Dear Editor,

 

On this page, on Sep 3, three school students responded to a call to ban homework and CCAs on weekends, giving what I think were clear, sensible reasons as to why they would rather not have such a ban. Then on Sep 13, two adults wrote here to bemoan how it was a "sad thing" students want to go back to school on Saturdays, one of them claiming the students were "indoctrinated". I think the latter writers have missed the point. In our society's current collective brainstorm over the way to go for education, we need to think hard about certain fundamental issues, of which I shall highlight three.

 

Firstly, some of us seem to have a cliched perception that our kids can learn better outside school. I think this has resulted in a schizophrenia to both characterise our schools as places where somehow good learning does not take place, and yet at the same time goad our schools to change fast and change dramatically. Besides the fact that this is not too fair to the many dedicated and adaptable people in the education service, it encourages a misperception that school is necessarily "bad". I think we as a society need to revisit the strengths of our schools. They do provide a relatively rigorous education compared to many of the education systems critics of our system love to cite, Western or not. We now agree that that by itself is insufficient for a well-rounded education aimed at nurturing creators, but I do not think we want to veer in the other direction, where we have lots of "creators" who are not "learned". Kids cannot create in a vacuum. We should concentrate on how to build on our schools' current strengths, instead of pretending that they have none. What were we doing in the past three decades otherwise?

 

Secondly, this tendency to disparage our schools may have indirectly resulted in this current debate conflating homework and CCAs, two very different aspects of education. (After all, both must be bad if everything about school is bad.) Their difference can hardly be overemphasised. Perhaps we should consider weekend homework and weekend CCAs as two different questions. I am sure many of our parents know that some of their kids may neglect their homework and hate it all, but give their heart and soul to their CCA out of love for their activity or their mates, and vice versa. We want to encourage diversity in our education, and part of the process involves carefully giving different aspects of education their due individual consideration. These are issues worth more subtle debate.

 

Finally - and this is perhaps most important - I hope the two adults' "alarm" was temporary and I hope they see some irony in what they say, because they seem to be alarmed by the fact that some students have said something that is not in sync with the adults' own mindsets. I think it is wrong to assume that all kids hate school, hate CCA, and desperately want more free time at home. A lot of students in school may want their Saturday free, and some of them will spend quality time with family, meet up with other friends outside school, or play football in the neighbourhood. Some of them might have to go for enrichment, tuition, music, ballet, art classes and so on to enrich themselves. But I suspect a good many other kids want to be involved in school, do things with their friends, and not laze at home anyway. They may want to enjoy the satisfaction of performing well in the SYF competitions with their fellow bandmates, they may want to spend more time training in the facilities provided by schools, perhaps in awe of our Olympic sportspeople, they may want to tinker with experiments that they do not have time for otherwise, or they may just want to perfect their drills in the morning rather than the afternoon sun. And who is anybody to stop anybody else from living their preference? Some may find life outside school more fulfilling, some may think their school-life, CCAs and all, gives them all their fulfilment. We should teach our kids to make informed decisions, guide them to learn in as many ways as possible, and then leave them to make mature, rational choices. It is absolutely fundamental that none of us in society characterise their preferences as "sad" or "indoctrinated" out of hand because they do not fit with our own prejudices and without understanding why they want what they want. Otherwise we are not moving forward and away from a top-down society, only veering to a mirror image of what we used to do. I wonder whether Mdm Malathy consulted her son about whether he prefers going to CCA or having breakfast on a Saturday instead of Sunday. I wonder whether Mr Ho sees some may feel their judgement has been insulted by his letter. I think our system must educate our youth to be able to make sound and reasoned choices. When we have a system that guides them to do so, understands what they want, then respects their freedom and preferences because they are informed and rational, we can make a big step towards a system that our youths respect and yearn to stay in and be part of.

Clinton and Kerry spoke for 90 minutes, according to the New York Times, and the former president told Kerry to move away from talking about his Vietnam war record and instead attack Bush on job creation and health care.