I was kind of interested in knowing more about the angst and suffering teenagers go through in school, especially with regards to examinations. So I googled the web and stumbled on one of my own student's blog! He's a great kid, a very talented GEPPER, very insightful. But then again please don't let that cloud your judgement - read this and judge for yourself. Here's an entry in his blog on exams:

Examinations exist to test your knowledge, your learning. After three months, six months, one year, they give you a test to see if you learnt what they taught and to see if all that time and money was wasted. They measure, they test, they examine, they give you a score at the end. A two-digit number, three if you're really good, and one if you're really really unlucky. And then that's it. They're cast in stone and can't ever change and they'll haunt you for the rest of your life.

Where is the logic in that. All you see are the results of the marking. All the marker sees are the results of your year's education. He or she checks if you're wrong or right, decrees it with the mighty red pen of Gandalf the Grey (You shall not pass!) then throws your script aside, casting around for the next one. They don't see your thoughts. They don't see the processes you went through. The examiner isn't in the exam room to see you jump with delight that you actually understoon the Chinese comprehension passage. He's not there to notice you feverishly scribbling down graph answers five minutes to the end of the exam. She doesn't know that you never noticed the change in question on the board. They don't see the changes you go through as you live the semester. All they see are your essays, which they judge, then get back to their lives. Every teacher says that it's the process, not the results, that matter. What you go through and learn is more important than what your marks are. Then why judge us on a test, on results. Judge us on our processes, look at what we go through the entire year, see how we change, how we learn, how we develop. Not set an essay to see if we've remembered what you've taught us.

I wrote him a reply after reading this, but I'd like to know what people reading this think? Add a comment to this post (see link at the bottom).

In another entry, this student talked about CCA. Note that UYO refers to uniformed youth organisations, and I've censored his UYO group name to avoid any scandal.

All the XXX (name of uniformed group) teachers are like, "Come for XXX Service Day because it is important if we want to be a Gold unit," and "Your Dry Practice is important because if you don't go for your two practices you can't go for your classification shoot and we need a certain percentage to get points for out unit." Okay, so we, as cadets, are coming up for training, just so that XXX can get the Gold award for ---. Like WTH? So we are just coming for points. We're just here so that you can get Gold ...

That's not the point of UYO is it? All this while, I've been living through two years of incomprehensible torture, unexplainable pain, and I keep telling myself that it's for my own good, I'm going for all this because it's for my own good. Then all of a sudden, "You need to come so that we can get Gold." I don't know how to describe it. It's like... I'm not coming so that you can make me a better person, I'm coming so that you can show your face in public, that you are not in charge of a Silver unit.

And students only go through with this because they are forced to. The fascinating thing about our meritocratic society is that it is very for the government to get students (and indirectly, parents) to do things which the government wants. “Torturous training? Oh no, it develops character and leadership in our students and trains them to become officers of tomorrow. Oh by the way, did I mention there’ll be CCA points as well? Another barrier is the discipline system. Another great thing about the crime-prevention system is that it hinges more towards the punishment than the reward method. So students crawl their way through the trainings, knowing that anything they do will probably result in demerit points, and poof goes the chances of CCA points.

I’ll probably never understand the army system until I experience it for real. This cheap substitute in school called UYO, it’s nothing compared to real NS. But more and more of it is creeping into the school system. If I remember correctly, someone in high authority (can’t really remember who) said something along the lines of “Act first, ask later” during one of the morning assemly.

All these organizations are supposed to be, well, organized. But what I hate about all the groups and organizations is their lack of organization. Everyone in a position of power seems to want to waste the time away so they don’t have to do anything. There doesn’t appear to be any sense of doing the duty that was assigned. UYO doesn’t have to start half as early if the NCOs didn’t waste almost 45 minutes for admin. Prefect meetings wouldn’t cut into duty time if the meeting started promptly at the stated time. Half the activities and most of the rules in UYO make no sense. It seems like the army system favours organization to time, because when you’re organized you save time. Not for the case of the individual.

Actually my views on NS parallel his views on UYO. It's really funny cos my reservist training is also a lot of time-wasting - literally, as in we just sit around and wait. I think a big problem our society faces is the absence of real leadership, and our use of managers in place of leaders. A leader goes straight to the point and gets things done, but a manager simply manages for the sake of managing, making things seem organised for no real purpose.