Recently, in the part of the world where Mr Salty lives in, the biggest news has got to be the escalation of Hong Kong’s protests. A protestor was shot at point blank by a police officer and everyone was crying foul and crying for blood. That incident was so emotional that Singaporeans were also talking about it. While replying to a friend’s Facebook post, Mr Salty realised some similarities between the protestors’ mindset and that of a typical Singaporean.
First, a background of what had been happening in Singapore.
While Hong Kong’s youths were fighting for their future (regardless of the methods they are employing), Singaporeans have been throwing shade at the education system – THE education system that was recognised as world class.
The most recent one was a complaint by a “concerned parent”, who said that a few questions from her son’s PSLE Math paper (PSLE is a standardised test for all 12 year-old Singaporeans and it had just concluded) were too difficult. What she failed to point out was that the questions were (reportedly) new and thus not found in past year papers (which every student would try out before the exam), and that the methodology required of the students to solve the problems were taught in school.
The underlying fault that the parent was crying foul of, was that the test paper should only have used questions that were used in the past.
A public debate ensued (of course!) on social media. Some agreed with the disgruntled parent, but most agreed that the education system was sound.
Why Does An Assessment Exist?
Mr Salty believed an assessment (which is an extension of the education system) should have the following:
- Assess the learner’s knowledge
- Assess the learner’s application of knowledge
- Determine the levels of skills acquisition
(i) is needed to make sure that the educator did his part to impart required knowledge to learners. (ii) is needed to ensure that the learners are capable of transferring “hard” knowledge into practical solutions in daily lives. In the PSLE “controversy”, the “difficult” questions were actually applying (ii) – had the students understood the basic principles of Math, instead of memorising the steps to solve known problems, they would not have had issues with those questions.
This brought us to (iii), which answers the question of “Why do we need our students to learn to solve unknown questions?”
Why Do We Need Our Students To Learn To Solve Unknown Problems?
Using current context, a student who is only good in (i) will only be able to maintain current systems. They would end up being the engineers who made sure a car factory line is running smoothly. Since all problems would have been documented in the operation manual, he only needs to solve known problems.
On top of people who can solve known problems efficiently, companies and societies need workers who are good in solving unknown problems, so that new and improved products can be invented. Without students who are exceptional in (ii), we would not have people who want to invent cleaner cars or better computers that can drive cars for humans.
In order to make sure we have a good supply of (ii), (iii) is required. (iii) helps us sieve out the innovators from plain doers. In a sense, it helps us identify those who are weak in (i), so that we can help them move to (ii); it helps us identify those weak in (ii), so that we can help them move to become innovators.
Without (iii), we can’t implement what Confucius advocated: Teach according to one’s capabilities.
Mr Salty grew up in the education system where focus was on (i) – from 1970s to 1990s, Singapore grew strong because of our ability to provide highly-skilled workers – workers who were good in (i). But Singapore knew that the developing countries in the region are catching up by copying Singapore’s model of churning out students good in (i), so we needed to work on cultivating workers who are innovative, hence the shift to (ii) and (iii), systems that our PSLE Mum did not grow up in and thus was very upset when she could not game the system she thought she knew well.
Why is PSLE Mum Complaining?
At the root of the controversy lies the misplaced mindset of the parent: that the system is “good” if it endorses her child according to the persona she had of her child in her mind; and the system is “bad” if it doesn’t.
In other words, she’s a sore loser.
She failed to understand that whenever we undertake a decision to do anything, there is always a consequence. The consequence of PSLE is that there will be students who would come out of the test knowing that they did not fully grasp the knowledge they were required to master.
It is just like walking into a shop to buy something. In order to “buy” something, we have to “lose” money in the manner of payment for the products. The loss of money is the consequence of deciding to enter the shop to buy an item. If you walk into the shop and expect to gain something without paying money, you are either naive, or a robber.
While failing to understand the consequences, she also believed that her son would emerge from the “competition” a winner and without suffering “damage” – Mr Salty gives PSLE Mum the benefit of doubt that she’s not an evil person. So she must be the idiot.
How Does This Link to the Protestor Shooting?
Many people who condemned the officer said that the police had the upper hand in a situation where there is a difference in power level. The police were well trained, well equipped, and the protestors were not.
Using layman terms, they meant that this difference in power level justified the protestors’ actions to beat up an officer, use molotov cocktails on police and the police had to be sitting ducks.
They failed to realise that in all protests (in their situation, they have become riotous), there will be losses. They failed to understand that the losses could also be suffered by people in their own camp. They failed to realise that current laws still stand and their actions are against the law, and hence the police had every right to stop them.
It included the police officer’s right to self defense, in the shooting incident.
You can’t participate in a protest (in their case, a riot) expecting that the only casualty would be the ones suffered by the other camp. You can’t join an assessment expecting only the other exam takers are “eligible” to fail.
It’s just like you can’t walk into a shop and expect to leave with an item from the shop without leaving some money behind.
Beware of Appeal to Emotion
Another similarity between the protestors and PSLE Mum – after suffering damage, both of them used emotional appeal to gain sympathy. The protestors kept stressing on the fact that the victim was a 17-year old student, because very few people could resist feeling sorry for a young man.
The protestor camp omitted facts that the boy was part of an armed mob attacking a police officer, who continued with their attacks even though the officer had fallen, who continued their attacks even though the rest of the police force had returned to stop them.
The protestors, instead of reflecting on their own riotous acts, tried to flame emotions to get more people to join in their cause – why by the 17th week, had become a nuisance, rather than patriotic.
PSLE Mum, in her “open letter” to the Education Minister, tried to blame the Ministry for the increased suicide rates among young people, because people can’t resist sympathising with young people who decided to end their lives at a young age.
She failed to highlight that the reasons people committed suicide could be due to a myriad of reasons – there is no scientific causation link between exam stress and suicide rates. She spoke as though PSLE was a new exam thrown in the face of young people nowadays.
Most importantly, she failed to acknowledge the roles that parents play in causing exam stress among students.
Children wouldn’t know the dangers of touching a naked flame unless they tried to touch it themselves, or the adults told them about the dangers of touching a naked flame. Similarly, our students wouldn’t know that their “lives would be ruined” if they don’t obtain an A in the exams; they wouldn’t have found that out themselves, since they were obviously still not in that stage of their lives, so it must have been the parents who told their children about that.
Who Caused Exam Stress?
I know some parents who like to play the blame game would point their fingers at teachers. “Teachers must have been the ones who placed fear in my children, by pushing them to score well in exams. How did they place fear? They made my child stay back after school if they don’t do well in a test!”
Well, considering that any system has limited resources, the resource required to “retain” students after official school hours in order to “brush up on studies” would most likely be enough to target those who are really bad in studies – the failures. If your child is failing math, he or she will not even be able to secure a job at McDonald’s as a cashier. I believe the basic expectations for all our kids would be for them to pass exams.
If the system is only expecting children to pass exams so that they have the most basic skills to survive in life, then why are the tuition agencies thriving?
MOE did not tell students to take up tuition. Teachers would not recommend tuition (it would be an acknowledgement of their incapability to teach well). Students have no means to pay for tuition. And I wonder why students are attending tuition?
In a bid to assuage her sore feelings, PSLE Mum tried to stoke anger among Singaporeans by linking suicides to exam stress and then linking exam stress to MOE’s “difficult questions”.
This is dangerous. By linking suicide rates to the education system without scientific proof, the society would overlook the real cause of the suicide rates. Resources would be directed incorrectly and more young people will suffer.
All because PSLE Mum was unhappy that there were a few questions that were not found in the Ten-Year Series.
Advise to PSLE Mum
Mr Salty thinks PSLE Mum actually watched too much Korean drama – dramas that talked about conspiracy theories that there is a system that is always out to crush people. Considering how human resources is extremely vital to Singapore, I doubt the government of the day would do things to crush their people. Instead, exams have to be robust so that they could correctly identify the capabilities of students and give them the right resources to develop themselves to their full potential.
What PSLE Mum should do is to take stock of the results of the PSLE – instead of blaming MOE for creating a new question in PSLE, ask what your child could do so that he could answer any questions, be it they appeared in the TYS or not. If there was any one child who could answer those special questions, it meant that those questions were not problematic in the first place.
Or perhaps PSLE Mum should take the chance to talk to her son about the realities of this world. We can’t always be winning, but when we lose, we must learn from the lessons so that we would not lose again.
By the way, Mr Salty thinks that PSLE Mum should join Mr Salty’s team, since she proved that she could be so salty as to write an open letter to the minister. Our saltiness combined should be enough to support a ramen shop.
But I know it will be difficult for PSLE Mum to swallow her ego, acknowledge that she was over reacting and salty, and join Mr Salty. Alternatively, she could just refuse to buy from the shop I mentioned earlier and seek other alternatives.
She could be like the parents of Ben Davis (or is it Navis?) who got their son out of Singapore, at the risk of not being able to return at all, because they don’t believe the Singapore system is good for their boy.
Be like Ben David. Leave and don’t come back.
And remember, salty is life.