Education – A time and place for everything

National Remembrance Day, half mast, PM and ministers’ condolence messages, support from friends and relatives, kind words, all these meant nothing to the parents that were flown all the way to Kota Kinabalu to identify the bodies of their children and to bring them home, lifeless. This is a tragedy that cannot be described in words. The loss is devastating to the parents and loved ones.
 
Would anyone, any school, wish to continue with such a programme for their 12 year olds or 16 year olds? What is the role and function of a school, a primary school, a secondary school? Is leadership training part of the curriculum, a responsibility of the schools?
 
There is a time for everything, a time to be a child, go to school, be a playful teenager, NS, tertiary education, get a job, settle down and start a family. Schools should not over extend themselves to do things that are beyond their scope of responsibility. Sending children overseas for whatever educational activities should not be the function of primary and secondary schools. Leadership training at 12 is a farce! Go and do well in the PSLE first. Leadership training in an overseas trip is a bigger farce! 2 years in NS may not make any difference in making leaders of NS men. Challenging the 12 year olds to their limits is high falutin. No need to say more.
 
The MOE must re examine the role of education at different levels and keep the eager beavers under control. It is good to want to conquer the world, to be the best of everything. But do it at a proper time. Do not try to over achieve and go astray with fallacious activities not suitable or appropriate for the different age groups. There is no need to prove beyond what the schools are set out to do. Going the extra mile is always good if done within limits and without endangering the safety of the children.
 
Educators are expected to be professionals and to know the limits of what they can do and should do and what is unnecessary and superfluous. Do not expose the educators to do things that they would regret for the rest of their lives. No amount of kind words can bring back the children that were lost. The parents would live a life of painful memories and regrets of their loved ones prematurely taken from them. Can you imagine the grief?
 
I am lost for words to console the victims’ families. The loss of lives is so unnecessary. We don’t have earthquake but have so many earthquake victims to mourn and a day of remembrance for it. So unnecessary.

Aquino had an audience with Emperor Akihito

In his latest visit to Japan, Aquino was given the honour to dine with the Japanese Emperor. This fine gesture is akin to Emperor Pu Yi being honoured by the late Emperor Hirohito of the Second World War. I could not remember if Pu Yi did enjoy this rare honour of the company of the Japanese Emperor then. If he did, he would be just as flattered as Aquino is today. Is Aquino hoping to be appointed to head another Manchuko in the Philippines should Japan decide to go on another military rampage to bring the whole of East and Southeast Asia under its neo Asia Co Prosperity Sphere?
 
In the days of Puyi and his Manchuko, Manchuria was the industrial base for raw material for the Japanese Imperial Army. Would the Philippines be able to provide the raw material needed by the industrial Japan and its war industry? If it could, Aquino would definitely be highly decorated and placed on high pedestal by the Japanese for his great contribution to the Japanese Empire. He has already been targeted as a good replacement for Pu Yi and is awarded the highest medal of Japan for his potential to be part of the Japanese Empire.
 
If the Philippines could not provide the industrial base, it could play the role of Korea by providing foot soldiers and comfort women for the Japanese Imperial Army. In these two areas the Pinoys would excel perfectively. Pinoy soldiers like war and are trigger happy. They are macho and enjoy being heroes. As for providing comfort women to the Japanese Imperial soldiers, this would be a piece of cake for the Pinoys, a job cut out for them.
 
The military alliance between Japan and the Philippines is a perfect match to rule East and Southeast Asia. They compliment each other with their comparative advantages. The Japanese are so happy with this catch in Aquino and Aquino is so happy to serve the Japanese Empire willingly. He must have seen many advantages in this make in heaven marriage of convenience.

Hsien Loong, numbers don’t count, substance counts

‘In an interview with a group of ASEAN journalists on Thursday (4 Jun), PM Lee told the visiting foreign journalists that democratic progress comes from quality discussion in Parliament, not the number of opposition members. (He did not mention the number of ruling party members implies that without the presence of opposition members they could have good quality discussion among themselves. Is my assumption tiok or not? )
 
He described the duty of the opposition as one to “raise serious issues which concern the country, which offers real alternatives to the population and which then debates the hard choices which the country has to make”.
 
“If they do that, whether they have one member, whether they have ten members, they are good opposition,” he said. “If they don’t do that, you may have 20, 30 members, you are not being responsible. So, I would not go on the numbers. I would go on the substance of the debate.”’ TRE Editorial on 6 Jun 15
 
I have this bad habit of going with the flow and not to dispute what is politically right to say. So I must agree with Hsien Loong that substance is important in Parliament and not numbers. What is the point of having 87 duds in Parliament when one dud will do the same damage as 87? Similarly, one good opposition leader like Chee Soon Juan or Kenneth Jeyaratnam would be good enough, no need any more opposition members in Parliament. And on the ruling party side, one good member would be equally effective than having a full house of NGs. And this has been proven, after the departure of the pioneering leaders, there was really only one good member in Parliament and Parliament still functione as a Parliament.
 
Wait wait, I stand corrected. As I said earlier, I always agree with the politically right statement. Did someone say that if you have a good orchestra, even a dud conductor would not make any difference? Now does this analogy say numbers are important? Or is it numbers with substance are important? Ok, ok, I have figured this out. There is no contradiction here. Basically it is about substance. When got substance, one is good substance and many are many good substances, so can have a full house of good substance or good opposition members. You cannot be contented with one or two when you can have more with good substance to be in Parliament.
 
And don’t forget, Parliament is not a house for schoolboys to debate and see who is cleverer and who wins a debate for fun. It still needs the numbers to vote and pass bills into laws, if not, just to cheer or jeer or to laugh down the opponents. Ok, I never disagree. Good substance is good. But I think can have more the betterer, at least when come to jeering and laughing session, the voices and laughter would be equally loud which can be translated to be effective or at least give the impression to be so. Anyone saying never mind about voting, voting is not important, not necessary? The ruling govt can do the voting and passing of bills. That is the job of the ruling govt. The job of the opposition is merely to debate to make the Parliament looks like a democracy, got quality debate.
 
How many of you would agree with me? Never mind, did anyone say power logic?

A depressing day in Tanjong Katong Primary School

A 12 year old girl, Peony Wee, lost her life on a mountain trekking trip to Mount Kinabalu when an earthquake hit the mountain. 2 teachers and 7 more students are still missing. The students were there for leadership training as part of their wholesome education and investment for the future. Our education process is top notched, our students did not just go to school to learn the 3Rs but a lot of other ECA and character development programmes to make them leaders of tomorrow. Only a rich country like ours could afford such a comprehensive and enriching programme unlike the developing countries. Hopefully the product of our expensive education system will produce useful graduates for the economy in the future. If only this comprehensive system was introduced earlier, our PMETs would not be in dire straits today.

While we pray for the safe return of the missing students and teachers, maybe we should take the opportunity to reflect, with hindsight, how much we want to do with our children to make them better adults in the future. Mountain climbing for 12 year olds to me is a bit far fetched though many would thing it is normal and good. The overall picture is that all outings, even within Singapore, would incur some form of risk and could turn into tragedy if fate is unkind.

The Korean ferry tragedy is still vivid to many and still being mourned by the parents of those children that were gone. I thought that would have been food for thought to rein back some of the activities of the schools. Apparently our overseas trips and programmes for students are in full swing and students are encouraged to travel around the world, to many distant countries for all round character development. This is very good if everything turns out fine.

The question is that should schools be involved in such overseas trips that often benefits a few that could afford the cost and many that could not and could only envied? Should such trips be left to the parents and families to their own fancy and not involved the schools? It is good to have such programmes, a great outing, a great holiday to remember of. But as to the real value, it is subjective especially for very young children.

Maybe the MOE may want to rethink and look at the bad side if things did not turn out right like this case. Tragedy that can be avoided shall be avoided. The process of growing up and learning is a life time experience and there is no urgency to do it at the primary or even secondary school level. The biggest training programme and character development will come when the boys get enlisted into NS. That is solid training to turn boys to men at the appropriate time, and if danger is part of the process of growing up, NS training is full of it.

The Mount Kinabalu tragedy is still unfolding and could be worse. 9 are still missing. We do not need a bigger tragedy of the South Korean dimension to regret and think it is unwise to expose our children to it. Let the parents bring their children to Disneyland or the African jungle if they so choose to. The principals and teachers do not need to live with such memories and to regret the rest of their lives.

The Americans are great adventurers and love to go to war to return as victors and heroes. But when the brave young men and women return in body bags, the pain and hurt will last a life time. Having fun is one thing and everyone loves to have fun. Think of the consequences and ask if it is necessary. Is it something that must have or good to have or nice to have but not really necessary?

Saint Lee - by Yawning Bread

Yawning Bread has an article titled Saint Lee where he dealt with the issue of beatification and how the topic of a lese majeste law is in the brewing in Singapore. Actually there was no such thing. The idea came from two articles that talked about lese majeste in the Asian Correspondent and TOC.

In Catholicism, there is this process called beatification where a great dead man may be called a saint and be able to grant wishes to people who pray to him.  In a way this is like Tua Pek Kong or Guan Kong or Sun Mo Kong.  These are Chinese deities that can grant wishes to the masses that turned up to pray in the temples. But there was no formal process to raise them to the level of deities. They became deities by a spontaneous recognition by the masses of their goodness. The Catholic Church has a long list of saints that were beatified, St Joan of Arc, Saint Mary, Saint Nicholas, Saint Mother Teresa and many others by an established system of beatification.

In his article Yawning Bread suggested that the process of beatification was in full swing. The Catholic Church would require a miracle to happen and be accredited to the great dead man for sainthood. And this is no easy task and the Church would appoint a committee of inquiry to go through the life of the great dead man to see if there was a miracle in his life time. A miracle is not something that can be easily faked or created, like the founding of a nation or taking a country from 3^rd World to 1^st World. It has to be something out of this world. The ‘out of this world’ minister salary not counted, it must be really out of this world.

Come to think of it, the miracles in the Gardens by the Bay may come in handy. There are so many miracles happening there. You want snow, you can have snow. You want to have strawberry, raspberry, goose berry, goose pimples, no problem. If they can grow miracle olive inside the domes, what is so difficult about a few berries? The problem is whether these could be considered as miracles. And if acceptable, can these be credited to the good work of the great dead man.

I believe the Catholic Church has a long list of items to be ticked before any great dead man can be beatified and become a saint. The last and most recent saint was St Paul, the last Pope. Correct me if I did not get this right. Would there be another saint in the making? Or would there be a new deity for the masses to pray for protection from evil, for well being and maybe the favourite 4D number?