2004-02-07 - 5:52 p.m.

7th February 2004.

I was reading through my school's discussion forum when I came across this thread. Not sure whether issit in jest:

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Next time when someone ask me, "Could u explain to me with an example what the Prisoner's Dilemma means ?" I will present this ST letter by Maria Loh.

Ahh sad for Maria, she wanted her Son to enjoy learning and learn at his own pace. Unfortunatly, because everyone else around her Son is a chow mugger, the Son got placed in LSP.

Thus, the parent has no choice but to make the Son a chow mugger as well. In the end, every kid is worse off.

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http://straitstimes.com.sg/forum/story/0,4386,233251,00.html?

Don't kill love for learning

I REFER to the article, 'Through-train option may pile on the pressure' (ST, Jan 30), concerning the growing amount of stress that children face in Singapore's education system.

I am particularly saddened by the case of the mentally fatigued Primary 3 boy from a top school who attends nine enrichment classes.

I have a daughter in Primary 3 this year. From the outset, I was determined that she should be allowed to develop at her own pace and have fun learning through daily experiences and play.

Friends were surprised that she was not even attending a single enrichment class in her preschool days. I had a hard time explaining to them why I would not be thrilled to have her read at two and count to a thousand by three. Of what use is the mastery of these skills at such tender ages except to inflate our egos when we compare our children's achievements, as parents are wont to do? We should examine our motives before sending our kids to yet another enrichment class. Are we doing it for their benefit or ours?

We parents are sometimes guilty of trying to live vicariously through our children, hoping to bask in the reflected glory of their achievements.

I was made to feel as if I was somewhat lacking as a parent for not preparing my child for academic life. Sometimes, the pressure to conform is so great that it takes superhuman effort just to resist the plethora of enrichment classes on offer.

Not surprisingly, my daughter was woefully unprepared for Primary 1. She was put in the Learning Support Programme (LSP) for English. According to the Ministry of Education (MOE)website, this programme caters to 'pupils who lack the necessary language and literacy skills to cope with the English curriculum'.

My husband and I are both university graduates and ours is an English-speaking home. I am sure we are a statistical anomaly in MOE's records for having a child in the LSP.

We had wanted to spare her the drudgery of doing endless assessment papers during her kindergarten days in preparation for Primary 1. But we finally had to face reality and bought her assessment papers to practise.

In three months, she was out of the LSP programme and has been scoring mainly Band 1s in English since. I have a nagging suspicion that she got into the programme because she was unfamiliar with doing assessment papers, rather than a lack of grasp of the language.

Do I regret not having forced her to rote-learn the language earlier? Absolutely not. She had a relatively carefree childhood, free from any extraneous structured lessons. She is still nowhere near the top in class, but I would rather have a happy and well-adjusted kid than a miserable one who scores high marks only by dint of sheer hard work.

Friends who are overseas say that their children love school now. Schools in Belgium do not even have formal exams for the first two or three years of primary school. My friend's son spent one term studying and researching dinosaurs and mushrooms and he enjoyed it thoroughly. How many Singapore kids can say the same?

Children are now being taught concepts that were previously introduced only in secondary school. Is it really necessary to cram them with facts and drill them endlessly, without any regard for their natural ability and inclinations? We may be causing them irreparable harm.

We advocate a passion for lifelong learning. Our children have a whole lifetime to acquire knowledge. Please don't kill their love for learning by subjecting them to interminable rounds of mind-numbing tuition and enrichment classes.

MARIA LOH MUN FOONG (MS)

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