Singapore to rethink high-stakes math tests
qz.com
qz.com
I suspect part of this comes from (relatively) uneducated parents (recall that 50~60 years ago China was in the middle of a cultural revolution and the Singapore of 1960/70 would be barely recognisable when compared to today's).
But I also wonder how much of this is baked into the culture through the language: character-based languages require a great deal more rote learning than others, and especially for children --who have no conceptual grasp of syntax / grammar-- memorisation is probably the most effective way of teaching it. It would then naturally follow to expand on that learning style on other disciplines...
Do take note though that in both Singapore's and India's case the system of examinations has been based on the British colonial system NOT something that was imbibed into asian culture.
Although the Chinese had civil service exams since ancient times, by the early 1900s there were more ways to make it as a rich businessman rather than study for the civil service examinations.
Some pupils of Chinese descent study Chinese, but that certainly doesn't apply to all Singaporeans.
Honestly, not being able to understand/speak singlish is probably a larger barrier to fitting in than not speaking mandarin.
No, the same thing happens in India.
Therefore, I agree with the parent comment that language may not be the cause of the learning style here.
Don't deny that, and it's definitely closer on the spectrum to Western-style education, but the high volume and high stress environment (mentioned in the article) is more reminiscent of that in China. I have plenty of friends who resented the Singaporean system and were failed by the high intensity grades-focused education system. Credit to the Singaporean government for acknowledging and searching for a solution.
My original post was less of a judgement and more exploring the origins of the culture. Perhaps its as simple as a projection of the nations' socioeconomic aspirations...
> children --who have no conceptual grasp of syntax / grammar--
Do you speak Chinese? I doubt you know what you are talking about, because IMHO complex semantics are hardly possible without syntax. If you imply that Chinese are in general incapable of ideas as complex as American's, only because of the language, that would be perceived as a slur. Can you substantiate your claim?
> memorisation is probably the most effective way of teaching it
as evident by the myriads of data structures developed to memorize data, memory is syntactic and by that I mean ordered.
I speak Chinese and have studied Japanese and Korean. As another poster mentioned - I was more referring to the fact that it is uncommon to find children consciously learning explicit syntax and grammar on a technical level. How many 5-10 year olds do you know who consciously are aware of the concept of declination, conjugation or subjunctive forms beyond using them?
>If you imply that Chinese are in general incapable of ideas as complex as American's, only because of the language, that would be perceived as a slur. Can you substantiate your claim? This was not a slur on children from various nations. My observations are not judgemental --in case the language suggested so-- and my understanding of their underpinning causes are largely socioeconomic: it cannot be argued that most Western countries have had a great head start over Asia in the past 50-100 years and if anything, Asia should be lauded for the incredible catch-up they've achieved in such a short time-frame.
As an aside, I've been educated in 8 languages and have had at least 20 language teachers. In East-Asian languages rote-learning and pattern matching were encouraged for much longer than in other languages. For example, copying characters (pure rote learning) is encouraged until a far later stage in language proficiency than alphabet-based languages (where learning to spell has been acquired).
EDIT: As another example, I also recall Chinese-nationals preparing for SATs literally sitting down with a dictionary and learning 300 (or was it 3000 :S) words a day. This doesn't strike me as particularly efficient (I could be wrong, maybe they came up with useful games to memorise the words) and yet the practice was pretty commonplace.
Whether this is a cultural phenomenon or due to the nature of the language is what I can't ascertain; it feels a bit chicken-egg to me.
It could be that my personal experiences are completely unrepresentative, but I'm pretty confident that this is not the case.
> I speak Chinese
oops, I notice now the question was insinuating and against the guide lines. I had fair chances, though :)
> For example, copying characters (pure rote learning) is encouraged until a far later stage in language proficiency than alphabet-based languages (where learning to spell has been acquired).
I read that before and I suppose the Korean switch to the Hangeul alphabet for example was an improvement.
I do have to look up words for English and even in my native language German to really not say one thing when I mean another. Even though this is common place, as idioms develop and meaning changes, we tend to understand meaning based on not only the grammar, but also the meta syntax, the composition of terms into text. And I was really curious whether lack of syntax, which I suppose is exagerated and placative, would thus still exist on the meta level.
From my own experience, it makes sense to make less of the tests. I liked tests, and I did math contests, but a lot of people don't like it. And when you look at work, you rarely have an occasion where it's just about knowing something and doing a calculation, which is what they do in high school maths. The times I've done math at work it's been something like this:
- We have some option model that needs to be implemented
- The model turns out to require a function that we don't have in the standard lib (Bessel function)
- There's a book with an implementation in C
- There's a wikipedia page that we'll scan to make sure there's no gremlins
- We then start to write the implementation in our own lib
- We do some tests to make sure the number that comes out of the Bessel function is correct
- We do some tests to see that the option model comes out with the right number
None of that workflow is anything like in school, where you'd take some function, apply some trig relations, apply the list of integration rules, and plug in the starting value. Without a book.
Lets take learning off of strict academics for a second. Imagine playing a guitar, the guitar method of just reading some guitar books and listening to music, will definitely work for motivated students, and it is a necessary at some point to reach this independent learning level. The most common reason why most guitar students don't progress is because they don't do the necessary boring ass drills, scales, arpeggios, chord movements, slurs etc. This is ok with guitar, it fine to just lose the 75% of students who really want to learn the guitar, and have some motivation, but dont have the ingrained motivation to do 20 minutes of pentatonic scales a day for 6 weeks. However it is not ok with practical math, its not ok to just lose the 75% of students who don't have the ingrained motivation to memorize the times tables. rote memorization and practice is important in education for most students.
The purpose of government-provided education should be to prepare its students to become citizens.
As a side benefit, those students are also employable, because the gamut of skills that you need as a citizen overlaps heavily with what you need to succeed, either as an employee, or as an entrepreneur: critical thinking, rhetoric, art, logic, practical mathematics, writing and communication, collaboration, physical fitness, maintenance of health and wellness, self-directed learning, a knowledge of history and politics, knowledge of both the sciences and how to apply the scientific method, and probably more than a few more things that I have overlooked.
American high schools teach few of these. Sure, you are required to learn "science", but I don't recall my school ever forcing us to go through the process of creating a theory, designing an experiment to attempt to falsify our theory, and running through the experimental process.
Same goes for critical thinking -- arguing against the teacher's viewpoint is strongly discouraged. You are only allowed to color within the lines.
Physical fitness classes are largely a joke, mostly because they don't cater to things that might be interesting to people that prefer individual sports. I would have loved if my school offered Karate, climbing, or even just hiking as physical fitness courses.
We should also take a page from Japan, and make students responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of their schools, under supervision, of course.
I doubt any of this could be done in public schools at this stage, though -- the liabilities are too great, and there are too many special interests that make a large amount of money off of the current system.
I think one of the core issues with modern education is trying to teach children complex and specific concepts in the first place. Their brains are not yet developed, their motivation is nil, and there's not enough time. It benefits those with higher base intelligence for the most part. Anything they do understand is quickly forgotten. The same concepts are so much easier to understand 10 years later, and there's a higher chance that they would be grounded in something they actually care about at that point as opposed to trying to explain to a 13 year old why Shakespeare is interesting.
Of course, that would require a fundamental restructuring of society, and more push towards people learning in their 20's and 30's and beyond. But I think it's extremely silly to devote the first 1/5 of one's projected life expectancy to heavy learning, at a point where they barely understand anything, and their motivations are not their own, and then almost completely drop it for the other 4/5 where you just work, work, work. And the first 20 years are probably more important for the rest of your life than anything you do afterwards. The focus on employment is part of an issue. The problem isn't with schools producing employable people. The problem is the concept of employability itself and what it does to society. Why are we trying to make schools more aligned with something that's a bigger problem in itself? What a waste.
School should focus on learning how to learn, how to discern information, where to find information, etc., and core skills that are going to be relevant to effectively everyone - such as some that you mentioned, like health and wellness, and I'd add cleaning and cooking to the list and things like being considerate towards other people.
What we have at the moment is the industrial school. You mass produce education just like widgets. A lot of people fall through the gaps, because they're not widgets, they're people.
There is hope though. MOOCs and such things are cheap enough at least up to the point where you need a PhD advisor. There's also a rich world of free advice on places like stackexchange.
An example of how schools shape social development is redirected aggression, also known as bullying. Unable to get out of an uncomfortable environment, kids instead direct their aggression towards other kids.