Singapore dreams?

MOE says Children should be encouraged to pursue dreams
The minister of education, Mr Heng Swee Keat made the remark in his speech at the opening of Montfort Secondary’s new campus that children should be encouraged to pursue their dreams no matter what these may be. ‘Pursuing one’s
The 10000 hours rule
First, by pursing one’s dream, the child is likely to excel in his or her area of talent and expertise. According to the author of the book Outliers, one only has to keep doing something for 10000 hours in order to excel in it. Pursuing one’s dream is equivalent to investing time in the undertaking. It makes positive use of one’s talent and energy and improves one’s confidence and self-esteem. Under the pressure of the standardized tests at various levels, children tend to be judged by their test score that is an extremely limited way of assessing their potential. Since there will definitely be high scorers and low scorers, how do we enhance the motivation of the low-scorers while reminding high scorers that tests aren’t everything they should go after? Encouraging them to pursue their dreams is an excellent way to dilute the effect of standardized exams while giving children opportunities to express their talents and let them be seen, be heard and be appreciated. Hence, the culture of ‘pursuing dreams’ is essential in developing a healthy and motivated schooling population who know the importance of exams, while not forgetting the greater importance of ‘finding one’s voice.
Spillover effect
Secondly, the minister argued that the joy of learning one discovers in one area can spillover to other areas of learning. It is a common observation among children. A love of building airplane models may spark the interest in physics, an interest in military weapons may lead to a passion for history and a talent for cooking and culinary art may persuade one to study chemistry. The complaints about conventional subjects being not interesting or useless may be reduced if the learners themselves become interested and find value and relevance in what they learn. Moreover, such spillover effect is very spontaneous. Educators cannot possibly create such an effect by, for example, letting students participate in airplane design competition hoping they will become interested in physics in the end. There is no guarantee. But what we can do is to provide as many opportunities for pushing one’s passion as possible so that children are more likely to see the link between what they do for leisure and what they do for study.
Lifelong learning

MOE says Children should be encouraged to pursue dreams
Lastly, the minister also emphasized the importance of having a dream because that will encourage students to become lifelong learners. Since his perspective is lifelong, the ‘learning’ here is not restricted to academic study in school. It is
Come back to reality
Having talked much about dreams, we also need to focus on reality, which is the educational system itself. Is it flexible enough to accommodate a variety of interests? A mature educational system not only allows individual pursuit of interest, but actively rewards it. Do we recognize adequately students who are excellent in dancing, singing and arts? Do we identify students good at cooking or other niche interests? We may not make all forms of talents criteria of admissions, but recognition can definitely go beyond that. Probably provide funding to a culinary club in school? Probably hold more arts festivals and invite parents to attend? Probably note down a student’s personal achievement in the yearly report written by the form teachers? All these little gestures go a long way in encouraging children to pursue their dreams, while not compromising the meritocratic system in which standardized assessment still plays an essential role.
The concept of ‘American dream’ is about personal freedom and boldness to do what one wants to do. Under the influence of western countries, will Singapore have its own ‘Singapore dream’? It is not some big idea. It is just about individuals having the conviction and courage to follow their heart and a system that allows and rewards such individual expression of one’s worth and value.
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