education singapore.

im a person who loves humour. And one of the things i get a luagh out of is reading the voices section in the today newspaper. not that there are really catchy punchlines or anything like that but, rather the way these people put across their views with such a lack of an analysis of the situation.

Anyway today i cam across this letter by a Mr.Lim. He starts of his letter with the question "Is there such a gulf between the neighbourhood and "top" schools in singapore? Then he goes on to talk about schools putting up banners and then says it is demeaning that schools have to sell themselves to attract students. Another question he posed was, does it really matter whether a student gets an agregate score of 180 or 294? His main objective of his letter i believe was to talk about what parents are doing to get their kids into the good schools.

okay. so first and foremost. i must say it is absolutely disgusting what parents are doing to get their kids into such schools. i think anything beyond legal means should not be tolerated at all. However i am confident to say at least these disgusting people are a minority and just a drop of ink in the tub of water.

Now to deal with this issue of the parents intentions. seriously i think its perfectly fine. I think its a personal choice of which yardstick a parent chooses to measure a school by. it could be their cca record or it could be affiliation to good secondary schools. it could even be because it is a religious school for example catholic govt-aided schools like st pats and so on. this natural thing to go for the best school is natural and the yardstick by which people see which school is best for their child varies.

Now about this issue of schools. To answer mr lims question, is there a gulf? You see, then its an issue of what yardstick! what are you measuring these schools by. to a person looking purely for academic results. i would probably say yeah. However there is a large middle ground. just like people in society, there are the rich and those arent. there is guld between the rich and the rest however, is being rich the best solution in life? No obviously not. it may make you comfortable but it isnt always about the dough.

However i think competition is key. i believe the fact that schools are putting up these banners are good. YOu know why? because essentially, it means that these schools are striving to improve their standards. striving to improve the fact that ones children will besides having a good acedemic education has an opportunity to gain from the schools cca record, to be part of a top cca in that school for example. i think that this competition motivates schools both government and private to continue to improve themselves. Not only acedemically but as a whole. and i say that this is good for singapore. how can that be bad.

On the last point of the difference between students. 180 vs 294. hmmm academically, yes talented, one could say that. one could even run the arguement that the student with a relatively higher score probably is more determined and has characteristics that allows him or her to focus.

however, one cannot say the student with a lower grade is a better person. no way. because the problem with human is that we try to quantify stuff. we try to attch numbers to everything so we can calculate stuff. although this is principly wrong i believe. and that there is an inherent problem, i dont see it any other way. this is how the world works ladies and gentlemen. live with it. we can only do our best.

in conclusion. competition is always good it motivates improvement. there will be a natural progression towards anything other than grades. and actually the best school is determined by you. what is your yardstick?

the all asians style.

okay i should know this. for interpolys and interschools the cadc members were repeating these things over and over again. i took this time as an opportunity to prep even more by writing out my points and going over again what i was going to say.

okay prep. firstly sides are flipped. the more common sense thing to do in my opinion, if you won, is to take gov. (proposition) i guess at least u have the chance of controlling the parameters of the case. although personally opp is a hell more fun. but if you have the prize in mind then take prop. then motion release where 3 motions are given.

u have to rank them. automatically 3 is vetoed. so of course u look at the motion. just veetoo something either by the fact u dont know anything about or the fact that its very hard to prop or opp depending on which side ur on.

so by right, the moment motion is released u have 30 mins to prepare your case. as compared to the primary school/secondary school style where according to some in debates, is a simple regurgitation of what your coach told you. (i will leave this to critisism another day). 30 mins thats all you have. its either you have a case already which needs tweaking or u do one from scratch then and there.

the first prop has essentially the toughest job of ensuring evrything needs to be defined set out and explained clearly. debates can be lost or won in the first speaker.

so 7 minutes per constructive speaker. in the all asians style there is this smelly thing called point of information. this has two functions:

1) clarify/rebutt something the guy said
2) throw the speaker off track/distract/intimidate

after 42 mins or so then reply comes. i think i have kind of gotten a hang of how the reply works and have managed to use it effectively to refocus the debate. unlike in sec school, there is no time for discussion between reply and constuctive.

okay i dont think i will really go anymore in to the different styles but concentrate more on me discussing issues i want to and making this my little form of expression.

cheers
timo

the all asians style.

my debating realm..

well. i beleive through my short time as a debater i have learnt alot. in terms of structure, speaking style and content as well. what i hope to achieve in this blog is a platform for me to discuss issues in society today or anything which i feel is interesting to me at that point in time.

Since this brilliant idea has just popped into my mind about 5 minutes ago, and its almost 3 in the morning, i will not delve into too much here but i will just lay out what i will be doing for my subsequent posting.

well what i hope to just talk about the structure of the all asians style and compare with the australs and the secondary school style. and juts have a look at the constraints which i experience or why it is better or worse.

cheers
timo