8/15/2016

Schooling is “One of Us” and a “True Son of Singapore”



Singapore’s First Olympic Gold – Going Back to School with Schooling

Joseph Schooling, a teen Singaporean with multiple ethnic heritage personifying the best of the country’s multi-cultural demography, has captured singular glory and distinction for his country, who is incidentally celebrating our 51st Birthday, with the country’s First Olympic Gold Medal at the 100m Butterfly Swimming Event at the Rio Olympics. He has also bested his idol the 22-Olympic Gold Medalist Michael Phelps into 2nd place shared with 2 other competitors by over half a second.

Singapore’s first Olympic Medal was won in 1960 by Tan Howe Liang who won the Silver Medal in the Weighting (Lightweight Category) in Rome, Italy. To date, athletes from Singapore have won a total of 5 medals at the Olympics including Schooling’s Gold.  The other Silver and 2 Bronze Medals came from Table Tennis, respectively from the 2008 (Beijing) and 2012 (London) Olympics.  

Schooling’s Gold Olympic Medal and Howe Liang’s Silver Medal struck at Singaporean national pride in a much more radically fundamental way – both of them are home-grown original Singaporean athletes.  

The other Singapore Olympic Medalists - Li Jiawei, Feng Tianwei and Wang Yuegu – were formerly from China who adopted Singapore as their home country and thus became eligible to represent Singapore at the Olympics.  For the record, Singaporeans have happily welcomed them as fellow Singaporeans and proud that they ended our Olympic medal drought in 2008.    

In essence, Joseph Schooling is “One of Us” – a 3rd generation Eurasian Singaporean who is “a true son of Singapore” to quote his Father, Colin, in The Sunday Times.  Joseph studied in Singapore’s top Anglo-Chinese School (ACS) for 8 years before going to the United States to pursue his swimming passion and studies.

Schooling’s Olympic Gold Medal achievement will revive debates as to whether we as a nation have done enough to consciously groom and develop local athletes. The same debates will also debunk our narrow obsession with academic excellence as the ONLY definition of human talent deserving of social investments and cultivation.

Gold Olympian Schooling did not have the benefit of the massive investments, to the tune of several thousands of S$$, that went to the National Table Tennis players who have very, very few homegrown Singaporeans.  Singapore has paid beyond money, coaches and amenities to include our valuable and prestigious Citizenships in the desperate attempts by sports officials to ignore local talent development in favour of the easier method of buying ready foreign ping-pong talent to represent Singapore.        

In ACS, Schooling benefitted from his School’s objective “to nurture all-round development and help students achieve their potential outside the academic field”.  Another top elite school, RI, had 20 years ago decided to drop soccer from their list of games and co-curricular activities (CCA) because she had not been the soccer champion over the preceding years despite repeatedly producing the nation’s top students.  Wonder what happened to the lesson “Don’t Quit” in their development of youth for leadership! 

In ACS, the School Motto is “The Best is Yet to Be”.  In 2012, Schooling finished badly, actually last, in Heat 5 of the 200m Butterfly Swimming event after Olympic Officials objected unfairly to his cap and goggles. He returned dejected and disappointed, but determined to go at it again by focusing on the 100m.  His story is now Singapore’s history.  Would he have been so encouraged if he were in RI instead of ACS?    

As Singapore prepares herself to celebrate Schooling’s Olympian Gold Honour for Singapore, we should not forget the many Singaporean athletes who could have brought Singapore earlier to the Olympic Gold Medal if only they had been carefully nurtured, adequately funded and provided with the sports eco-system and infrastructure to grow into the stature of Olympian qualifiers, like we did for the National Table Tennis Team.

Athletic and all human talent development begin when young in schools. The wise adage “if you want life-guards, first develop swimmers” is so true. 

Singapore can certainly afford to buy all the 2016 Olympic Gold and Silver Medalists, offer them “special” Singapore “Dual”-Citizenships; and I am sure there would be even more Gold Medals and “Majullah Singapura” refrains in the 2020 Olympics when they represent Singapore in Tokyo. This approach would certainly be meaningless and the accolades short-lived, as they provide neither impetus nor emulation model for the younger generations of Singaporeans.  Again, we will be wasting our money and resources just to ensure the career promotion of certain sports officials. 

From a helicopter’s view, there are the broader related issues of talent development in Singapore. Talent excellence must and should embrace to include as many forms of talent as possible, given Singapore’s only true asset being our human resource.    

Many Singaporeans are receiving accolades as they excel beyond our shores as musicians, actors, entertainers, bankers, commodity traders, business men and women, inventors, researchers, entrepreneurs, logisticians, engineers, management consultants and University Professors.  And then some.  Yet, they are very seldom recognized nor cited for emulation locally simply because they do not belong to the “Scholar” Elites.  Many Scholars however, having gravitated easily along pre-planned career paths, could succeed only within the protected environment of the Civil Service. Very few senior Scholar-Civil Servants are actually sought after by headhunters for the private sector. 

True talent is visible to all, and the impact of real talent is to add value to benefit others, especially to encourage their fellow countrymen and women, as well as the coming generations not only by bringing honour and glory to Singapore, but to propel her to ever greater heights of authentic excellence and achievements in many talent domains.

The Schooling lesson to our educators, talent developers, sports officers and political leaders is to go back to School for a re-imagination of our talentscape and to re-calibrate the limitless talent possibilities of our children and their grandchildren, so as to have more Schoolings for Singapore.

47 comments:

  1. Bullocks. It is OK to be average and have fun. No need egoistic medals. Kudos to the Badminton players who tried and failed gloriously.

    At 27, Dereck has quit. Great move. Let the next one have fun.

    ReplyDelete
  2. No need to be number one. Number one is for idiots.

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  3. The Olympic spirit is best expressed in the Olympic Creed: "The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well."

    ReplyDelete
  4. Stop sucking up to winners and kissing or licking gold metal. Winners take your prize money and go watch a movie with your family quietly lah

    Time to celebrate losers who tried their best lol

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  5. I am only proud of those who are awarded but is serving NS.
    One can still go for competition while serving NS.
    Still early to say "one of us" or "true son of Singapore" till the day one is serving NS.
    Hope not to see more deferment for NS in the name of sport.If can then those who did well in study should be defer too.If everyone defer then who is going to serve NS.
    Say no to deferment in NS except other valid excuses.

    ReplyDelete

  6. quickly earmarked JS for the near future newly created office as
    Minister of Sport.....

    we should have one......about time.......

    cheers......

    ReplyDelete
  7. THere is a lot of sacrifices to. be number one. I say it is your choice if you want to go fuck your life and am willing to pay the price for gold. But fuck you if you think your life of sacrifices or pushing beyond the limits is to be emulated by my children or for that matter, as a national spirit to encourage each generation to follow.

    Life is much more than being number one. No one should be made to feel like lesser beings for loving and being average and for taking their time to savor life's imperfections.

    Furthermore, young people shouldn't be training like the Chinese, Koreans or Russians etc just for gold. What these young people have been subjected to is not training but abuses and torture. Shame on the sports and those who support it

    ReplyDelete
  8. A special grant ( like a life time deferment of NS ) should be awarded to those who won medal in major event..it's not ez to produce these type of sportmen..u can see our former Asean & Asia swimming champion Ang Peng Siong being missed out on many opportunities...

    ReplyDelete
  9. Eh anon 9:13, your view is a bit idealistic. The quest to be world best requires a lot of training and sacrifices. The two years of NS training doing different things would only drag down an athlete in pursuit of excellence just like it drags down the NSmen for wasting two of their best years while the youngs of other countries continue to upgrade themselves and become better than our NSmen, for losing two years away in the fields.

    ReplyDelete
  10. The relationship remains strong between the athletes and the state that nurtured them, and fairytale stories abound of Chinese children wrenched from poverty and enriched by success on the global stage.

    But the Olympic medals have obscured the more unsavory aspects of the sports regime, which has been blamed for leaving less successful athletes uneducated and ill-equipped to thrive outside the competition venues.

    Abuse accusations

    It has also drawn criticism from Western coaches who have accused their Chinese counterparts of producing winners through systematic physical abuse.

    "You wonder why the Chinese women are so successful? Most of the men are coaches. The women are literally beaten into submission," Johannah Doecke, diving coach at the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis in the United States, told Reuters.

    "If you said no to anything, you would be chastised, slapped around. It's a brutal system."

    ReplyDelete


  11. If you are talented in a particular sport from young age and
    if your parents do not have the financial means to send you
    overseas to train......

    How?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anon 9.24
      How?
      No need crack your brain.
      Go join NS early.Or sign on with SAF.If one is good,can swim mean can swim

      Delete
  12. Chinese officials have bristled at the criticism.

    "You have to train hard. Why does the West think like this?" Shi Zhihao, the male head of China's women's table tennis team, said angrily in response.

    "China is very free, if you want you can do it, and if you don't want to do it you don't have to."

    Unquote

    If you don't push beyond the limits, you think you can beat them? Pls. The kind of training to be number is already bothering on ABUSE!

    The more they push the record up in each competition, the greater will be the ABUSE.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Heartbreaking images of a child crying have emerged from a children's school in China, a country where in the past, young children have been placed in schools designed to train future Olympic champions.
    It's one of many pictures captured in sporting schools across China of young children being put through gruelling training routines at ages as young as six.


    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3597978/Inside-China-s-cruel-gold-medal-factories.html#ixzz4HMOaU7pa
    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

    ReplyDelete
  14. Sinkies are good for nothing blind followers. Idol armpits always smell nice to them

    ReplyDelete
  15. Should learn the easy sinkie way to riches. No need to work hard. Even the school system has been changed to coax and pamper the children and expecting them to be the best they can be. The Singapore system is the best, no pain but got gain.

    Everyone can go to university, get a good degree to become taxi drivers and security guards as they will not be good enough for anything else. And they have to go to poor countries to hire their best to do the work here and to be CEOs to manage the daft sinkies from a system that does not need hard work to succeed.

    ReplyDelete
  16. 2 years NS can be 3 month BMT training followed by 1 month swimming instructor course and 20 months as swimming instructor .It is not doing different things but can even make one swim "fasterer".
    The most important thing to take part in games is not necessarily to win.
    Life time deferment as special grant
    should not be encourage or accepted if one is loyal to his country.

    ReplyDelete
  17. There is nothing special about schooling. One percent talent( and the world is full of talent, including Sg, so no big deal) 99 percent sweat.

    It is all in the training. Schooling picked the right sport for the gold. If he had done boxing or Badminton, he would have failed.

    It is time to embrace the true Olympic spirit and stop sports abuse and torture of young people.

    The Olympic spirit is best expressed in the Olympic Creed: "The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well."

    ReplyDelete
  18. Go take a look at the pictures. Go see what you are supporting

    ReplyDelete
  19. That's a factual report why censor?

    ReplyDelete
  20. Scare truth ah?

    ReplyDelete

  21. Let Me Join The Fun!

    3S! 3S! 3S!

    S...ingapore!
    S...wimming!
    S...chooling!

    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
  22. Another crap by michael heng.

    In reality, all our athletes are adequately supported in the reason years. Many commentators here wanted PAP to fund Schooling 1.4 million dollars school fees.

    They are MORON.

    USA sports man are not funded. They make their bones through exceptional talents, or because they are from rich family that afford them super enrichment courses.

    Mike Tyson are not funded. Why he succeed? Because he showed people his gangsterism and beaten all the pros in the arena.

    We already have sports school, which is a heaven Mike Tyson dont have.

    And many commenters here are sympathetic Schooling family paid out of their pockets and blame PAP for not give Schooling the million dollars. These idiots can pay on Schooling fathers' behalf.


    ReplyDelete
  23. ACS produce a lot of sports man probably not so much because of her culture but because students there are rich.

    Poor man son goes RI and hope to excel in studies. Poor man son good in sports go to sports schools.

    I bet you check the background of Quah, Schooling, all other ACS ace swimmers, and their familiy income and they are better than 95% of the rest of our kids.

    ReplyDelete

  24. Kudos to the Deputy Prime Minister and Ministers who were at Changi Airpott to
    welcome home Joseph Schooling.

    Now that Joseph Schooling has won the First Ever Gold Medal in Olmpic 2016 in Rio, the Cabinet Members are seizing the Opportunity to garner propaganda material.

    Nothing but a pack of OPPORTUNISTS.


    patriot



    ReplyDelete
  25. I dont think we can fault our minister for opportunist. What if our minister dont give a damn when Sports heros are back?

    The social media will fuck and fuck again.

    What if PAP support School 1 million dollar school fees earlier?

    The social media fuck even more, and imbecile will claim PAP throw 1.4 million dollars to a son of rich business man.

    We cannot have the cake and eat it.

    When we fuck PAP, we need to be base on facts.

    ReplyDelete
  26. /// The first time a Singaporean won a gold medal at an Olympic-level sporting meet was in 2008, in Beijing.

    Singapore’s first Olympic-level gold medallist is 24-year-old Yip Pin Xiu, who eight years ago, swam an impressive 58.75-second race in the S3 category to set a world record in the women’s 50m backstroke event in the Paralympics: ///

    http://mothership.sg/2016/08/joseph-schooling-actually-isnt-our-first-ever-olympic-gold-medallist-yip-pin-xiu-is/

    Do you think Singaporeans are just like their Aristocrats?
    Only know how to suck cock and look down on disabled people?

    ReplyDelete
  27. Redbean, you really got a lot of very angry people, some really stupid ones, too.
    Have some patriotism, people!
    Don't have to politicise everything, man!

    All Singaporeans should celebrate this Olympic Gold Medal won by ka kee lan.


    ReplyDelete
  28. You go wiki and all other Olympic honor list, they only list down Summer and Winter Olympic of normal person.

    Disability goes into other category.

    The Summer Olympic is particularly significant because it project the strength of a nation.

    Paralympic do not carry such weight.

    This is not discrimination but fact.

    When someone told you he won a 100m run in Olympic and the other in Para, who you respect?

    All these are physics and we cannot ignore reality.

    ReplyDelete
  29. RB blog too many anti PAP people who dont think deep, make philosophized on everything.

    I need to thank NTU engineering training that make me a person base on evidence and fact, though teachers there sucks.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Give 2 years of National Service to Schooling.
    - guaranteed to break down Schooling's belief that tomorrow will be better than yesterday.
    - can't wait to turn Schooling into another PAP slave

    National Service is not compatible nor conducive to Olympic greatness.
    National Service is only good for making more brain dead Singaporean slaves.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Daft Sinkie.
    One Olympic gold medal.
    And you think you are no longer a PAP slave?

    Suddenly your cpf money belong to you now?
    suddenly can withdraw all your money at 55 years old?

    ReplyDelete
  32. Joseph Schooling have shown to the world how he "Dare to Dream Big...From a nobody small fly into a golden butterfly!".

    ReplyDelete
  33. Joseph Schooling have shown to the world how he "Dare to Dream Big...From a nobody small fly into a golden butterfly!".
    August 15, 2016 12:08 pm

    Coming from a rich family which can afford to send him overseas to train also helps.
    No need to work part-time at McDonald's to help with family expenses at home.

    ReplyDelete

  34. Hahaha.......

    没有TEXAS,焉得Olympic Gold!

    ReplyDelete
  35. //Coming from a rich family which can afford to send him overseas to train also helps.
    No need to work part-time at McDonald's to help with family expenses at home.//

    Rich is only 1 of the factor.Without his own hard work plus some coaching he ain't gg to make it.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Anon 1117
    Coaching are bullshit.Different people will born with different talent and no amount of coaching can help.
    It's natural.Like sifu matilar know different style on how to deal and satisfy his targets.,without the need to be coach.

    ReplyDelete
  37. /// Coaching are bullshit.Different people will born with different talent and no amount of coaching can help. ///

    Very true.
    PAP Ministers all trained and groomed and coached.
    All very well paid some.
    Any use or not ah?

    ReplyDelete
  38. Rich is only 1 of the factor.Without his own hard work plus some coaching he ain't gg to make it.
    August 15, 2016 1:17 pm

    Bottom line.
    You rich enough to send your talented son to USA for swimming lessons or not?

    ReplyDelete
  39. //Bottom line.
    You rich enough to send your talented son to USA for swimming lessons or not?//

    May be tell ur son "Yes...provided strike Toto can?..." But 4d # 5039 sold out , we can try others # probably it strike !

    ReplyDelete
  40. What has PAP gahmen done for Schooling so far?
    Nothing?

    What can PAP gahmen do to Schooling?
    Threaten to send Schooling for National Service.

    What can Schooling do?
    Renounce Singaporean citizenship.
    And then offer to come to Singapore as a well paid PAP Foreign Talent.
    No need to do National Service anymore.

    ReplyDelete
  41. SHAMELESS FOR PAP GOVT TO TAKE CREDIT FOR SCHOOLING'S SUCCESS, THEY DID NOTHING

    http://www.allsingaporestuff.com/article/shameless-pap-govt-take-credit-schoolings-success-they-did-nothing
    ------------------------------

    Just think.
    Send Schooling to do National Service.
    Carry mortar and run up the hill.
    Sure destroy his swimming muscles.

    And this is why if Singaporeans want to achieve greatness.
    It is better to emigrate far, far away from PAP.

    ReplyDelete
  42. Anon5.32
    //Do NS carry mortar run up hill sure destroy muscles//
    Rich man son too fragile better excuse.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Rich man sons do swimming and defence science?

    Poor man sons do national service and McDonald's service?

    ReplyDelete
  44. It is not right to ask peple

    For condition when a world

    Gold standard stand infront

    Of you.it show how uninformed

    You r.

    ReplyDelete