Hi guys, this is one of those posts where I begin with, "allow me to get this off my chest" as I had to bite my tongue whilst on a Zoom call with my family. Spoiler alert: my mother said something incredibly stupid but I didn't react to it, but damn I need to get this off my chest. On the call, my sister was moaning about the fact that she had to work on Christmas day and I told her that I was officially off work until the 9th January - that this was totally normal for people in the West to take very long breaks for the festive period. I then pointed out that the nature of my work meant that I'm not really 'resting' in this period, allow me to explain: I have a long list of challenges and problems that my company would like me to solve and the result would be a solution that would either earn the company more money or save the company some money. Either way, these solutions would boost the profitability of the company. I pointed out that I would not be able to find these solutions simply by sitting at my desk and staring at my company. Some of these solutions are obvious whilst others require a bit of brainstorming - thus I could be be doing something like cooking my dinner, training gymnastics or even having a bath when the solutions may pop into my head. Therefore even though I am off to Italy on holiday, at the back of my mind, my brain is still ticking away, subconsciously trying to figure out the solution to these problems. In fact, having a clearer mind to think things through often helps me process my thoughts and thus I have even had the experience once when I went for a nap mid-afternoon and woke up with a new idea to formulate the solution I needed. My regular readers will know all this already but it was my mother's response to that which forced me to bite my tongue but I know my readers will always allow me to get this off my chest here so apologies in advance for any offence caused!
My mother said, "I remember when I was a primary school teacher, sometimes the problems sums that they have to do for maths were so difficult, even I didn't know how to solve them. But then if I took a moment, went for a walk to clear my head, sometimes the answers can just pop into my head." On one level, my mother was trying to relate to what I had just described to tell me that she has been through a similar process before. But on the other hand, my gut reaction to that was this: mathematics at primary school is not easy for the students, it is meant to test the students' ability and push them to their limits. That's how we differentiate the really bright students from those who are average or below average. However, as the teacher, you're not meant to find the mathematics difficult - on the contrary, you're meant to be the teacher who always knows how to instruct the students to find the answers instantly but if you cannot even solve those problem sums that your students have to do, then by default, that means that you are not qualified to work as a teacher. You should have never been allowed to work in a primary school if you find the primary school mathematics syllabus too difficult to handle - you should have been relegated to working with very young children in kindergarten doing even simpler tasks like learning how to count to ten and memorizing the alphabet. You have just admitted to being too stupid to work as a primary school teacher despite having worked as a primary school teacher all your life until retirement. I am amazed that nobody at that school where you worked didn't notice just how incompetent you were as a teacher back then - yes I know that on paper, you are a qualified teacher, that was how you got hired by the minister of education in Singapore in the first place but if you were struggling with the primary school mathematics syllabus then you were in no position at all to work as a teacher, teaching mathematics. Well that was what I was thinking, but it was Christmas and I didn't want to pick a fight, so I kept quiet about it as I didn't think I would achieve anything by insulting my stupid mother.
How did we end up in this crazy situation in the first place? Well let's put some dates on my mother's teaching career, my mother started teaching in the year around 1962 so two big differences from back then was that the primary school syllabus was a lot easier then and as a consequence the barriers to entry to the teaching profession was a lot lower. The equivalent exam that a 12 year old primary school student would have been expected to take in 1962 was a lot easier back in those days, However, what has happened since 1962 (allow me to state the obvious) is that the exams have become a lot harder in the last 60 years and hence if you want to become a primary school teacher in Singapore today, you are expected to meet much higher standards and the quality of training that teachers receive has also become much better today compared to 60 years ago. This though does beg the question - what happened in my mother's case then? Well in her case, the problem was that she qualified as a teacher when the bar was set very low so back in the 1960s, she was a perfectly competent teacher in those days, teaching a much easier syllabus then. But as the primary school syllabus became increasingly difficult and demanding over the years, the ministry of education of Singapore made an assumption that the older generation teachers like my mother would simply be able to "figure it out". What should have happened was a lot more testing of the teachers - the mathematics teachers should have been made to do the same exams that they were subjecting to the students and if a teacher (like my mother) performed poorly on the exam, then that teacher should be be offered the chance to get some training before retaking that exam. But if the teacher in question then fails the exam a second time, then the teacher should be sacked. Yes it sounds harsh but that's the way I would've done it but of course that never happened so teachers like my mother just fell through the cracks in the system.
What ended up happening instead was a function of Asian culture - you see, the older teachers were so respected in the system as they have had many more years of experience in the classroom. I remember the way the older teachers in the school my parents taught in were at the top of the food chain - whilst I recognize that they had a lot more experience in teaching and would know how to deal with difficult situations better, such as when it came to dealing with a disruptive student (as they have done that a thousands time before), they still lacked the expertise to deal with a more difficult syllabus but it then became the elephant in the room that nobody dared to talk about for fear of upsetting or disrespecting these older teachers. As a result, these older teachers like my mother were simply allowed to be utterly terrible at their jobs whilst everyone just looked the other way and pretended that everything was just normal, that there wasn't a problem at all. Thus the victims in this case turned out to be the students who had the bad luck of being assigned one of these older teachers who struggled with the modern syllabus and lacked the right training to teach effectively. This was astonishing as Singapore does pride itself in having one of the best education system in the world - how did they just let a problem like that fester? My mother retired around 2003 and I wonder if the MOE was simply waiting for every single older teacher to retire, so this big problem would eventually just go away after all the teachers of my mother's generation retired? But in the meantime, how much damage was caused by older teachers like her? The damage was only masked by the fact that parents were expected to step in, pay a lot of money for private tuition if their children were not getting the kind of help they needed in the classroom. Thus the richer parents had the money to solve this problem but the poorer, working class kids simply fell through the cracks and they were the ones who were the most let down by this terrible situation that the system chose to ignore, because of our Asian would always offer older teachers unconditional respect.
Mathematics even at primary school level in Singapore is difficult, that much I don't dispute. It isn't just the students who struggle with it, even the parents who want to help their children with their homework can struggle as well at times. A common remark you'll hear Singaporeans parents say is that it was all a lot easier back in the day when they were in primary school and that much is true. However, surely it would be only fair to the students if their teachers actually knew what they were doing? How would you feel if you were taking driving lessons and the instructor said, "oh I've never done parallel parking before, hang on a minute - let me double check how it's suppose to be done in the book." Why didn't more parents complain about my mother's inability to do the maths that she was supposed to teach her students? Were they simply offering her unconditional respect on the basis of her being an older teacher whilst ignoring all of her mistakes? How did she actually get away with it for so many years? I think I have part of the answer - my mother wasn't the only terrible maths teacher in Singapore, I too suffered at the hands of not just one but too many terrible (all older) maths teachers who were all so woefully incompetent. What did I do in this case? I simply studied the textbooks and figured it all out for myself in the absence of any kind of teaching and that's what most smarter students did, thus the terrible teacher teachers could then use these smart students scoring As for maths as evidence that the fault lay in the students not the teachers, "because if the teacher was really that bad, then every single student would fail maths, but look we have some students who performed very well whilst some did fail." But of course, students like me performed well in spite of our terrible teachers, rather than because of our teachers - yet we have been manipulated into being 'evidence' that there was actually nothing wrong with their teaching abilities and that is the part that I find most sickening.
If it was my sister (who does't work as a teacher) telling me that story, then I would have gladly let the matter go as my sister doesn't work as a maths teacher, being able to get through that maths exam isn't part of her job. But when a maths teacher admits that she really struggles with maths, then there's is clearly something very wrong with the system and this is a system that's supposed to be one of the best in the world? But what do you think? Have you ever encountered an incompetent older teacher before? Why do you think older people get away with mistakes like that? Have you also spotted other cracks in the supposedly brilliant world class Singaporean education system that everyone has just seem to have ignored over the years? Or do you think I have been way too harsh on my mother in this case then? Do you expect your maths teachers to be able to do maths well?! Please leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.
Lol driving instructor who can't parallel park. Y'know, medicine is a constantly evolving field so doctors have to study new material and take exams every year to keep their medical license in the US. Technically we should have the same for teachers where they would also be subject to yearly exams to prove their competency. That's what happens in expensive private schools, where teachers even need masters degrees at minimum to secure one of these lucrative jobs. I used to play boardgames with an American woman who went $100k usd in debt to get a postgraduate education degree in America, which she fully paid off very quickly by working as a grade 1 primary school teacher at one of the most expensive private international schools in Sg. 100 grand in debt just to teach 5-7 year-olds! But knowing the Singapore government, they are probably scared of mass unemployment of teachers who would fail a competency exam, since there isn't a welfare state to keep them out of poverty. One could argue a bad teacher means they are creating more unemployable students years down the line, but that's a future problem. I guess the most they could hope for was never to hire more incompetent teachers again, while waiting for their current ones to retire.
ReplyDeleteWell my whole point about making this post was not to name and shame my mother for being woefully out of her depth even as a primary school maths teacher, but to point out how unfair the Singaporean education system was to working class kids who could not afford private tuition should they get a bad, older teacher like my mother who didn't receive the necessary training to handle a more difficult syllabus as the years progressed. That's the fault of the system and the teachers, rather than of the students. What kind of message are you sending to the weaker students in the class: if the teacher can't even solve question number 11 in the textbook, what hope do you have as the student to solve it? But the fact is no, there's nothing wrong with question number 11, there's something wrong with the teacher as the teacher ought to know how to solve all the maths problems in the textbook before being allowed to teach that class! At least in the West, we would not have any issue with subjecting these older teachers to checks & balances to see if they can keep up with the syllabus (like you said, yearly exams). If such a system was in place, then a bad teacher like my mother would have never fallen through the net - relegate her to kindergarten and playschool where she would still be able to apply her years of experience handling children whilst never handling maths more difficult than the most basic functions expected of a 5 year old.
DeleteThe situation in Singapore is like a house that is slowly collapsing because you have built the house on soft clay rather than solid rock and it is slowly giving way. So in 1962, my mother knew 100% of the maths syllabus in the textbook as it was super easy in those days. By 1982, that number probably slipped to around 80 to 85% and she was still able to bluff her way through most lessons. But my 2002 at her retirement, that number had slipped dangerously low to around 60 to 65% - that means she would have scored poorly if she had taken the maths exam herself but was still supposed to teach students how to ace that exam? So that number slipped from 100% to 65% over a period of 40 years and there was nothing at all in the system to deal with the problem; so it's like a house slowly collapsing over 40 years. Day by day, you couldn't notice the difference but over 40 years, it is evident how much of the house has fallen apart. But despite the scale of the problem, no one foresaw it, when it happened, it was just swept under the carpet whilst they waited for my mother to retire and my mother was too embarrassed to flag it up for fear that people would call her stupid for not being able to do her job properly. At this point, I think it is really that system that is thoroughly broken and rather than blaming my mother for being stupid, I blame the system for allowing bad teachers to fall through the cracks and the victims are poorly taught students whose futures are ruined as a result. However, I don't actually think that all teachers would fail a competency test leading to mass unemployment and a shortage of teachers actually, I believe that the solution would have been to force older teachers to receive further training if they perform poorly on those tests to give them a chance to bring them up to standard. So for my mother, that would have meant someone sitting down with her to explain the maths to her so she would understand it before she had to teach it - the shocking thing was often that was me as a child, explaining it to her. Why was she so desperate she had to turn to her own child (I was like 11 or 12 then) to give her the help she needed to do the job? Why couldn't she get it through a professional in the system - why was she left with no support at all from the system? That's why I say the Singapore system is so totally broken.
I know what the haters are gonna say though - if I am allowed to take my time to think about the answer after having gone to the gym, maybe for a big of shopping or even over a holiday, why can't I extend that same luxury to my mother when she does her job as a teacher? The answer is that in the adult world of business, there are no simple answers: I am given complex problems to solve and there's no simple formula I can apply to come up with the right answer. Instead, I have to analyze a range of variables. go through a list of options available and make a calculated guess as to what the best outcome would be, then work out how to implement it in a cost efficient way. Given the complex nature of this process, my boss is often happy to give me plenty of time to come up with the best solutions. The fact is my boss doesn't know what the best option is and he is dependent on me to find the answers for him. However, in the case of a student going to the teacher, "teacher, can you tell me how to solve question 11 please?" We have every right to expect the teacher to not only know exactly what the solution is for question 11, but to know how to explain and teach it to the student in question. The teacher doesn't have the right to say, "I don't know, that's really difficult, let's take a walk to the garden and see if that would clear our minds, maybe one of us can figure it out by then. Or not." Hell no, the teacher is expected to know the subject well enough to instruct the students through every single question in the syllabus. And if the teacher cannot do that, then it's either retraining or relegation to teach pre-school.
DeleteI took this extremely seriously when I was teaching my nephew A level economics. Here's how the exam works, you'll be presented a series of short pieces and case studies - then you'll have a number of questions. Some questions would be simple and will carry like 3 to 5 marks, whilst others demand a more complex questions and will carry as much as 15 to 20 marks. The total would be 100 over the exam and when preparing for the lesson, I would make sure I would be able to score 100 for the exam, usually I would be able to score between 110 to 120 given how some questions are open ended. But that was the kind of standard I held myself to when even just teaching my nephew, because if I wasn't able to score 100% on the exam I was coaching him to take, then I simply didn't have the right to teach him. This is why it is shocking that my mother was still teaching primary school mathematics despite the fact that she would struggle to score more than like 65 or 70% on most of the exams that her students had to take!
A few points. Firstly, yeah it's the system that's the issue, and also why I didnt want to stay and work in Singapore because there's a bigger emphasis on seniority that you hardly see young people with creative ideas that bring in the most money rise through the ranks quickly. That's a very working class mindset of rewarding loyalty and experience rather than ideas and performance. Retraining within work would have been a good option, maybe the Singapore government should hire you as a consultant haha. I actually know a prof who volunteers his time helping the Singapore government improve their physics curriculum in the public schools, because he thinks it's very simplified compared to real world physics that he has to re-teach everything once the students get to university level.
DeleteSecondly, yup the teacher should be able to not only score 100% on the exam, but finish it in much less time than what is allotted for the students. At university the profs told me when they make a new exam for 2 hours they try out their own exam and make sure they can finish it in about 30 minutes, but of course with full marks. And they're subject to constant review every semester to make sure their exam had sufficient material, and the students learned enough. Obviously people care a lot more at the University level because a degree is so bloody expensive, and it's one step before finding employment. But it seems early childhood education should be just as important because something that happened there could easily snowball into either pulling ahead or falling behind in school. As they say, prevention is better than a cure.
Normally I'd give a stranger like your mother the benefit of the doubt, at least publicly. But the answers to her math questions are known, and to do the job you have to have sufficient experience and competency to know them. It's like when I apply for a job as a quantitative finance trader they will hand me an exam about statistics I have to finish in 1-2 hours and expect me to score full marks to get the job. I can't just say I need to go for a walk or sit in the bath tub, these aren't new questions with unknown answers. Most qualified people who studied statistics at uni should know the answers already. That's not to say I wont forgive people for admitting they don't know, but like you said it's the problem with the system rather than the individual teacher. If they don't know, a performance review should catch it and remedial training and recertification exams should be provided.
Hello Amanda, yes you're right - it's a very working class attitude applied to teaching which doesn't work well, especially if you're taking a more long term view such as over 40 years of a teacher's productive years. The syllabus will change and evolve even for primary school kids over that period of time and to pretend that it doesn't, to assume that somehow a teacher is smart enough to 'figure out' a primary school curriculum is just unrealistic. Some will, some won't and some teachers get away with it more than others - my father taught Chinese language for many years and even he struggled in the 1980s when there was one huge element added to the teaching of Chinese: hanyupinyin, aka Chinese phonetics. It wasn't used much back in the 1970s but it was only really in the 1980s when the Singapore MOE finally embraced it and now it's a massive part of teaching Chinese today for 2 key reasons. you need to find a way to write Chinese characters on a QWERTY keyboard and pinyin is a way to spell out your words phonetically. Furthermore, it also improves pronunciation - with pinyin, there's no room for accents. You have one correct way to pronounce a word and that's it and thus it is very unforgiving on people like my dad who had a super strong Malaysian accent and thus he was pronouncing everything very incorrectly. So take the Chinese word for tiger: it is "lao hu" in pinyin, but my father's Malaysian accent meant he would say "lao fu" so if he went into a class room and taught the students the wrong pronunciation, then they were copying his mistake but that was what happened for years. My father couldn't correct his accent, he couldn't switch from a very strong Southern Malaysian accent to a perfect Beijing accent (dare I say, that's something I'm proud of - I have a near perfect Beijing accent in Mandarin) and so that was as bad as my mother being unable to do the problem sums expected of her students. Yet because my father had been teaching for so long, he too fell through the cracks in the system.
DeleteIt shouldn't be up to the individual to solve a broken system but it should be the people who are paid a lot of money at the top of the food chain to make sure that people like my parents were given a choice: either go for extra training and then you'll have to pass an exam to keep your job. If you fail the exam, then you have the stark choice of either being sacked or we will give you a job to teach very young children in the kindergarten since it is evident that you can't handle the primary school syllabus.
Lol how did "Lao Hu" turn into "Lao Fu" hahaha? It reminds me of how some Londoners like to pronounce "brother" as "bruv-er" or even just "bruv" in local slang. Or when Arsenal fans report the scores of a game as "free-nil" instead of "three-nil."
DeleteY'know in private schools parents will complain all the time that XYZ isn't being taught or isn't taught well enough. And because private schools are very expensive and parents can enroll their kids in different schools, there is pressure to constantly improve the curriculum. But unfortunately for everyone else not wealthy enough to afford private school, the government has a monopoly on education and they have more leeway to say "take it or leave it." Of course if Singapore wants to maintain their status as #1 in public education and have a productive high skilled economy, then updating the curriculum and retraining teachers is something they have to do.
The answer is simple: when you speak a southern dialect like Cantonese, Hokkien, Teochew, Hainanese, Foochow or even in my father's case, Hakka as a mother tongue, then you approach Mandarin as a foreign or at least a 2nd language and then you get confused. Let's take a very common word: tofu, y'know, bean curd. Tofu in Mandarin is doufu with an 'F' sound in the second syllable. But in Hokkien it is tauhu with a 'H' sound in the second syllable. That's why you would have enjoyed the Singaporean dish yong tauhu as that's what we call it in Hokkien. But if older Singaporeans confused between tauhu and doufu, that means they are struggling to switch between their dialects and standard Mandarin - which is a very common problem for older Singaporeans who speak their dialects fluently and confuse it with Mandarin. Thus my dad constantly mixes up his F/H sounds in Mandarin as he's not the only one making that mistake in Singapore. I could write for ages about how there's a north-south divide when it comes to certain vowel sounds and that can lead to a lot of confusion when southerners learn Mandarin (a northern dialect) and then overcompensate at times etc - it's a hot mess. But luckily I was brought up with the hanyupinyin system so I have clearer pronunciation, so I don't get confused the way my father has - it's too late for him to change his Malaysian accent. He's never going to speak Beijing standard Mandarin.
DeleteThe thing about Chinese is that no matter how thick or extreme your accent is, it doesn't affect the way you write the characters until of course, you start using a QWERTY key board. Let's use an example which I stumbled upon in the news: it was a report about human rights in China, so the word for human rights is 人权 in Chinese and the pinyin for that is renquan. With my father's thick Malaysian accent, he would mispronounce that as lenquan (he turns all his Rs into Ls, even in Chinese, never mind English). But no matter how strong his accent is, he would still know how to write 人权 in Chinese characters and at least in a written exam, that is correct. But if a Malaysian person said human lights instead of human rights, the question then is whether or not he would know how to spell 'rights' with an R instead of an L if he keeps pronouncing it as 'lights'. I have seen some appalling spelling in Singapore when people who don't speak English well would spell words according to the way they say those words. Look you've lived in Singapore, I'll let you use your imagination for that one. If the auntie in the hawker center who sells you your yong tau hoo has a strong accent, who cares. But if your Chinese teacher has that same strong accent, then oh dear we have a big problem. Again, in the case of my father, they just waited till Chinese teachers of his generation retired as the younger generation grew up with using hanyupinyin on a QWERTY keyboard.
DeleteHmm now I wonder what Korean keyboards look like... because they do have a phonetic writing system but it isn't left to right like English letters. Lol I have a funny story about a hawker's thick accent. I was buying char siu rice once, and the hawker asked me "hev fat?" and I said "what?" thinking he said "have fat?" And then he said "do you want your char siu to be hev fat and hev meat?" and then I realized he meant to say "half fat?" asking if I wanted a fatty cut of pork or a lean cut, whilst I thought he said "have fat" which doesn't make much sense. Apparently in the Singaporean accent "have" and "half" are pronounced almost exactly the same. Lol yeah it's like how you don't want to learn English from someone who speaks with a strong foreign accent if you want to be understood by native speakers from anglophile countries. That is the case in 3rd world countries, but Singapore developed so rapidly they didn't know what to do with the older teachers in the old system. Also, it's common for Chinese people to not distinguish between Rs and Ls. I knew a Chinese scientist from Xiamen who would pronounce "Reflection" and "Refraction" entirely the same and admitted to doing so. So she said during a scientific discussion please ask for clarification because both those words refer to manipulating light in different ways. To her it's like "Island" and "Ireland" for British people haha.
DeleteOh a Korean keyboard is a QWERTY keyboard but once you switch languages to Korean, then each key represents a different letter in the Korean alphabet - In Korean there is an alphabet system and the alphabets are divided into consonants and vowels. So you have to construct each character by putting together the various components before moving onto the next. So take the word for Korea, Hankuk, you have to go H+A+N for the first character and once you're satisfied that you have constructed it correctly, then you move onto constructing the next character K+U+K and each letter on the QWERTY keyboard is designated a Korean character and so you merely hit the key that brings up the letter you need and there's a bit of intelligent programming involved as well, say I accidentally input H+N+A the machine will figure out from the context I probably meant H+A+N and arrange it in the right order for me, kinda like intelligent spellcheck in English, it's the same principle. If it sounds like a slow way of writing then yes it is, but like any process, Korean young people who have grown up with a QWERTY keyboard become super efficient and fast when it comes to typing in Korean as they become experts in it after years of practice. There are many languages like Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Greek, Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, Thai etc which all use a QWERTY keyboard - basically QWERTY is here to stay, QWERTY is king, everyone from the Chinese to the Koreans to the Arabs have to adapt their language to the QWERTY keyboard.
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DeleteBut you get the idea, most of the time, the lazy teachers would go out of their way to avoid setting up experiments or bringing in external material to bring the lesson to live. I have this story (from many, many years ago) of a teacher who thought he could impress the inspector by bringing in a DVD to play during the class, except of course when he wheeled in the TV into the classroom the ancient set up in that school only had a VCR and no DVD player, this was a long time ago in the early 2000s when VCRs and DVDs co-existed for a while. It was thus evident that this teacher was doing it for the first time, in a desperate attempt to try to impress the school inspector.
DeleteThe problem with the Singaporean system is that a massive disconnect has emerged between the teacher's ability to teach and the students' performance. The key factor seems to be "are your parents rich enough to pay for expensive private tuition? Or even if your parents are not that rich, are they willing to make massive sacrifices in order for you to get some help outside school through the private tuition market? The huge role private tuition plays in the outcome today means that even terrible teachers are producing students who score As, but that's only because of the external help their parents are paying (a lot of money) for and that's why I say, the system is broken. The rich kids are okay as their parents are paying for them to get an education, by topping up the lessons through private tuition, but the poor kids are screwed - how is this kind of system supposed to encourage any kind of social mobility in Singapore when the rich kids are a thousand times more likely to score well in the exams?
DeleteI remember in Sg I once went on a tour of a startup incubator and someone was giving a talk about a wind turbine. But the speaker started digressing and talking about gaps in the market, and said it's odd that Singapore has the lowest percentage of GDP spending on public school education compared to the rest of the OECD countries. He thinks it's because parents highly subsidize education spending by privately spending on the huge private tuition industry.
DeleteBut exams are one thing, what about after schooling is done? How to apply the knowledge to make useful things? I dunno much about the finance industry in Singapore, but it doesn't seem that many bright university students dream of getting a few friends together and forming a tech startup after graduation compared to working for a big bank like Goldman Sachs or an MNC like Apple or Meta. In America there is more entrepreneurial drive, but also because there's better access to startup incubators and venture capital funding. Is there not such "financial infrastructure" in Sg? You can't have a skills-based economy if your citizens constantly wait for foreign companies and foreign bosses to come in and create innovative jobs.
Anyway, I feel like there are startups in SG, but they're mostly "safe bets" like e-commerce or gaming like Carousell, Shopee, or Sea Ltd. Even at my American university in my department alone, there's at least 3 professors with their own robotics companies. One of them makes surgical robots to do difficult surgeries a human surgeon cannot do that was almost bought out by a medical devices company for 9 figures (the first figure is not a 1). I don't see this kind of risk-taking on some game-changing new technology in Singapore. And I'm surprised because Singapore is one of the financial capitals of the world and NUS/NTU rank highly in world rankings. But none of that financial infrastructure and world-class research is being translated to innovation. So where is all that effort studying hard for exams at private tuition going then?
Allow me to make two points in response to what you wrote: from what I have observed in the financial services industry, Singaporeans make very good worker ants, like soldiers who will follow orders and work till midnight to get the report done but they are dependent on having a boss who will give them instructions and they need to be told what to do. They lack the initiative to go to the boss to say, "boss I'd like to do this new project, I have got a really good idea and no one else in the world has tried this yet." Nah, that's beyond them. That is why banking in Singapore is still very much dominated by foreigners running the show whilst taking advantage of a well educated local work force. In short, if I was a boss, I'd gladly hire a team of Singaporeans of course as they'd work very hard for me, but I'd never work for a Singaporean as they are never the kind to lead the way to innovate. But by that token, if you're asking the question, what's the point of studying so hard then - I say, you can indeed prove yourself to be a corporate soldier, a worker ant who will be useful to these big corporate giants who will gladly give you a job knowing that you'll be a loyal soldier who is good at taking orders. That's why I prefer not to work for big companies, it frustrates the hell out of me to have to be in that mindset as if I was in the army. I'm not saying that the Singaporean education is totally useless but the best case scenario for that kind of education is a middle-management worker ant soldier who just takes orders - hardly good enough after all that effort, is it? That's exactly what my two older sisters do and they work crazy long hours.
DeleteI decided to delete two of my earlier comments as I got paranoid - there was a spike of traffic to my blog and I made a factual error, I did correct myself immediately but I cannot edit the comments. I was worried someone might take my mistake out of context even though I corrected myself at once afterwards, so I just deleted it instead. Anyway, this time tomorrow, I'd hopefully have finished packing as I'm off to Italy on Sunday.
BTW, I am writing a follow up piece on primary education and why it doesn't matter but I doubt it would be ready before I go to Italy as I have a busy Saturday!
DeleteHave fun in Italy! Weather should be nice around this time. Is it Southern or Northern Italy? I've only been to Rome and it was great, but I was like 7 at the time.
DeleteUmm, there's kinda a big issue with only producing worker ants - you can't run an entire company with only worker ants, someone's gotta be a Queen bee and say which direction to build a new colony. That would also frustrate the locals who only see foreigners in upper management because they are dependent on foreigners to create and manage jobs. In a country like the UK or US, you see locals at all levels of the company hierarchy, from janitor to engineer all the way to CEO. But in Singapore it's usually a big MNC with foreigners at the top, locals in the middle, and even more foreigners at the bottom because locals only want at least a white collar job. That's gotta really frustrate the the locals who think it's really hard to get a foot in the door, as well as rise up once you do get an in.
Oh god I hated working as a corporate semiconductor engineer while in Singapore for 6 months. I never got the ability to be creative unless all the other engineers tried everything they already knew and still failed, then I get to pull out my quantum physics knowledge and innovate a new solution. Otherwise I was just being told to do simple tasks like click buttons on a machine to collect test data, or process an excel sheet. I couldn't even use code to make an A.I algorithm to process the data faster than excel can. No, everything has to be done by the book like they always did it. When I left, my manager tried to lie to me saying that maybe 3-5 years from now I could transfer to RnD, but I saw the writing on the wall because nobody every transferred out of my department, and coworkers 3-5 years more senior than me barely made 20% more. Since I had a US greencard, I just went back to academia to gain research experience to serve my tuition grant bond, then went to America and used that research experience to get 3x higher paying corporate jobs than what I used to have in Sg. At least academia in Sg does allow some freedom, this is because Sg has a very high proportion of foreign educated professors (even if they're local). However, in America no engineering jobs are as easy as "click buttons" or "use excel." The time I once got an internship offer from a semiconductor company in America, they told me to use python to code an A.I algorithm to design graphics card chips for them better than a human designer could, and gave me no instructions and just free reign to design the algorithm myself. And this was just an internship! Not even a full-time job! They were also offering 3.5x the monthly salary I made in Sg as a full-time engineer.
I will be in North East Italy. I fly into Venice airport but as I've done Venice to death, I'm going to head in the other direction, away from Venice itself and into the Dolomites mountains for some skiing. As for the worker ants situation, it's a cultural thing lah - if everyone around you is a worker ant, if your parents are worker ants, if you're taught that it is your destiny in life to be a worker ant, then you'll be quite happy being a worker ant all your life. Worker ants take orders, work super long hours and rarely complain - they have this "we are a part of a team" mentality and I see that in my sisters, even though like you, I'd never ever do that kind of work. The closest I got to confronting my sister about it was when I directly compared her situation to mine and she just said, well I'm not smart enough to do a job like yours. I don't think it's a question of intelligence per se, but more whether you have the mindset to cope with the challenges that I face and acquire the kind of problem solving skills that I have over the years.
DeleteOh there's other mountains besides the Alps? It is a great time of year to ski! If I wasn't so broke I'd travel more, hopefully I find a job soon. I've just been working on my portfolio this Christmas holiday. Quant firms want to see some evidence of me analyzing the stock market.
DeleteI don't even think it's just about teamwork, and more about gruntwork and lack of efficiency due to the focus on working hard rather than smart. Singaporean students aren't used to being asked about their own opinion instead of just told to follow an authority figure's. In the west they highly value creativity and originality in assignments, and not just answering questions on a test. You say she works for the government? I have friends in government in America and they don't work nearly as long hours as her, some even in public health. Sure the Sg gov is more efficient, but I sure hope it isn't because of the long working hours.
The Alps are massive so different parts of the mountain range will have local names - so I am going to the Dolomites section of the Alps. Both my sisters have ended up in different government civil service type jobs, fairly senior, a lot of responsibility but very much senior worker ant positions with crazy workloads/long hours.
DeleteAnyway, I'm gonna finish packing and try to get some sleep now. I wish you a happy new year and I'll catch you when I get back from my trip to Italy. Cheers and see ya.
DeleteHi Alex, this post really resonated with me. Found myself frustrated with a number of school teachers back in secondary school and jc - I'm not even smart so the terrible teaching was torturous.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the situation would have improved by now but it hasn't. Even though I am not exactly equipped to teach mathematics/whatever, I find myself having to educate my sisters. I'd ask one of my sisters who's in a MUCH better secondary school than I was in - what's stopping you from approaching the teacher. It was perplexing because she was a strong performer academically yet she was seeking assistance from me - she felt that the teacher wasn't properly trained to do so.
The eventual goal for SG is a skills - based economy, which is why they emphasise on supply side policies (SkillsFuture Credit scheme and etc) in Singapore but they allow such problems to occur. The brain of a child during formative years is more malleable as compared to adult learners.
Hi there. I was lucky enough to have met some good teachers along the way but goodness me, the number of bad, older teachers I had the misfortune of encountering, it was disgraceful and few Singaporeans acknowledge that problem. Why? I don't know you tell me, is it this unconditional respect you guys give older people in your society no matter how stupid and useless they are? Even my nephew's teacher at A levels (this was just last year) was terrible and so it's not like this is a problem confined to the older generation, even younger teachers who are terrible get away with it because their pay is linked to the number of years of service rather than performance. So in this context, the great teachers are not rewarded and the terrible teachers get away with murder - in the meantime, parents are paying a lot for private tuition and the working class kids who are not taught properly are blamed for being stupid or lazy; that's why the Singaporean system is so totally broken. Singapore is already a skills based economy, like there's virtually no manufacturing and very little farming, everything is based on skills in Singapore yet the education system revolves around "memorize this chapter for your test next week" - it's mostly rote learning and there's hardly anything to stimulate young minds to think creatively and thus they are sent into the workforce as very good soldiers who will say, "please tell me what to do next boss and I'll do it." They can only follow orders, they cannot innovate or create something brand new. I don't doubt that Singaporeans are academically brilliant, in that they can score As in exams - but how the heck does that prepare you for the working world? Which company out there (even in Singapore) is going to pay you a salary to memorize a textbook and then sit for exams? That's why there are so many well educated Singaporeans who are brilliant on paper but really struggle in the working world to secure well paid jobs - it goes back to their education and how the whole education system in Singapore is totally broken.
DeleteYeah, precisely. The education system instills obedience.
DeleteThe govt tries to encourage entrepreneurship... even then, locals entrepreneurs go via the tried-and-tested formula - Carousell, Ninja Van...
We're too afraid of venturing outside of our comfort zones but success is linked to the foresight to capitalise on the gains from an early entry to the market and acquire a compeitive advantage of being a pioneer in the field together with being an established brand (ultimately).
And also happy new year, Alex!
DeleteThanks! Sorry for the slow response, I just got back from Italy.
DeleteI have many tertiary qualifications haven't gone back to school to retrain as a radiographers and have experience with out of date boomer lecturers and really good medical doctor lecturers. For the former their exam answers can change from day to day (this is for a physics course so a fact can't vary) for the latter they really help explain and enforce your complete understanding of the subject matter.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately good lecturers in Singapore are very rare. Most of the boomer out of date lecturers just practise favouritism during marking and can't explain why a factual answer can vary. Also according to them, and I quote, it is just one mark.
Most of my UK lecturers were head and tails better than the Singaporean ones.
Maybe I am especially harsh on the Singaporean system because my parents are part of the problem and I take it very personally. But of course, they are only this bad at what they do because the system allows them to get away with it.
DeleteNowadays, it is quite hard to get accepted as MOE teacher. I read somewhere that MOE now accept only the top 30% University graduates for majority of the MOE teaching vacanies. However, I find that it is rather unfair to someone who may not be among the top 30% but really has the passion and ability in teaching.
DeleteHi Jon. Allow me to address both sides of the arguments here: On one hand, based on my mother's terrible example of an older teacher too bloody stupid to understand the syllabus, creating this "the blind leading the blind" situation in the classroom; I am relieved to learn that the MOE is finally putting some standards in place to stop people who are too plain stupid to become teachers to step into the profession. In Singapore, teaching is seen as a 'metal rice bowl'. I have this old friend from VJC, he lost his job in IT and his girlfriend then was keen to get married, have a baby and then settle down. Under pressure from his family, he gave in and became a teacher - he is still a teacher today and he has given up his dreams to settle for a life as a teacher. In return, he gets certainty that he will be employed and be able to provide for his family - his family (parents + wife) approve of his decision but I don't. That's a whole other story I can discuss for another time. Many people do think like my friend thus there is a queue of graduates looking to enter the teaching profession and it is good that they are selecting only the best, rather than allowing stupid, older, incompetent idiots like my mother in front of a classroom.
DeleteOn the other hand, if they just wanna teach primary school and they already have a degree, like how smart do you have to be to teach PSLE level maths? Do you need to be in the top 30%? I don't think so but it's a simple matter of if there are more people applying for the jobs in teaching than there are places available, then the employer has to do the sensible thing and hire the better applicants - you cannot just hire EVERYONE who applies, no if you need 150 teachers, then that's the precise number you hire, not 151. And then that becomes a process of selecting the best 150 applicants and using their academic results is just one way to filter the applicants, but I'd also use other means to test the candidates and pick the better ones. The fact is there is a huge private education industry in Singapore - if you don't get hired by the MOE, you can always go work for a tuition center if you're that desperate to teach.
I think there's competition to be a teacher at one of the elite schools like Raffles, or even one of the more expensive tuition centers. But if everyone in general has to still go through the same institute to get a teaching license, then probably not every teacher in training aspires to that level of teaching.
DeleteBtw the story of your friend from VJC is very interesting to me. It's like the male version of "settling." I once read a post on reddit about a depressed dentist who only went into dentistry because his girlfriend at the time pressured him into working a high paying job so they could settle down. It was to the point that this man on reddit said he would love to get divorced because he regrets giving up his passions of business and physics in favor of dentistry, only because of pressure from his now-wife. As someone with a physics degree, I do concur being a scientist is a lot riskier with a bigger spectrum of pay than being a dentist. But I just don't understand what kind of guy gives in to that pressure to work a job he hates in order to keep a girlfriend, even though many women are also pressured to give up their jobs and be a stay at home wife because their boyfriend wants to get married and have kids but not contribute as much to raising them. How is it in the gay community? I imagine there's less of this kind of pressure going on because gender roles don't exist in a homosexual couple.
Hi Amanda, allow me to respond to your question regarding my friend. Yes he settled and what he gets in exchange for that is the approval from his wife and parents who place the need for him to have children ahead of any kind of happiness or satisfaction he may derive from a more fulfilling career. They expected him to park his own happiness aside and put theirs first out of a sense of duty - the parents are like, "we raised you, now you're obliged to make us happy and give us grandchildren, we don't care if you're happy or not fulfilling this request, our happiness comes first and if you're not happy, tough shit, we don't love you enough to care if you're happy." The wife kinda is the same way, "my body clock is ticking, I want to have a baby before I am too old and I married you, so in exchange, you need to give me what I want even if it means sacrificing your happiness - I may have married you but I certainly don't love you enough to care if you're happy or not." Damn if I put it this way, it really sucks for him but that's his cultural context. As for the gay community, there's far less pressure because we tend not to have kids - okay gay couples can adopt but most don't. I have just come back from a nice holiday in Italy and that's easy for a gay couple to fly off and do something like that without having the responsibility of children. I think what tends to happen in the case of gay people is this: I have a friend in this position as well. I nagged at him to get a better paid job as I thought he was brilliant but under-selling himself by working in retail and he could do better. He politely ignores me and marries a guy who - yup, also a loser who works in retail like him. I rolled my eyes so hard but decided not to say anything as I realized I couldn't fix this situation so I walked away.
DeleteHey Alex, hope you had a nice trip in Italy. Wow that sounds like a case of someone not loving themselves enough that they'd give in to the whims of people who don't care about them. He could've broken up and found a more supportive girlfriend, but he settled I suppose. I guess he was afraid his girlfriend would break up with him and go date a guy with a better paying job.
DeleteLol I follow a gay youtuber who likes to joke he only made an Onlyfans so he can save up $60k usd to afford surrogacy to get a baby. Oh I see what you mean by seeing two poor guys get together (or two rich guys getting together in your case). For your friend to land a rich husband he'd have to show a bit more motivation in life.
Well my friend didn't think like you - I suppose he was craving the approval of his parents which was why he settled down with the kind of woman he thought they would approve of, but that only meant that she conspired with his parents to force him, coerce him into teaching. He settled and you'll be amazed how many people out there simply pick that option in life and then start justifying their decision to do so. I think there was an element of sunk cost fallacy: I've already been with this girlfriend for so long she is ready to marry me, I am not happy but if I start dating all over again I have to start from scratch and it'll be so much hard work - let's just settle, it is the easier option. As for my gay friend who settled, I think he wanted someone who wouldn't judge his choices in life to work in retail (as opposed to pushing him to do something at a more challenging, higher level involving his brains). The desire not to be judged can be strong.
DeleteThose are three very selfish people to think "we must convince this guy to put aside his happiness so we can get a baby." Sometimes I forget that even men can be victims of society's cis-hetero expectation of settling down and having kids. I remember a while back I was speaking to my older married friend telling him the guy I was dating wants to go back to school for a profession that doesn't make a lot, and his response was "well you're gonna be a household someday, and people contribute different things, you contribute the money." I'm currently with a guy for a couple months, but we haven't talked about long term yet because it's so early, but he did mention maybe going to medical school. He'd have to give up his current decently paying job as an engineer to do that. If we make it that far I suppose I'd pay for his medical school if I did manage to land a high paying job in finance or the software industry. Right now he's paying for most things since I'm still finishing my PhD, but after I finish it's only fair I support his dreams too. I just realized I can only afford to do this if I take care of myself well. That's the advantage of loving yourself, then you have extra love to give to other people, and don't have to coerce them into giving up things just to make yourself happy. Also it sounds like this guy doesn't feel okay single, like he's using the relationship to fill a hole even if its a toxic relationship. I feel bad for the guy, he might as well be doing drugs because he doesn't want to work on himself, except the people and the attention he gets from them are the drugs, and they are slowly draining his mental health.
DeleteLike I don't need my boyfriend to make me happy, I can do that myself. Actually I was pondering whether I wanted to be single or in a relationship lately because I have a pile of A.I stuff to study, and I kinda miss having weekends to myself sometimes. But then I realized I have a very supportive boyfriend who gives me space when I need it. People should support you, not drain you in a relationship.
As for the other guy, well I suppose he's settled in a different way, but at least his husband isn't coercing him into anything.
Well in Singapore, as in many parts of Asia, there is this mentality where you put your duty to your society and family before your own happiness even if it means choosing a path that equates to giving up on your dreams. It's toxic, it's miserable and that's why I want no part of it. My friend is working such long hours as a teacher now and between caring for his young children and work, he has no time to talk to me. A lot of people would look at his situation and label that as normal, but I think there's something wrong. As for your situation, it's entirely up to you what you think the best path to happiness will be - at least you're not at all constricted by some Asian notion of duty.
DeleteOh gosh your friend has truly bought into the Singaporean worker ant lifestyle. I dunno how that is worth it, then I realized most Singaporeans still live with their parents till their 30s, so it's either listen to them or be homeless. In the West everyone moved out at 18 and gets their own place, so they can do whatever they want, me included. Btw, what was your friend's dream? Was it something really risky like becoming an actor, singer, or professional athlete?
DeleteY'know there's that idea of "social mobility through children." Where a working class couple thinks that if they sacrifice everything for their child's education, then that child will be able to get a white collar job and achieve social mobility for the entire family. But Singapore is already rapidly developing such that most people work in white collar jobs anyway. I think people are suddenly realizing there are other things in life besides having children and working. As much as Asians like to make fun of "useless degrees" in the West like performance art or communications, it's a sign of a society that has looked past subsistence as the main purpose of life. Instead they look to art and entertainment as life's ultimate goal. Singapore and many Asian countries aren't there yet.
No his dream was to run his own company, he was way too Singaporean to think about anything too bizarre or unusual, but running his own successful business was what he had in mind originally. Teaching certainly wasn't on the cards. It wasn't like "you will never become successful pursuing something that niche" - he was pretty mainstream actually but still that wasn't enough to coerce him into becoming a father who would work a regular job then come home to his kids. Even trying to make it in the world of business was considered too much of a deterrent that could cause possible delays to him having a baby, so that had to go. He did talk about several possible markets in Singapore that his dream company could have filled - some of his ideas were better than others, but it was really nothing more than "this is really popular in places like South Korea and Japan, but no one is doing it yet in Singapore and all we have to do is emulate the business model in Singapore." But like I said, his wife and parents don't love him or care about him enough to see if teaching would make him happy, for them they felt they had the right to force him down that path against his will. They are happy today that they got their way with him, I don't know how unhappy he is but I think he's too Singaporean to speak his mind.
DeleteOf course, I always cite the example of my parents - not only were they aiming to have a baby at all costs, no they had to have a son. So when I was finally born, there was a sense of yay finally we have a son, shit now what? Is the sun supposed to shine out of my son's ass and my life would be complete? No, instead they got the son from hell who couldn't wait to move the hell away from Singapore at the earliest opportunity because I had such a terrible relationship with my parents. Yet these Asians place so much importance on having a child or a son without realizing that there will be that moment when they realize okay I have a son, now what the heck am I supposed to do? I didn't make my parents any happier, if anything, I caused them nothing but pain.
DeleteYeah to me this sounds like the straight male equivalent of getting married to have a baby simply because he's the right age. Not because he really wants a family, or at least not right away. To me it sounds like he tolerates how uncaring his wife is simply because he was raised by uncaring people. Jeezus I feel bad for him, he never got to live for himself. What he planned to do is like you said not out of the ordinary by Western standards. It's just it would take a few years of setup time and isn't guaranteed to succeed.
DeleteLol yes the life goal of having a son to carry on the last name. As if last names are that unique in Singapore. I think humans will always have an innate desire to reproduce, but will try to dress it up as some higher purpose. Put it this way, in your case you know exactly what you'd do if you never had kids. You have plenty of money and hobbies to occupy your time. What do you think your parents would do with themselves if they were born infertile? Like I do wonder what happens to infertile people in such cultures where having kids is held up as the ultimate life goal.
There is an element of a self-fulfilling prophesy at work here. When my parents got what they wanted in the form of a grandson (ie. my nephew), they did shower him with unconditional love. It was strange as my nephew didn't get that from his other set of grandparents because on that side of the family, there were plenty of grandchildren and the novelty had worn very thin by the time my nephew came along. But it was weird how they were obsessed with caring for my nephew when he was very young but completely lost interest in him as a teenager, like they had completely no idea what he got up to as a teenager. But people like my parents and my old friend from VJC are shaped by traditional and culture rather than logic - they do what they have to do because of culture. There's a part of that which is harmless, like I was in Chinatown today after a meeting and I noticed, aha it's Chinese new year and they're selling all the traditional treats associated with CNY. I get that, sometimes people follow traditions without asking why - I did look at some new year treats and thought, yeah but no thanks, I never really liked them that much anyway when I was a kid and I wasn't motivated enough to buy those treats just because it was CNY. You should have seen the lengths my partner's family went to in order to do Christmas properly by having all the right dishes for Christmas dinner and I'm like, duh, I'll just cook whatever I feel like eating for Christmas without insisting on certain items. But such is the nature of tradition and culture for people - it defines who they are and it's very important for them. Whereas for us, like you said, we have our careers and hobbies.
DeleteYeah I get what you mean by the weight of cultural expectations. I mean personally I'm on the fence about having kids. It's a lifetime commitment, I can't just have them because society expects me to. Also my boyfriend is American and even he wasn't that excited about Thanksgiving and Christmas. He was like "yeah I go only because my family is there, but the food is kinda bland." I also never really liked Chinese new year that much either, but only went because family was there and I rarely got to see them otherwise.
DeleteLol ignored him as a teenager. Maybe because teens aren't as easily impressed anymore by small things like snacks and buying gifts at a bookstore.
Btw on a side note, your friend's family pressuring him into being a worker ant to start a family instead of becoming a job creator is not good for the economy. Otherwise your friend would be a creative boss who is also a local rather than a foreign entrepreneur who is brought in to manage the other worker ants.
DeleteWell my point is simple: if you don't have a whole load of interesting hobbies and outstanding achievements, then you fall back on your culture and that gives you a sense of identity. That's when celebrating Christmas or CNY becomes so much more important for these people as they don't have that much to be excited about in terms of "I am going to climb Mt Everest in June!" Nah, they will never do something like that. So they look forward to Christmas instead as that always happens on the 25th December and celebrate that instead. Kinda sad really but this is what the vast majority of ordinary folks do.
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