Term 3 Wk 3 - Education

First of all, I agree with what Janelle Lee says to an extent. Our education system apparently places much emphasis on memorising, memorising and memorising. What teachers in school will tell you to do is to memorise, memorise and memorise. This way of studying is very much "dead". Is memorising facts all you need to attain an A1 in school examinations? Will this kind of 'top to down' method help us students to become a knowledgable person? The reason why china universities' standards are still lower than Harvard, Oxford, etc is because China universities uses the 'top to down' teaching method while Harvard, Oxford uses the inquiry and discussion method. This means that students in China universities only get to listen to what the teacher says and not express their own opinons and thoughts. Teachers teach and they listen. However, in Harvard, thats not the case. The teachers there encourages students to engage actively in discussions and express their own thoughts and ideas and the teachers comment on that and help them improve. This is much more effective than letting the students just memorising facts. In this manner, students get to acquire critical thinking skills and gain self confidence.

I also agree that moulding one's character is more important than getting good grades. In chinese there is a saying, "品学兼优“ which means good in both character and studies. Notice the word "品" comes first. This means that character is more important than studies. Schools teaching us moral values through textbooks. However, such moral values cant be taught through in a teacher to student way. It must be nutured within the student himself, through real life examples and practice. 

An ideal education is somewhat possible. The current education system in Singapore now is slowly moving its emphasis away from just memorising facts and start ecncouraging students to ask 'why". A baby step is all it takes. I believe that gradually, Singapore will be able to teach each and every student how to ask 'why' instead of just memorising the facts. Still, it takes time as Singapore's education system is used to just memorise memorise and memorise. Parents are also influenced and only teach their children to memorise. Hence, it will take some time to change the mindset that they harbour.