The short version
Because I believe hard work is the key to success in our education system.
The long version.. here goes.
Similar to the other blogger, I read a lot since I was very young. Often saw my mother reading books, and she often brought my siblings and me to the library, where we were let loose, free to choose whichever books we wanted to read. Reading has always been my hobby, and I still read a lot now, despite being busy with two young children.
Different from her situation, my mother did not make me compete. In Primary One, I was ranked 20+ in class. In Primary Two, I was ranked third and remained in the top four in my class till I graduated among the top ten from my neighhourhood primary school.
My parents were not English-educated and they could not really supervise me in my schoolwork. I had tutors in primary school and tons of assessment books. BUT the assessment books were chosen by myself and I loved to do assessment books (except composition!!). Similar to our library trips, my brother and I were let loose in Big Bookshop, free to choose the assessment books we wanted to do. Oh ya, I was caned a lot in those years, but mostly for being naughty and hardly for academic non-performance.
Went on to River Valley High School in the Special stream (i.e. we took Higher Chinese - Chinese as 1st language). Not sure how my results ranked in my 1992 cohort, but pretty sure I could have chosen any secondary school I wanted. Very sure that there was zero emotional damage :p I don't recall any pressure from my parents about which school to choose, probably just some sort of 'warning' not to be funny and choose a faraway school. (Sound advice!!)
How did I fare in secondary school? Can't remember any of my rankings in class (did we have any??) but I was definitely one of the sinkers. Did I care? Urm, nope. Was happily busy with my ECA and social life. Did my parents care? Not that I know of. (No more tuition, by the way.) Did my teachers care? They never said anything.
When I was in Secondary Four, I decided to drop English Literature for the 'O' levels. Because I was flunking it (but I was flunking everything, no kidding), and mainly because I disliked the teacher. That was the only time the school authorities tried to 'interfere' with my school career.. strongly discouraged me from dropping the subject. Can't recall whether it was spoken or unspoken, but the reason was what if I flunked my only remaining Humanities subject (Geography)?? (Which, as mentioned, I was flunking.) Anyway I got my way and happily 'escaped' from E. Lit classes for the rest of the year (yippee!)
But I wasn't planning on flunking the 'O' levels. From February of my 'O' levels year, I worked very hard. Means I woke up at 6am every schoolday to go to school, and I only slept at 2am every night. Two cups of coffee everyday. I spent a lot of time at the community centre's study room, going through the entire 'O' levels syllabus. I went through all the homework which I had 'done' for the past few years and tried to understand them with the help of Ten-Year-Series.
A lot of time, but not all my time. After school I went swimming. Everyday. Because I had plans to attend an instructor-training course for my ECA at the end of the year, i.e. right after the 'O' levels. And I still went out with my friends if they asked me out. And I was still reading a lot for leisure.
Got my 'O' levels results. Very pleased with them. Got an A1 for my Geography. My only 'flunk' was a B3 for Higher Chinese. Could go to any Junior College I wanted.
Hwa Chong JC for my next two years. Lesson learnt. Of course I should make the most of my JC years and enjoy myself before the 'A' levels! Flunked the most part of the two years. There were Os (means I passed that subject at 'O' levels standard, which was a nice way of saying I failed it at 'A' levels standard, LOL) and Ps (probationary pass, something like I only pass if I pass the next test) on my report cards. By then, my parents probably didn't know what was going on anymore. I wasn't too worried either. None of my teachers mentioned anything either. (I love the school, so cool!) The only time when my principal said something was when I asked for permission to attend training (for a trip to Mt Ophir for ECA) within school hours. She said, "I will let you go.. But do take note of your results.." Wow! The principal knew about my flunking but she still let me skip classes for ECA training!
Two noteworthy incidents from my JC years. I was flunking Economics, till one day I accidentally did well on an assignment and the positive reinforcement (just a few words of praise) from the Economics teacher motivated me to finally try to understand what was going on. I was flunking Further Mathematics, till one day I accidentally did well on a class test, and the same thing happened.
My point? My teachers chose to ignore my earlier
Again, started to prepare quite early for the 'A' levels, again with all the copied homework, and TYS and help from classmates and seniors. Got my results - mightily pleased to have aced my four subjects. Went on to NUS.
Modular system in NUS. Couldn't flunk the first five semesters and just work hard at the sixth, so I had to work harder and more consistently! Was also on a government scholarship so I also didn't dare to flunk. But then, the long vacations meant I still enjoyed my Uni years a lot.
So, from kindergarten to degree, that's my 18 years in the education system. There was definitely a lot of stress, namely when I was trying to squeeze four years of stuff into a few months. But there was also a lot of fun and enjoyment and stress-free heck-care times. Thus I believe that a student in the local system can still play play play a lot, but of course there will be a time for hard work. Can't expect good results without hard work, right? To expect good results without wanting to put in hard work is unreasonable and unrealistic.
My hubby also spent a lot of time playing during his school years. But our types of 'hard work' differed in that he did pay attention in class and thus did not have to spend so much time mugging before the big exams. So, need hard work in some form lah, though not necessarily in the same form.
It might be argued that though I got good results, I might not be a true success of the education system. I definitely agree. I am not creative/innovative, I don't have 'helicopter view' (much to the exasperation of my superiors at my job before I became a sahm), I don't have critical views of the political system (I love our government and am very thankful to them), etc. My definition of success? I was happy throughout my schooling years. I got a job I loved (but not more than my children) with a good pay. If I had chosen to continue working after having kids, we would be a very comfortable dual-income family. Now that I have chosen to quit my job to take care of my children, my hubby is able to support the family with his single income. And I am still learning new things everyday : )
One might say that I was able to get good results because of genes (i.e. smarter) or because of my personality (self-motivated).
Genes - seriously, smart or not, I would have flunked the Os and As without hard work.
Personality - this is the interesting part. I assume personality has a lot to do with the home environment and influences from significant others. In addition to being self-motivated, I think being resilient and realistic had a lot to do with it too. And this is the main area in which I hope to influence my children, to prepare for their 10+ years in the education system.
Realistic -- knowing that hard work = good results. No pain, no gain.
Resilient -- not to be demoralized by lousy results. Back to being realistic - since I didn't put in the effort, how to expect good results?!
Self-motivated - nobody can work hard for me. I gotta do it myself.
See the difference between my situation and the blog post mentioned above? Mine was relatively no-pressure, though our PSLE results seemed to be similar. I think the issue is not whether we can work hard, but whether we are still motivated to work hard by the time we really need to.
So, my main concern for my children, is how NOT to kill this internal motivation and a child's natural resilience. I am not sure how much of what my mother did was a conscious decision on her part, but something I would like to emulate is to provide the resources and a stress-free conducive environment for self-learning. She engaged tutors so that I would have someone to ask if I needed help, as she did not even complete secondary school. But since I am more educated than her, I won't need tutors as I can teach my children myself.
I am not sure how to build a child's resilience. From what I can recall, it doesn't seem that my parents and teachers did anything special. What they did was to be laidback and let me take my own time. But I can think of many ways in which resilience can be extinguished, such as pressurising him, academic hothousing, extra tuition, packed schedules, discouraging words, to just give a few examples. I would think that when the parent 'helps' the child to survive the education system, his natural survical instinct will fade.
And if he's not a natural survivor anyway? Then I guess extra pressure won't help him either. See the difference in my starting point versus the other blogger's? Our mothers did things very differently. That means.... it's on us mummies.
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