Stress of students
Stress of students
I was chatting casually with some parents after our weekly parents prayer meet and we hit the topic about the stress our Singapore students seemed to be facing.
Interestingly, during the conversation, someone said that actually the Singapore education system isn't the most stressful one as compared to education system in countries such as China and Vietnam. It surprises me!
Well, I didn't quite "bother" to do some "homework" to check how true this statement was, but it caught me pondering for once about why the students of our country feel so stress and loaded ...
It took me a few days to think and ponder and wonder what had changed since the time I was formally schooled until the current times. It's true that the days are longer and more packed, but I guess that's also because our kids these days are more brilliant compared to generations before. But I believe it's not just the kids in Singapore that was more intelligent and bright, the same goes for the other parts of the globe too. So what has changed?
As I thought, I came to a conclusion that perhaps our kids feel so stressed, not because of the education system, but because of the additional commitments loaded onto their limited capacity. Besides school, they have countless tuitions, not to mention a string of "extra curricular activities/lessons" (eg piano, ballet, violin, drawing, swimming, etc, etc) planned by their own parents.
Can I say for sure that kids in other countries do not have these extra lessons? No I can't, because I have no sources of information, neither did I have the time (or rather bother) to check it out. My gut feel tells me that I should be "quite right" - based on the Singaporean culture, Singaporean upbringing, Singaporean kia-su spirit, etc.
So maybe the next time we say that kids in our country are stressed, we better think twice before putting the blame on the education system, if the fault should have been laid with us.
I was chatting casually with some parents after our weekly parents prayer meet and we hit the topic about the stress our Singapore students seemed to be facing.
Interestingly, during the conversation, someone said that actually the Singapore education system isn't the most stressful one as compared to education system in countries such as China and Vietnam. It surprises me!
Well, I didn't quite "bother" to do some "homework" to check how true this statement was, but it caught me pondering for once about why the students of our country feel so stress and loaded ...
It took me a few days to think and ponder and wonder what had changed since the time I was formally schooled until the current times. It's true that the days are longer and more packed, but I guess that's also because our kids these days are more brilliant compared to generations before. But I believe it's not just the kids in Singapore that was more intelligent and bright, the same goes for the other parts of the globe too. So what has changed?
As I thought, I came to a conclusion that perhaps our kids feel so stressed, not because of the education system, but because of the additional commitments loaded onto their limited capacity. Besides school, they have countless tuitions, not to mention a string of "extra curricular activities/lessons" (eg piano, ballet, violin, drawing, swimming, etc, etc) planned by their own parents.
Can I say for sure that kids in other countries do not have these extra lessons? No I can't, because I have no sources of information, neither did I have the time (or rather bother) to check it out. My gut feel tells me that I should be "quite right" - based on the Singaporean culture, Singaporean upbringing, Singaporean kia-su spirit, etc.
So maybe the next time we say that kids in our country are stressed, we better think twice before putting the blame on the education system, if the fault should have been laid with us.
Comments