Insight
This quote from Camille Paglia, writer and feminist supremo, got me thinking about the youth in Malaysia and our own education system:
"There's something dangerously solipsistic about our young people. They know less and less about the world around them. They know less and less about history.
Of course, that's my generation's influence: we wanted to give them an education that seemed relevant to their lives, but the end-result is that their education is specious and empty.
Everything harsh has been removed from their education, because we haven't wanted to upset them.
But I say, let education give them the horrors, so that they don't have to get them from video games,....Destruction is an important theme of human experience, and they don't get it from their education."
Have our parents' generation made the same mistake with ours? And will we be making the same mistake with our next generation - by sweeping difficult historical issues, under the carpet? And by doing so, inadvertantly condemning the future of the next generation, as a nation?
Nations are not just built on mutual agreement, goodwill and comfort. Great nations are sometimes born of poverty, conflicted idelogies, disagreements, civil and world wars, factions, tragedies, death and constant adaptation to a changing world. Witness Japan, Germany, India and China.
To appreciate the meaning and value of progress - one needs to understand its absence and the steps of history, pain and price for that progress, that many have paid before us - for the sake of their beliefs and for the sake of our future.
We need to understand why the generation of our elders, did what they did for us. And then, we have to understand, what we have to do, for our forebears to prosper. Time and circumstances are not static and neither should our thinking be.
Let the young ask the difficult and sensitive questions. They need to understand, for the sake of our future survival. The worst curse that you can give this new generation, competing in a globalized world - is to restrict their thinking within the boxed parameters of past sensitivities.
Food for thought.
"There's something dangerously solipsistic about our young people. They know less and less about the world around them. They know less and less about history.
Of course, that's my generation's influence: we wanted to give them an education that seemed relevant to their lives, but the end-result is that their education is specious and empty.
Everything harsh has been removed from their education, because we haven't wanted to upset them.
But I say, let education give them the horrors, so that they don't have to get them from video games,....Destruction is an important theme of human experience, and they don't get it from their education."
Have our parents' generation made the same mistake with ours? And will we be making the same mistake with our next generation - by sweeping difficult historical issues, under the carpet? And by doing so, inadvertantly condemning the future of the next generation, as a nation?
Nations are not just built on mutual agreement, goodwill and comfort. Great nations are sometimes born of poverty, conflicted idelogies, disagreements, civil and world wars, factions, tragedies, death and constant adaptation to a changing world. Witness Japan, Germany, India and China.
To appreciate the meaning and value of progress - one needs to understand its absence and the steps of history, pain and price for that progress, that many have paid before us - for the sake of their beliefs and for the sake of our future.
We need to understand why the generation of our elders, did what they did for us. And then, we have to understand, what we have to do, for our forebears to prosper. Time and circumstances are not static and neither should our thinking be.
Let the young ask the difficult and sensitive questions. They need to understand, for the sake of our future survival. The worst curse that you can give this new generation, competing in a globalized world - is to restrict their thinking within the boxed parameters of past sensitivities.
Food for thought.
posted by Stingrayz | 6:47 AM
5 Comments:
That explains why an ex- Minister of Education sends his child to ISKL. Same reason why the Grandaughters of Prime Ministers go to Sri Chempaka. Guess our education system is just not good enough for these children but would have to be enough for mine.
You have a point there, in letting the young ask. We, in turn, should be prepared to answer the difficult and sensitive questions as accurately as possible, with facts and not just emotions / speculations / biased one-sided views.
Our education system has a big role to play to ensure that the mistakes are not repeated. But the foundation - the system itself - needs a major revamping, IMHO. I am not sure whether the reported developments and increase in students' achievements in exams are true reflections of the needed mentality revamp in the system, if any....
ps: have a good long break! ;)
Noni:
Yes, affordability of good education is a factor and just like everything else, the wealthy and privileged do strive for an advantage in education.
Yes, our education system needs a change.
But the needed change will take much time and not come about without parents playing their part in the schooling system and in the "informal" education of children via parents.
In fact, the latter may be more important than the former, in creating a human being with a high EQ, and not just a high IQ.
Parents raise children and I submit, are still THE most important factor in raising well-rounded, thinking children.
The problem is: how many families actually appreciate the value of learning, constructive debate and action, real world exposure and constant questioning for improvement?
Voice:
Our system has never really measured (the required) mentality revamp. They are still very much focused on scholastic achievements.
Even the focus on sports has diluted over the years.
But given that the best brains in this country, are not attracted to teach and we have lacked the political will to teach history in a "dynamic" and questioning way - parents may have to do a lot more to compensate.
I've always felt that change is a 2-generation process, in Malaysia. One generation has to begin the process and another, to fully embody and live that change.
For them to have the freedom and environment of a questioning mindset, we have to begin asking a few hard questions, ourselves.
And beginning the collective societal process of searching for the answers, too.
You have a good break too, Voice! :)
In my younger, more impressionable days, almost everybody I knew thought that I'd make a good lawyer and I believed them. Now that I'm older... all I want to do is to teach... I happen to like teaching very much. Now those same people who thought I should be a lawyer think that I am wastng, talents and intelligence. Oh well... they all can go fly kites...
Cikgu Noni:
Teaching is a calling and a noble profession and you have to like it, to be good at it. Thank God for the likes of you. :)
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