The following blog post was written in Singapore and not posted for fear of my job. It was a cowardly act that I've had trouble coming to grips with. At any rate, here it is, as it was originally written.
“Am I the only one around here who
gives a shit about the rules? Mark it zero!” Walter, from ‘The
Big Lebowski” shouts to Smokey when his toe slips the line in a
league bowling game. Being unhinged, he then produces a firearm to
ensure his marking.
* * *
It has, a third of the year in, dawned
on me that the school I teach at isn’t a school. It has nothing,
really, scholastic about it. It is, instead, a two-year test-prep
course. Anyone who has done test prep knows the difference between
them and real classes. I took one for the SAT. They are no-nonsense
affairs, which either teach test-taking skills or drill content. In
Singapore the model is to drill content.
We’re going to spend three quarters
of the year doing content, and fully a quarter of the year working on
revision. From an efficiency standpoint I initially balked – if you
are going to focus on content then students should at least be able
to deliver it less than a year later without needing a massive
revision.
Not that content, anywhere, is useful.
Some content is nice, of course, for cultural literacy purposes. I
suppose there are some things you just need to know. But very few
children relish the experience of rote and anything that can be
gained as such should be put online anyway. There’s no need for the
classroom anymore if you want just the facts – they’re out there
for your own consumption with an availability never dreamed of
before.
For a while, in my post-secondary
studies, I thought that home schooling was the answer to the content
problem. This was perhaps prompted by my dad’s semi-sarcastic quip
that if I wanted to just read books and learn a bit about everything
he’d gladly invest in an encyclopedia rather than have me go to an
expensive private college. But I shortly moved away from the home
school approach. It can be a great experience (I’ve met some
wonderful home schooled folks), but it can also leave students poorly
adjusted (I’ve also met some of these) and can be problematic for
teaching skills, which is what I began to be interested in.
* * *
“Nothing in the world can take the
place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than
unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is
almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated
derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” –
Calvin Coolidge, the normally subdued thirtieth President of the
United States, who concludes that humanity must therefore ‘press
on’. In light of the Great Depression this advice is either noble
or lacking in empathy.
* * *
While I continued my BA/MAT degree in
teaching I looked towards what the ideal setting would be, and how
would we know it is ideal. Increasingly I was concerned, during those
Bush years, with anti-intellectualism and rampant ignorance. These
developments are catastrophic issues for a democratic citizenry; and
we can see how common sense and even perceptions of reality can evade
an otherwise healthy mind for lack of an education. Well, not an
education, precisely, but a certain set of skills. Knowing stuff
isn’t any sort of civic guarantee.
Every year someone decides it would be
fun to expose hypocrisy and give home-born Americans the U.S.
citizenship test, and wouldn’t you know it, look at those awful
scores. Clearly Americans aren’t American enough – that or the
types of questions asked are arbitrary and useless. Both
interpretations are common. Their relevance to being a good citizen
is a separate issue, but regarding the utility of knowing answers to
the following questions:
“Who elects the President of the
United States?”
“Can the Constitution be changed?”
“What are the duties of Congress?”
(the answers to which are “some shady
‘electoral college’ process few understand”, “yes” and “to
amuse and anger the citizens of the United States”) I think it’s
safe to say these are all quite useful. As much as it may irk me that
people may not know, the following, however, are of dubious practical
value:
“What color are the stars of our
flag?”
“Who said ‘Give me liberty or give
me death?’”
“Why did the pilgrims come to
America?”
(the answers to which are “blue”,
“George Washington” and “to plant flower gardens after April
rains”) I think it’s safe to say you could go your whole life not
knowing the answers and still be adequately intelligent, and civilly
responsible.
So what skills do we need to focus on,
I wondered, to ensure we get the right stuff at the end of the line?
* * *
“The Finns are as surprised as much
as anyone else that they have recently emerged as the new rock stars
of global education. It surprises them because they do as little
measuring and testing as they can get away with. They just don't
believe it does much good. They did, however, decide to participate
in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), run by
the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
And to put it in a way that would make the noncompetitive Finns
cringe, they kicked major butt. The Finns have participated in the
global survey four times and have usually placed among the top three
finishers in reading, math and science.
In the latest PISA survey, in 2009,
Finland placed second in science literacy, third in mathematics and
second in reading. The U.S. came in 15th in reading, close to the
OECD average, which is where most of the U.S.'s results fell.
Finland's only real rivals are the
Asian education powerhouses South Korea and Singapore, whose
drill-heavy teaching methods often recall those of the old
Soviet-bloc Olympic-medal programs. Indeed, a recent manifesto by
Chinese-American mother Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,
chides American parents for shrinking from the pitiless discipline
she argues is necessary to turn out great students. Her book has led
many to wonder whether the cure is worse than the disease.
Which is why delegations from the U.S.
and the rest of the world are trooping to Helsinki, where world-class
results are achieved to the strains of a reindeer lullaby. "In
Asia, it's about long hours — long hours in school, long hours
after school. In Finland, the school day is shorter than it is in the
U.S. It's a more appealing model," says Andreas Schleicher, who
directs the PISA program at the OECD.
There's less homework too. "An
hour a day is good enough to be a successful student," says
Katja Tuori, who is in charge of student counseling at Kallahti
Comprehensive, which educates kids up to age 16. "These kids
have a life."”
Exceprt by Eva Persson for
Time Magazine, April 11th, 2011.
* * *
Charters are how the U.S. has decided
to handle poor test results and a bloated, ineffective education
system. There’s virtually nothing about the standard ‘P.S. 136’
model that is appealing, or working. Drop-out rates are too high.
Teacher turnover leaves students without guidance, and adults without
careers. Incentives and rewards are misguided, and oversight is
unreliable. Scores attest to our failure, as does the nightly news.
My first job was in a charter school in
Reno. It was designated as the first ‘high achieving’ charter in
the county. Charters come in two varieties, most basically: those for
scholarly academics and those for the kids who need lots of help.
Neither of these groups does well in the factory-style public
schools, which by design teach to the median.
Having taught previously in one of
those rare successful public schools in Vermont I went to Reno
assuming my students would be of the scholarly variety. Upon arrival
those who were designated as my top students were, instead, the
equivalent to the ‘lower-average’ level I’d taught in VT. Why
was this?
After a few months of digging the
reasons became clear: the problems were legal. Nevada is ranked 50th
in education, and some rather damning laws are going to keep it that
way until overturned. These include:
1. Any student, regardless of
abilities, was allowed to attend this Charter. We could counsel them
to pick another school, but we couldn’t turn them away.
2. We could not fail students for
academic purposes. So once a student was in we had no choice but to
keep them, unless they had accrued non-academic offenses.
This led, not surprisingly, to kids
getting in, eager to do so since it was a safe school and bullying
wasn’t tolerated, and then failing their classes. Only a fraction
of the seniors graduated the year I taught there. They’d been moved
on, and moved on, but were credit deficient.
The issue becomes whether charters,
experimental in nature and handicapped by No Child Left Behind and a
variety of the whims of state lawmakers, are really going to succeed.
But if they do, that still leaves the question of what to do about
everyone else? How do we ensure that the majority of American
students get a decent education?
* * *
CHARTER
SCHOOLS IN CALIFORNIA
PERFORM
SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER THAN
THEIR
TRADITIONAL
PUBLIC
SCHOOL
PEERS
IN
READING
Performance
Significantly
Lower
in
Math
Title of a 2009 press
release CREDO at Stanford (formatting preserved as in original)
* * *
I’d been lucky to get a job at all
for the 2009/2010 school year. In California and Nevada the ‘09
unemployment rate for teachers was over 12%, with fully fourteen
states having a rate of 10% or higher. My contract was to stand-in
for a year-long medical leave, and so at the end I packed up and
headed back to my hometown of the Bay Area.
Meanwhile I was applying for a job in
Singapore, whose school year wouldn’t start until January 2011.
Once I knew I had the job I had the fall semester to figure out.
Living with one’s parents is easier on the pocketbook than living
alone, but I still had student loans to pay, and I wanted to get rid
of those as fast as possible. So, too, did I want to avoid a résumé
gap.
Since transportation was an issue (I
didn’t own a car) subbing was out. Instead I went with a private
tutoring gig, working with a middle schooler whose parents were both
doctors. At times I felt a kinship with their maids, cook, and
gardeners. All in all it was a fairly pleasant experience. My pupil
advanced and eventually met her grade level expectations.
While tutoring, of course, I was
preparing for my teaching career in Singapore, familiarizing myself
with the minutiae of their political system, education system, and
culture. I was to teach ‘O’ level secondary students, a class on
Ancient Asian Civilizations. This was part of the reason I was going
to Singapore was to learn about and teach Asian history. The other
was to learn why they did so well, from the inside.
As the weeks drew nearer and nearer I
frantically waited for the placement announcement, which would be
given only just before flying out. With about a week to go, bags
packed, I was informed that I would not be teaching at a secondary
school at all, but a Junior College.
Being thrown for a loop my initial
inquiries confirmed that there was no mistake, and the placement
would stay. This required a whole new approach – these students
were older, had taken and passed their ‘O’ levels, the classes
were different. Three months of educational research down the drain –
the books I’d read, the time spent learning about these cultures
and civilizations. In the long run I’m sure it will prove useful,
but for the immediate teaching necessity I needed to get my new JC
(Junior College) act together, and quick.
* * *
“There is no doubt that, compared to
many of their regional neighbours, Singaporeans enjoy a high standard
of living.
But critics say there is a price to be
paid. People are expected to conform.
It is as if there is an unspoken but
clearly understood deal between citizen and state: the system will
look after you, as long as you do not question it.
That system has largely been designed
by Singapore's founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, and managed by the
People's Action Party, the PAP, which has been in power since
independence in 1965.
Lee Kuan Yew has formally handed over
the premiership to his son, Lee Hsien Loong, but retains the title of
"minister mentor".
The government declined the BBC's
request for an interview. But Abner Koh was willing to talk. He is a
member of the youth wing of the PAP. Over Chinese tea at a riverside
restaurant, he made the case for strong leadership and clear rules.
"We have to bear in mind that
Singapore is a multi-racial and multi-religious society," he
said. "Certain forms of restriction are definitely necessary to
ensure harmonious living amongst the different communities in
Singapore.
But other young Singaporeans are
beginning to question the status quo.
Seelan Palay is a blogger, film-maker
and political activist. He has just started serving a 12-day prison
sentence for unlawful assembly. But speaking before he began his
sentence, he said he had no regrets.
"I think life in Singapore would
be much better if people started speaking up and standing up for what
they believe in," he said.
But doesn't the prospect of a jail term
deter you, I asked? "No, it does not," Mr Palay replied
without hesitation. "Many others have gone to prison for what
they believe in before me. Some of them have been detained without
trial for 20 years, 30 years.
"I'm only going to do a 12-day
sentence. And I have 10 other open cases which I may also have to go
to prison for, so I'd better get used to it."
Mr Palay is a staunch supporter of Alan
Shadrake, even going so far as to post the author's bail. Mr
Shadrake's case has now been adjourned to allow his defence more time
to prepare.
The charges could possibly be dropped
if he acceded to the prosecution's request for an apology. But there
seems little chance of that.
"I didn't do this to chicken out
and say sorry and grovel to them like most Singaporeans have to do,
to live a normal life," he told me as he left the High Court.
And somehow it no longer feels like
this is just Alan Shadrake's fight. He has become a proxy for
Singapore's own internal battles.”
Excerpt by Rachel Harvey for BBC World
News, August 4th, 2010, regarding the publication by
Shadrake of a book that was critical of the Singaporean judiciary and
notorious death penalty practices.
* * *
A slightly ominous email graced my
inbox a few weeks into the year at my Junior College. I was preparing
for my classes before students arrived. It was from a school outsider
whom I had solicited for advice:
“Based on experience teaching the A
Level syllabus for many years, the amount of content to be covered is
very heavy and very often, teachers cannot finish covering the
content of the syllabus with sufficient time to spare for revision.
Hence, teaching beyond the syllabus is a luxury we can ill afford.
While we wish to inculcate the love for History as a subject and an
appreciation of international history as a broad sweep, the reality
is not the case because at the end of the day, students have to
master the content of the syllabus well and thoroughly and there is
simply insufficient time to even cover the basics adequately.”
The issue had been that I’d
discovered that these students were going to spend two years on the
last fifty years. The course, International History 1945-2000, was so
drawn out that I was wondering how on earth to fill the time, and I
figured the syllabus was a minimum requirement, as usually the case
in the U.S. The message continued:
“Our students have problems dealing
with the syllabus content. You would need to understand the reality
of the situation and the students you are dealing with. They are not
all good with English and thinking skills. Many of them take a long
while to grapple with the complexities of historical events covered
in the syllabus. That alone takes a long time. Also, they are not
good with writing history essays. In the A Level examinations, they
are expected to write 3 history essays and 1 source-based essay in 3
hours which works out to about 45 mins per essay. For them to do well
in the A Levels, they need to master these skills well and to apply
their content effectively. They have problems understanding their
content in the first place.”
Of course, one of the main reasons I
came to Singapore was because classes are taught in English. I had
assumed that by 17 students would have a decent grasp of the
language, having been taught in it for so many years in every
discipline. Yet on the ground I was told repeatedly that English
language difficulties would plague me. Considering I was working with
the top students in the country, who’d done quite well on exams to
even be eligible for our school, this was disconcerting.
Singapore was fifth, globally, in
reading, according to the PISA results (which students take just
before coming to JC). Red flags were presenting themselves in my
mind. How had they done so well, if they were, as teachers and
administrators were warning me, not particularly savvy students?
“Next, Singapore's education system
is exams-driven. Schools similarly are exams-driven and
results-oriented. As such, students are similarly results-oriented.
Hence, A-Level history is very assessment-driven and with the limited
curriculum time we have, the students must be prepared to do well in
the examinations. Hence, what you intend to do has to contribute to
that objective.
“As for covering the broad expanse of
international history, that will only happen in the new syllabus in
2012. As for this batch of JC1s that you will teach, they will still
take the current old syllabus. Hence, I don't think you should be
moving away from the old syllabus as don't forget, the JC1 students
will be sitting for the A Level examinations in 2012 with the old
syllabus.”
Well, that helped answer my question.
This was a test-driven society, and so the test was going to be
paramount (and don’t you forget it). The results are vastly
important in test-loving Singapore. Unlike in the States, my GPA
actually determines my pay bracket here, along with my degree and
experience. The assumption is if you were an A+ student you’ll be
an A+ teacher. This has not, in my experience, been the case.
“While History is probably taught
differently in the US and the demands are different, you will need to
appreciate and accept the different demands of the A Levels and the
expectations of students, parents and schools in Singapore. We don't
teach alone.”
This, I’ve found, is very true.
Teachers work together to ensure that grading is equitable, for
example. That way the teachers are on the same page, and no one gets
the reputation of being ‘soft’ or ‘hard’. The drawback is
that decisions are all by committee, and autonomy is non-existent,
which is a shame, for me, since I like having a fair bit of autonomy.
Since I was posted at a JC and not a
secondary school I did not get my own classroom, but like the rest of
the cohort, was presented with a cubicle. The working atmosphere was
relaxed – people texted, checked Facebook, and many had pillows on
their desks for napping. Most people stayed until evening, grading,
tutoring, and planning.
Planning for courses is also by
committee, in theory. In my experience it is by seniority and
tradition. I had no say in the syllabus, and almost none in my
lecture slides, none in the lecture notes or what questions to cover
in tutorials, nor which assignment to give. Someone else had already
decided, for example, what essay I was going to assign, and when.
Rather than autonomy I was feeling the pressure of being an
automaton.
The other issue was that I was
underutilized. Having equal amounts of teaching experience with my
two co-teachers I chafed with being treated as incompetent and
untrustworthy, on the basis of having different ideas and values.
Other staff was brought in, unexpectedly, and I was relegated to a
measly sole lecture and two tutorials per week. It was clear I was
not going to be trusted with anything important. Having only three
contact hours per week means that you have to fill time for the other
37 hours of the week, especially if you don’t have to plan your own
lessons.
To counter this I began to get involved
with a small group of students, getting them prepared for comedy
improvisation. To my knowledge I am the first person in the country
to teach comedy improv. Due to the censorship problems Singaporean
comedians have a hard time of it. The constitution grants free
speech, subject to “such restrictions as it considers necessary or
expedient in the interest of the security of Singapore or any part
thereof, friendly relations with other countries, public order or
morality and restrictions designed to protect the privileges of
Parliament or to provide against contempt of court, defamation or
incitement to any offence.”
This makes it hard to speak out, since
the ruling party since 1965 has determined what public morality is.
Sex, politics, race, religion – the staples of comedy – are out
of bounds.
* * *
“The life of this philosopher is a
remarkable instance of talent and perseverance misapplied. In the
search of his chimera nothing could daunt him. Repeated
disappointment never diminished his hopes; and from the age of
fourteen to that of eighty-five he was incessantly employed among the
drugs and furnaces of his laboratory, wasting his life with the view
of prolonging it, and reducing himself to beggary in the hopes of
growing rich.”
“He was born in London in the year
1527, and very early manifested a love for study. At the age of
fifteen he was sent to Cambridge, and delighted so much in his books,
that he passed regularly eighteen hours every day among them. Of the
other six, he devoted four to sleep and two for refreshment. Such
intense application did not injure his health, and could not fail to
make him one of the first scholars of his time. Unfortunately,
however, he quitted the mathematics and the pursuits of true
philosophy, to indulge in the unprofitable reveries of the occult
sciences.”
From Mackay’s “Extraordinary
Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” these excerpts are
from the biographies about the alchemists Bernard of Treves and John
Dee.
* * *
As classes progressed my determinations
to set right the Singaporean education system from the inside were
again and again defied. I was told, explicitly, that my purpose was
to learn from them, rather that to make suggestions. This arrogance
of their superior system was repugnant since, as they’d warned me,
their students were abysmal failures.
Singaporean students can’t think.
They have no creative or critical powers, and their analytical
prowess lags far behind. Students, at the age of seventeen and
eighteen, cannot produce coherent ideas. The fear sometimes
encountered in the U.S. of advancing a wrong answer is, instead,
multiplied to a terror. They do not answer or do assignments, for
this fear of failure, and fail because of it. The email had been
right: there’s not a chance that students will have time to spare.
Causal relationships are unfathomable to them. Concepts which would
have been mastered in elementary elude these adult pupils.
They can neither speak nor write. Their
writing is abysmally incoherent jumbles of synonyms and bizarre
statements. In reference to Stalin’s Berlin blockade:
“This act is rather bold, as Stalin
did not consult the US and the Great Britain, showing great disregard
which spiked unhappiness within them, especially for the US.”
Whatever that means.
So I have come to conclude that the
students here aren’t any good at all. They can’t think. Forget
test results and test-taking skills: they can’t express themselves
or form original ideas. The latter is especially worrisome. Over half
of the first essays I marked were blatantly plagiarized. Word for
word, from obvious sources which we had given them, they struggled to
string together their paragraphs. I had warned against this, and
marking it accordingly was, to my surprise, reprimanded:
“While there are concerns with
‘plagiarism’, we need to think about what is our definition of
it. I agree with [name] and we should all be aware that
we do not penalise students for content taken from the lecture notes.
This is not a university where it's the students' job to write
original research essays. The aim in this institution is to learn
content and analysis for application at the 'A' levels. Therefore, we
will adhere to this understanding and we do not award
zero for supposed ‘plagiarism’, as already reflected in the
standardized scripts.”
I have yet to hear an argument for the
benefits of plagiarism, but, as it was, I was not allowed to mark
papers with a zero for plagiarizing their ideas. By copying out the
lecture notes students would be awarded normal scores. It was total
academic nonsense.
Now, full circle, I have arrived at my
original understanding. The Singapore education system is inherently
non-academic. That is, it does not desire nor provide, those skills
which other countries may value, focusing instead on international
rankings. Critical thought, expression, creativity: these are
actively avoided. It doesn’t matter if you plagiarize or can’t do
basic mental tasks that we might expect from ten year olds – they
are only here to take a very long prep course for the next round of
life-determining exams.
There are no arts. The Arts Department
consists of History, Geography, and Economics. Extra-curricular
activities are only engaged in for the chance for trophies. None
exist which are non-competitive. The only point of schooling is to
get a good job – almost no degrees are offered in non-business
careers at the university level. Many times I’ve been told that the
whole system is designed to meet Singapore’s economic needs.
Singaporeans, generally, have a very
defensive view of their economy. Having a high standard of living and
being generally well-ranked, they see the trade-off of civil society
as an acceptable loss, including free speech and education. An MP
publicly stated that Singaporeans shouldn’t dwell on their free
speech score this year – ranked proximate to Iraq and Somalia –
but should focus on their economic gains. Their Prime Minister is the
highest paid politician in the world, and bonuses were recently given
to the cabinet.
But even the economic success is a
prime example of double-speak. Free market capitalism is very
restricted in obvious areas: communications, for example. Temasek
Holdings, which controls most of the country’s telecommunications,
media, technology, and much more, is controlled by CEO Ho Ching: the
wife of the Prime Minister. It is owned outright by the Ministry of
Finance.
Nepotism it is and remains. It makes
the following all the more unseemly, taken from AFP, March 24th,
2010:
“The New York Times Company has
agreed to pay 160,000 Singapore dollars (114,000 US) in damages to
Singapore's leaders over an article about political dynasties, the
leaders' lawyer said Thursday.
The newspaper's global edition, the
International Herald Tribune (IHT), had printed an apology Wednesday
over the article.
It said the piece may have implied that
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, the son of the city state's founding
father Lee Kuan Yew, did not get his job on merit.”
So why on earth would anyone expect, in
such a corrupt, non-democratic (according to the World Freedom Index)
society that critical-thinking would be valued? It’s all about the
test, and unless this year’s election brings some surprises, will
continue to be for the foreseeable future. I began thinking I should
have gone to Finland.
* * *
“The mission of the Singapore
Education Service is to provide our children with a balanced and
well-rounded education, develop them to their full potential, and
nurture them into good citizens, conscious of their responsibilities
to family, society and country.”
“Our vision for meeting the
challenges of the future can be summed up as Thinking Schools,
Learning Nation - a vision for Singapore to become a nation of
thinking and committed citizens capable of contributing towards
Singapore’s continued growth and prosperity. Our education system
seeks to help our students to become creative thinkers, life-long
learners and leaders of change.”
The mission statement and
vision of the Ministry of Education
* * *
Wednesday afternoon my five comedians
and I would make fun of each other. It was at first daunting to them
to take the piss out of a teacher. I knew I was making progress when
one of them, doing a scene with me, kicked a soccer ball into my
groin and began beating me on the ground.
The students roared with laughter as my
face contorted and my assaulter replied pitilessly to my entreaties.
Schadenfreude, I suppose.
Later, as the father of a precocious
physics genius I got an ovation for being able to make jokes about
quantum theory. (“Let’s play Schrödinger’s box! You’ll be
the cat.”)
I had been told that improvisation
would be very hard to teach. Most students, I was warned, were too
frightened of making a mistake, and not bold enough. Instead I vetted
over fifty eager applicants, taking the crème a la crème to
perform. Singaporean students were fine with comedy improv – they
took to it voraciously, and were genuinely funny. They had just never
been given the opportunity or medium through which to express their
talents.
2011 will mark the first election since
the ‘Web 2.0’ revolution. Even the rag newspapers, like the
Straits Times, a mouthpiece for the regime’s politics, have their
online forums full of disparaging remarks. When the Deputy Prime
Minister said Singaporeans should be wary of the opposition and
“scrutinise” their ideals the three highest ranking comments
were:
“A shining example of word twisting &
fear mongering” followed by four bullets of information, singular
to Singapore, of why the regime was not achieving, ending with “one
should first explain and put his house in order before embarking to
find faults in others”
“That's very strange for Wong to ask
people to 'drill down to the details' when they don't expect it of
himself or his party. Remember the Mas Selamat 'incident' and the
Temasek and GIC huge billion $ loss of our national reserves or the
toxic investment debacle or the failure of LHL to absent himself for
weeks post Selamat's escape? Now, where are the drilling down and the
details?
One can only be as credible as one's own example. Do not expect from others when you refused to expect of yourself. “
One can only be as credible as one's own example. Do not expect from others when you refused to expect of yourself. “
and
“scrutinise mas selamat escape.”
Minister Wong was responsible for the
bungling of the Mas Selemat escape – when Singapore’s resident
terrorist escaped custody – twice – and was handed over by
Indonesian and Malaysian authorities.
This sort of opposition speak is new.
Pre-internet censorship works much better than post-internet
censorship. Indeed the bureaucratic and often nonsensical Media
Development Authority, which controls and censors the media, has
almost no presence online. For students who were ten when YouTube and
Facebook became global, and who have had email since they were in
primary, it will be interesting to see how, now that they’re 18,
the famed Singaporean conservatism in the mandatory elections. It has
the regime plenty scared, though, and they are trying to stack the
cards in their favor before the election by all means short of
outright rigging by redistricting opposition strongholds, for
example.
Working with my comedians I have mixed
feelings. They are witty, liberal, and rebellious. But in the
classroom I know they don’t have the skills we’d desire for a
democratic society. Paternalism has left them stunted, and weak. My
hope is that by encouraging what had not been done before – such as
having students make fun of taboos – they will develop the skills
that their schooling does not provide. I’m starting small, but
hopefully my persistence will become infectious and have consequences
later.
