Make Education a Race and the Learning is Destroyed

In this week's Sunday Times, Dr John Medina, Director of the Brain Centre for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University, ended his article with “Make education a race and the learning is destroyed.”  I believe this statement will resonate with many educators and parents.  Our schools started off with the aim to provide our children with knowledge and skills so that they can function as contributing beings in the future.  Along the way, somehow, someone decides to make our education into a race where students and schools are ranked.  Nowadays, even teachers and principals are ranked so as to “motivate” them to inspire our children to do even better in school.

What exactly are our children inspired to do?  Many educators will agree with me that our children are not intrinsically motivated, but they are pushed to the limit to excel in quantifiable results such as their examination scores.  This method of measurement is the fastest and most efficient way for a system to rank huge number of people.  How about diversity and creativity?  Educators know that these two characteristics are important and will be the deciding factors between a “Good” and an “Excellent”.  However, how do we teach and can we really measure diversity and creativity?

I once asked my professor at Harvard University – the West is looking to the East in their implementation of high-stake testing so that educators can ensure that at least some knowledge has been passed on to students.  The East, on the other hand, is looking to the West on the way the students are being encouraged to think independently and to have creativity and confidence in their work.  How do we know we have reached the optimal balance?  His answer was simple; “it depends”.

Giving up totally on our current high-stake testing system will not be wise.  Continuing with it will be foolish.  In our well-oiled education system, can we find a space where some form of messiness is tolerated, where in this small space, educators can finally nurture our children’s innate uniqueness and creativity?  The input to this space will be difficult to create and the output from this space will be hard to measure, but it will be a start; and a good one.  Let’s do it!

Young, Gifted and Blocked

Last week, an article in The Economist “Young, Gifted and Blocked – Korea needs fewer wage slaves and more entrepreneurs”, discussed some of the causes which the magazine felt contributed to the current lack of entrepreneurs in Korea.  What particularly caught my eye was the last sentence, “The real obstacle to enterprise is a society that urges its best young minds to aim low.”

To me, that sentence sums up not only the situation described in the article, but also the predicament in Singapore.  Similar to Korea, many parents in Singapore tend to encourage or steer their children towards stable careers in the civil service, the professional, the multi-national companies or the government-linked companies.  There is no doubt that these career choices are safer and provide more financial stability.  However, what is the cost to the society? What is the personal cost to a young child who aspires to be an artist, an entrepreneur or a career path that is not well-trodden?

I remembered my own experience when I decided to pursue my dream and to set up my own atypical Education Consultancy, 6 years back.  People who loved and cared about me were not always very encouraging.  It is not unusual to hear comments like “Why not join the civil service?”, “Are you crazy?”, “It’s not going to work”, “How long do you think you can last?”, and “How are you going to re-pay your study loan?” coming from friends and family.  As my practice continued to grow and develop, the concerned people began reminding me, “Just have fun for a while and then do something serious after that.”

Do not get me wrong, I am not against people choosing to work in the civil service, the professional, the multi-national companies and the government-linked companies.  Many of my very talented friends as well as people whom I admire are working in these organsisations. They are not only doing a very good job, but they are also enjoying themselves. Because this is what they have always wanted to do.  By no means are their responsibilities or achievements any lesser to that of any entrepreneurs.  However, not everyone shares the same dream.  We often tell our very young - the sky’s the limit; have the courage to do what you want to do.  But do we ourselves have the courage to embrace and to support them when that time comes?  

Can our students think?

I recall a conversation I had with another passenger sitting next to me when I was traveling from Boston to San Francisco a few years back.  What got the conversation started was a book that I was reading.  My neighbour asked me, “Why do you choose to read the autobiography of this person?  It’s an interesting choice.”  He then introduced himself and I realised that my neighbour for the next 5 hours is a successful venture capitalist from Silicon Valley.  When he found out that I am from Singapore, he said, “Oh, you are from Singapore.  If I want to start a QC (quality control) department, Singapore will be my choice.  But Taiwan will be the place for my design lab in Asia”. 

I was perturbed by his comments and went on to ask for his rationale when making those decisions.  “Singaporeans are very good at following orders and ensuring that instructions are carried out to perfection.”  Graciously, I thanked him for his kind words, but ended our conversation with, “I wished you had swapped your choices.”

I have re-counted this conversation with many of my friends and quite a number felt that my unhappiness was misplaced.  “Each of us has our strength.  Singapore’s strength happened to be in QC and we are recognised globally as the best in it.  Is this not a good thing?”  While this could be a good thing, it certainly does not resonate well with me.  The greatest value creation comes from the innovation, generation and ownership of intellectual property, and not quality control.  You hear it from all over the world that countries are aiming towards building a knowledge-based economy, not a manufacturing-based or quality control-based economy.  Sophisticated politicians around the world will not trumpet the need for a knowledge-based economy if there is no significant merit. 

As one of the countries with the highest literacy and internet penetration rate, why do Singaporeans give people the impression that we are not good in creative work?  Many factors are at play and I see our education system as one culprit.  In our system, as long as the required format is followed and the correct formulas are applied, our students will automatically get the desired answer and the accompanied recognition (including “thinking” subjects, such as literature and history).  There is no need for our students to “think”.  After 18 long years (if not more) of being trained under this model, it is unfair to then ask our students to switch to thinking creatively and to blame them when they could not.  I have seen creative works and have engaged in creative discussions with our young, but I agree that these occasions are far and few in-between.  For our young to compete shoulder-to-shoulder with top creative talents from all over the world, our learning landscape and the way our students are being taught need to be changed.  Can you imagine, combining our strict discipline with a creative mind, what wonders can our young achieve!