As a parent, I am inevitably caught in the cycle of examinations and examination results. Things were not what they used to be. I’m just not sure whether it is a good or bad thing. Triumphant stories of students achieving top results rule the airwaves, web and print space. ‘XXX school achieved 100% passes’, ‘Girl from so-and-so school tops the charts’ etc. Everybody loves a winner.
But there is an inevitability of paradox and always two sides to a coin. While we hail the winners, where are the losers? How do we define winners and losers? Remembering a sweet Indian girl, from many years ago, that took her own life because her examination results were not “good enough”? Closer to me, someone once shared this little story with me (By the way, it’s real) that her cousin from a top local junior college just gotten her GCSE ‘A’ level results and achieved above average results. But yet did not dared return home, but instead went to my friend’s place to seek solace. The reason? She was ashamed of her results. Mind you, these results, though the best, were good! But unfortunately, it was not good enough for her, not good enough for her to face her friends, her family. Just simply not good enough! It was her reaction that startled me. She seemed the less worried about being able to get into the university or not, but more concerned about how others would look and judge her from her results.
If we give every 18 year old the same test, at the same time and is graded, we almost inevitably create a great divide. Half the population will do better than the other half. That’s a fact! Let’s call the top half ‘success’ and the bottom half ‘failures’. The ‘success’ group has done better than the ‘failure’ group, no doubt about it. What if I say that everybody passed the test? Are the bottom 50% failures? But they passed the tests, didn’t they? Through the eyes of the test, they are not failures. But through our eyes, simply because of that dividing line, they are ‘failures’. Simply because they are in the bottom half.
To further complicate matters, this divide between the ‘success’ and ‘failure’ group do not seem to happen at 50%, but rather somewhat higher in many societies. For the ‘A’ level girl above, it was somewhat in the 90th percentile. You see, even if she was at 85%, she would still be in the failure group. That’s because that what she feels on how her world (parents, friends, etc.) views her. For the little girl who plunged to her own death, was failure to achieve a certain mark more important than life itself? Who is to blame? These girls or us, the people who plays a big part in forming their perception? I believe we all have a part in blowing out her candle in our mist.
There is a distinct difference between schooling and education. The school teaches, the students learn and pass examinations to get to the next level. While an education is responsible for developing a student’s intelligence and take it to the next level. Would you want your child to go to school to 1) pass tests after tests? Or 2) come out a better, stronger person capable of contributing to society? The answer seems obvious, but where are we really going with our current system? Are we providing schools or an education?
Discovering one’s intelligence is one thing, but using them is another thing altogether. It involves three skills that Charles Handy (in ‘The Age of Paradox’) identified as: Conceptualising, Co-ordinating and Consolidation. They are the ‘hows’ in oppose to the ‘whats’. For example, students are often asked to answer questions like ‘what’s the price of an orange?’, whereas in real life they’ll face ‘How should we price an orange?’. The former question requires a precise and accurate an answer. Either you get it or you don’t. But the latter question tests one’s ability to reason. Which question should an education system emphasize on?
These three skills should, arguably, be the core of any educational system. However, they tend to sit right behind, instead of the forefront in the classroom. This is the reason why some school drop-outs eventually become successful (note: successful does not necessarily mean wealthy) people. Because they are able to learn these skills faster on the streets. If so, where’s the real value in such an education system?
On one hand, the ideal system would be to be able to identify and then nurture each child’s type of intelligence and talent. On the other hand, the system needs to churn out graduates according to the needs of the economy and society. It’s a paradox… and it will always be. Would Einstein or Picasso survive such a system?
How can we tell our children that ‘it’s OK to fail’ when our own system draws a distinct line between success and failure? How can we tell our children it’s alright to fall when we don’t teach them how to pick themselves up? How can we tell them that it’s ok to fail now and they will have all the opportunities in the future to make good of yourselves? Are we lying to them? Are we lying to ourselves?
No! We don’t have to… just make that change.
Armchair Economist 