; you have a guy from a tycoon’s family, another is the son of an official (this kind of people are known as white horse in Singapore context), and who knows, you get a peer who has just migrated to Singapore from Australia and he’s an excellent speaker. You get different competitors, and so on the other hand, there are the sons and daughters of hawkers – the mini rich class; finally, there is the lower income group, supposedly characterised by the fact that they qualify for financial aid. I have to stress this point that there is no discrimination intended.

What I am trying to say here is that you now need to introduce ‘Selective Meritocracy’. This has been in practice and this is not something new at all. It involves the addition of filters to prevent ‘well-fed’ people who has the ability to fund their own studies from obtaining scholarships or monetary rewards for academic achievements, thereby robbing the deserving, and in a way, less fortunate of the opportunity to ‘move up’ (to quote from Sze Meng’s words). Paradoxically, this system of selective meritocracy is only used in scholarships or cash grants involving money that usually does not exceed SGD$1000. The scholarships that goes up to hundreds of thousands do not work with this system.

The vicious cycle is turning, in fact spining. The rich get the appropriate help, the right contacts, and the resources required to do whatever known as ‘projects’. The poor, with less exposure to the academics, and having a need for extra income, would rather address to the immediate problem by working part-time, than to work on his ‘project’. The system, acknowledges the efforts of the rich boy, praising his efforts to contact a renown professor to aid in his ‘project’ while dismissing the poor student as a rebellious, undisciplined and ‘good-for-nothing’. This is getting fearful. Well, the situation is not as extreme as the analogy I have drawn, but the actual is very close. Extremely close indeed.

There are, in fact, presence of students who have excel academically and present himself as being an outstanding and ‘high-class’ student despite his humble background and manages to obtain the scholarship that they are pursuing at the end of their ‘learning journey’. But they are rare. Let’s put this fact aside and imagine, for Einstein has mentioned how imagination is more important than knowledge: If the ‘rich’ guys who have obtained scholarships are erased from the big picture completely, how many ‘poor’ others would have been able to ‘move up’? And in turn, they would be able to aid how many others ‘move up’? This would eventually close up the income gap that we seem to have now.

Think about how the small gap between obtaining the scholarship and not for both the rich and the poor would alter from cases to cases. A ‘rich’ who grasped it feels happy, go on the study, come back to adhere to his bond (alternatively, he might decide to break the bond and even compensate with his own money if he is really rich enough), and then live on. The ‘poor’ who missed it would have spent his slogging on his studies seemingly useless. Well, he can continue with his academic career and alter his future a little, but will never be able to make the difference that he would have if he manages to obtain the chance to pursue what he initially wanted.

This is getting long and I probably would continue with this talk in the next few posts.

I was thinking of getting into education politics again by creating a category, ‘School’ and posting anti-school articles. A pity I didn’t really have the time to maintain such a log about the progress of democractisation in our school. Nevertheless, I shall let the head of the cat out of the bag for a little basking in the sun.

It is yet another SBC today and it is interesting to note how the absence of teachers can trigger extremely stimulating responses from the audience. The students are finally willing to talk. Like what some other SU member said in Mandarin, “Secondary 4 students are hard to handle.” I think so too. Of course, this time, there are much changes to the SU organisation and they way the spend money.

The most glaring part of the whole SBC is definitely the presentation by the finance controller. Firstly, I would like to point out that we did not vote for a cute, young boy to be the finance controller; we thought he’d better off being a Welfare Secretary. Secondly, the proposed budget is a crazy $10 050. I am not sure about the $50 that seems so extra that I thought our dear Fat Brother should have donated it out of his pocket. Overall, it is just, too big a figure to swallow. But perspective does help, each student contributes only $5 – enjoying nothing at all. The rich guys out there can treat it as money for feeding some dogs or donated to some organisation for the disabled, but not for people like us. We cannot afford to pay such a huge sum of money, only for it to be wasted. Yes, Master Rasputin, the money that is removed quietly, and without our consent from the CDS is like a form of investment. It is like a one of the bets we are laying down in the great HCI Casino that is going through some ‘Integrated Programme’, to integrate all forms of entertainment with education – without forgetting to forget about Confucian’s teachings (or any other Chinese moral teachings) and go gamble. Investment for the better good of the whole school. Yeah, right. Oh, and according to a ex-member of the SU functioning body, the projected amount is usually only 75% of the actually amount they are going to spent. This time, the pocketting of our money ‘for the sake of greater good’ is a result of the school being stingy with their money because they want to pound the soil beside the canteen, and insert some piles there. That reminds us of the announcement last year that the building of the SALT centre and the science building would commence in October/November 2004. It appears otherwise. The whole place is rounded up but I don’t see work going on. Good job guys!

Of course, there is a welfare initiative to stuff the mouths of dissidents about this sum of money that we all have to fork out. And it is the conversion of a shabby, tiny corner of the canteen into a Meeting Room, which the students are allowed to use for their meetings, or study sessions. The irony is that the room is said to be wired with wireless LAN for surfing the net. Anyone with a sense would know the room is going to be our LAN gaming centre soon. Nevertheless, we must trust our students. The dissidents are probably the only ones who are going to use the room properly – to discuss about revolution plans. Of course, they probably would decide that it is impossible to overthrow the damn regime halfway through the meeting and start taking out their laptops from their bags…

That dumb thing aside, the SBC included a touching speech about the school culture and how our school environment contrast with other schools’. Admit it, this school is not ready. A culture is something built over the years and if the traditional and most important culture about teamwork and all the nonsense are already questioned, I wonder why we are talking about having a new vibrant culture that embraces any possible trace of diversity we have among our students. Sometimes, we just don’t have the right person at the right position to do the right thing that will benefit the right group of people. Such alignment is almost an impossibility in the history of man. It is as though the planets of our solar system, they hardly align, but once they do, they would create something supposedly power. Even so, it takes millions of centuries to occur.

The boy guarding the beanstalk now have to hold this pillar to the giant’s castle carefully and prevent it from collapsing. The beanstalk is now more and more fragile with the internal conflicts within the giant’s castle. Now that the giant is dead, Rasputin and his gang is plotting about how they can collect as much of the giant’s wealth as possible and keep it for themselves. Everywhere, there are dissidents waiting to chop down this beanstalk, especially when this boy is not alert. Personally, I regret not climbing up the beanstalk and searching for some gold coins for myself after the giant’s death. Now I am waiting, for this beanstalk to collapse with all the castle’s wealth falling down for all to share. That will be the most glorious day of our revolution.

Historical textbooks and perhaps even books by professional historians have never been accurate throughout the course of history. Many put up with such inaccuracy or biasness that may be caused by double interpretations of the text or implied meanings. It is alright because it does not distort history directly and make any serious impact in the current generation about the knowledge of the happenings of the past. However, to have information in the history textbooks that has absolutely distorted facts about the war and stuff would be ridiculous and even a little too much.

I can, therefore, understand the feelings of those protesting in Beijing and South Korea. Why is it so that despite Japan’s denial of their actions in the war and their assertion that their intention was for the better good of mankind, they want to alter the history textbooks to misled the younger generation about the past? If they are a strong nation, why must they do so? From such action by the Japanese government, we can see that their country is falling apart, the youths may no longer have trust in their (grand)parents’ generation – these old guys need to put up a facade to tell their young how great they have been.

In my opinion, to strengthen the ties of the country, they should openly admit their evil actions while maintaining the stand that their intention is good. Print the most accurate possible historical account in their youths textbook so as to tell their young that no man is perfect, and that if their nation were to do something wrong, they probably do it together to show their unity. It is also reasonable that they do evil and bad things out of goodwill and kind intentions – especially in this world where weird stuff appears now and then.

But of course, every country hopes that their citizens have something about their history to be proud of. While this is true, it may not be always possible. An example would be Singapore. A typical secondary school student, when asked about the merits of being a Singaporean and told to name something in Singapore he is proud of and he will say that the merits of being a Singaporean has already been listed in his Social Studies textbook (he then removes it from his bag and branish it to the surveyor), while the thing he is proud is is definitely the government. The reason given – it was simply told to him.

Japan probably has something better to show off about after they admit to all their sins. They can say, “I am proud of my country because they are extremely united – when they sin, they sin together, and previously, when they want to fake that they didn’t sin, they also do it together.” As for the parts about merits, that will be their longevity.

By the way, I do support the idea of protesting to Japanese ridiculous move in an attempt to brainwash their people and alter the knowledge of history. However, violence such as burning of flags is not encouraged. I believe it would be better if those guys each chip in a little and pool enough money to send some of those protestors over to Japan so that they make a greater impact. Shouting and rioting in your own country probably only brings a little confusion and chaos to your country – and stir some news.