The Opportunity to Excel

In another step forward to cater to different skills/abilities of our school going children, the government is starting a new school for primary school leaving students who may not be so academically inclined. Students wishing to be admitted to this new specialised Normal (Technical) school, Crest Secondary School, will be students who qualify for the Normal (Technical) stream based on their PSLE results and who are assessed by teachers to benefit more from hands-on activity based learning.

Apparently, this new school will have some flexibility to customise its teaching approach to suit students' learning styles, with an emphasis on practical learning. Graduates can go on to ITE, apprenticeship at trade-based institutes or seek employment.

On whether there will be a stigma that may be attached to attending a school specialising in N(T) education, Mr Chris Lee, who is on the school's board of directors, said: "Between stigma and an opportunity to excel, I would choose opportunity to excel, rather than stick to a mainstream academic stream and slowly see your interest dwindle away."

From my own engagement with my student counselees, I can attest to the aptness of this remark. Nothing can crush a student's confidence and interest more quickly than allowing a student to continue lagging behind in class failing to grasp the contents of what is being taught. The child's self esteem also takes a tremendous toll. The only means to restore hope and self worth is to let the student feel that there is some field or area which he/she can master. I had a case of a girl whose presenting issue was high absenteeism due to lack of interest in school coupled with not being able to fit in a class dominated by rowdy and badly behaved boys. She was also unable to speak audibly. However she loved to draw and her initial communication with me was through her drawings and short written phrases. Slowly through my affirmation of her drawing skills we went on to explore other abilities she was capable of. When she discovered she could spell if she put in enough effort, she would inevitably start our counselling sessions by writing profusely on a piece of paper all the words in the spelling list for the week. From thereon I also taught her how to look straight into the naughty boys' eyes and told them to get lost. As her confidence picked up she also began to speak up audibly.

Then there was another case of a boy who was diagnosed with dyslexia only this year when he was in primary 5. His presenting issue for counselling was disruptive behaviour in class. He shared with me that he was bored in class because most of the time he didn't know what was going on. During one session I showed him a video, a cartoon entitled "What is it like being dyslexic". At first I was rather disappointed when he told me he had already watched the video. However as we watched he eagerly highlighted to me the parts that left deep impression in him. One of the part was when the teacher in the cartoon bowed down to the dyslexic child to ask for forgiveness for calling him stupid and lazy before understanding his learning difficulty. Another point he remembered very clearly was the statement that each and every one is good in different field. It seems to me it is his impassioned cry not to be dismissed as not good in anything and that he too can be strong in other ways.

It is rather unfortunate that our social culture predominantly admires people who are very smart academically. Indeed Gardner's theory of multiple intelligence includes: Spatial,Linguistic,Logical/mathematical,Bodily/kinesthetic,Musical,Interpersonal,intrapersonal and Naturalistic. Traditionally our education system has too much emphasis on the logical/mathematical and linguistic skills (maths and reading/writing).

Let us hope that going forward our education system will be flexible and dynamic enough to discover the particular type of intelligence each child is endowed with and help the child to excel in that field. Although it may not be directly relevant but I do think that narrowing the differences in salaries in different fields will also promote social attitude and respect for all types of occupations and people with different skills. Sad, but that's the only way in our materialistic society of clever but not so wise people.