Kevin Low

The name of your high school matters. It matters even when you are in your 60s and speaking in parliament. It may seem silly that one can be defined that way but this is classic Singaporean. It’s because we celebrate a very narrow set of talents. That was critical at the nation-founding, nation-building phase where we needed to identify strong problem-solvers, and risk-takers who could be industry pioneers.

But it is also because of that, our ‘elite schools’ can serve as important socio-economic levellers by accepting students from a variety of backgrounds and wider variety of talents – not just academic ones. Demolishing the alumni priority system entirely helps; though what we are doing is a nice first step. Of course it’s nice to have our kid go to the same school as ourselves and share in that school pride. But it is non-essential and you should be giving back to the schools because of what it has given you, not what it is about to give your sons and daughters.

Education is an important opportunity for social mobility. Let us not destroy it. Let us not allow capital and private resources to further entrench its power over labour.

The conversations about good schools and elitism will never end for a society where academic credentials truly influence a lot of our subsequent lives. For me, entering Chinese High after attending an ‘ordinary’ neighbourhood elementary school made a huge difference. And I honestly wasn’t a star student even in elementary school. All I could say is I had teachers who believed in me and parents who did not pressure me to go one way or another. I made it to Chinese High potentially through sheer dumb luck.

But getting into the school showed me a different aspect of reality, where hard work matters a lot more; and I had friends from entirely different backgrounds who thought differently from I did. I begin also to see the difference in the education background of their parents and mine. I truly felt that positive impact of competition at that point – I won’t say I thrived in it, nor did it crush me with too much pressure. I just responded in a rather balanced way and made it through the system somewhat in the middle.

Yet even as a middle student in that school, I was easily already ahead of many others. And that is what every parent today in Singapore is trying to push their kids towards. They rather their kid be last in a good school sometimes, just perhaps for the opportunity to mix around with other ‘good kids’ and also be given the wider opportunities.

Until the ‘neighbourhood’ schools are given more resources than the ‘top’ schools, it’s going to be a tough sell to try and tell parents every school is a good school. Because the parents will think the school will be a good school for some kid out there, just not mine.

Millennials’ relationship with work is broken. We want work-life balance. And yet we want to turn our hobbies into income-generators, side-hustles, effectively desiring to turn our passion into work.

So are we turning the life side of the ‘work-life’ see-saw into ‘work’ too? So when we say ‘work-life’ balance, it is not so much the dichotomy of work and life but really, the kind of work that gives us great amount of autonomy without necessary the pressure of livelihood hinging on it, and the kind of work which supports us and fulfils our dreams financially but may not offer so much autonomy and control.

On one hand, we are starved of work and even willing to pay for internships. On the other hand, we are so overworked because we turn our hobbies into work too. The reality, I think, is something to do with our search for our sense of identity. Because we have such freedom and work was quite a significant obsession for the boomers (and by and large their insecurities around livelihoods and material-insufficiency), we dig deep into it for our sense of identity. If only we can take a step back and scrutinise the void in our hearts we are trying to fill, maybe, we would just be searching in the right places.

Ultracrepidarianism refers to the habit of giving advice on matters one knows nothing about. It came from a Latin expression “Sutor, ne ultra crepidam” (Shoemaker, not beyond the shoe). At some point, we elevate people who have progressed well within their respective fields to such a status that they are willing and even confident about their views on matters that they clearly should not be attributed any authority in.

Of course one of the best example is the modern day politician who is asked by the media on a variety of views. And the problem is that sometimes the public gives them enough credit that they actually believe in them. But more broadly, we are suffering from this phenomena ourselves as we become increasingly educated and sees the internet or whatever we find on it as a trusted source as long as they agree with us.

Determining the boundaries of our competence and the authority limits of our own views is so important. Which is why perhaps in schools, even as we want our kids to be confident in their thoughts and views, they ought to also learn to caveat them for the sake of their audience, if not themselves.

When there’s a score we want to see it go up; we want to optimise it, and so we identify the rules to manipulate the numbers rather than what the numbers are supposed to mean. It doesn’t end in schools, nations can also be obsessed with it. It is true that numbers, labels once put together with names can shame or elevate and are used to change cultures.

The Brits are pretty good at this. And the world learns from that, which is where voluntary disclosures become part of the decarbonisation game and so it goes on. It can be used for good but most of the time, it reaches some kind of straining point and gets abused. Greenwashing is an example of that sort of thing.

So what can education do to remind our generations and the future about upholding the spirit of things rather than just their form. What can education do to get students to think through the meaning of grades and what they have made them to mean before dishing out grades like everyone know what it is for? How can we make education better, to be about learning the content than learning the exam techniques?

During the height of the COVID-19 crisis in Singapore, I started with mentoring and coaching younger adults in university to think about their future and to adopt more flexible mindsets as they approach entering a career. Prior to this, I’ve had been informally coaching many peers and juniors on their tertiary education choices, career choices, and strategies to get themselves into various different professional service industries.

My work experiences in the private and public sectors, as well as the education industry allow me to give a big picture of the way an individual should approach these decisions in order to fulfill their life purpose. And for those who have yet to determine what their life purpose is, I have been able to help provide the questions to point them closer to an answer.

This book realistically is worth at least 1 coaching session where I typically charge S$150 for. By sharing these materials for free, I hope to help you diagnose better the stage you are at, and hone in on specific issues, get to your results quicker when you get to me for coaching.

I’ve been bitten by dogs. Not once, and not twice. I did my best not to take offence and indeed; for most part, the dogs were just either mistaking my hand (or leg) for food, or too fearful. Have you been bitten recently? Maybe not by dogs but someone’s views?

If there’s been something that’s chewing us all up, it’s increasing intolerance, and there had been research shown that more educated people actually hold more extreme views. And it is apparently due mainly to the fact that they are able to practice extreme confirmation bias in seeking out the information that confirms their views. And here is when it becomes increasingly important actually that there’s openness to new ideas, and the ability to voice them.

The reason why science, mathematics and mostly academic discourses have for centuries allowed the improvement of these subjects and topics is only because of free and open discussion. And these discussion will of course need to address differences. Being able to address them agreeably is ideal but there will be times to push the envelope without being offensive. Yet people can be offended.

People can feel chewed up. And it is important as a society to learn to cope with being comfortable with the disagreement, and knowing it is not supposed to be personal. We can be better by learning graciousness and not hiding disagreements. And being able to share openly about our ideas and disagreements without fear of persecution is important. On this note, I thought this speech by Rowan Atkinson on the reform section 5 movement years ago was quite funny and moving.

When I’m in a hurry, it is longer.

Seth Godin

Editorial standards have definitely fallen across media in the recent years. It’s not because of constraints but that lack of that. Because when social media proliferate, and news or articles are optimised for share-ability, the standards that are being adhered to are no longer the same. I’ve mentioned before that it matters to societies what makes money because those activity will proliferate.

I digress. I just wanted to make the point that we tend to think that those with the most to say is smart or has thought through things the most. The truth is far from it. Don’t you think?

The problem with the internet and reading general popular science and economics books is that it makes you think you know a lot when you don’t. For a while, I pride on myself in friend circles for knowing a lot of things. Very random things. A trivia about movies or some popular fiction. Or factoids that I picked up from my reading of psychology and economics research pieces.

I picked up the habit of reading through lots of Wikipedia articles when I was uncovering the wonders of quantum mechanics and economics during the ages 15-18. During those years I’d think through my stance on a whole variety of issues in order to sound intelligent in my General Paper writing exams. I realised that when a 17-year old have views on social policies, economy, politics, the methods of scientific inquiry, it really impress people even when these stance are not well thought-through.

And so I guess I kind of hacked that; I systematically went through GP topics and think through the positions I’d take on various different issues. I then read a whole lot of current affairs materials and also the Wikipedia or Cliffs Notes equivalent materials in order to generate examples I could cite in my arguments. All that certainly paid off during exams but it took me longer to appreciate that all that was good only if it did not stifle my curiosity. Where it caused me to think I already know much, it actually causes me to shut out learning new things or deepening my knowledge.

That is also exactly the issue when we are learning just for exams or having our teachers teach to the tests. So are we bringing up people in our mass education to be too self-satisfied with what they already know?