Teaching Independence
Recently I came across an article narrating the difference a foreign business venture received in China and in Singapore. In China, they were flooded with various offers, proposals or contacts of SMEs ranging from suppliers, partners, logistics and so on. While in Singapore, a perplexing silence made them wonder if the local SMEs were waiting for an invitation. In my view, the SMEs were waiting for the Government to organise a convention or any event to help the businesses meet.
Why the lack of initiatives? We have grown up overly dependent on the Government in many aspects. But isn’t it incorporated in the syllabus the elements of thinking, acting or learning independently? From my experience, they are much emphasised in almost everywhere.
This brings me to my point. I believe the best way to teach independence, is not to teach. At the same time, relax the tight arrangement of workloads1 so that those who wish to initiate a business venture, a discussion group on any subjects, an extra-curricular activity, a research, or even just to think, do not have to make a hard choice whether to pursue their interests at the expense of grades. Obviously, on this topic, the examinations are not really valid i.e. what we are tested on is not what the papers are intended to test. The papers can be reliable, meaning they consistently rate the students on something else which I do not bother to find out, but not the quality of being independent.
I very much admire the atmosphere in Cambridge during Bertrand Russell’s time (1890 - 1894). In his essay "My Mental Development",
I found a group of contemporaries, who were able, rather earnest, hardworking, but interested in many things outside their academic work - poetry, philosophy, politics, ethics, indeed the whole world of mental adventure. We used to stay up discussing till very late on Saturday nights, meet for a late breakfast on Sunday, and then go for an all-day walk.
I had the luxury of this experience a bit during my secondary school in Malaysia. The schedule was quite lax then. We had at our disposal ample time for long discussions, immersing ourselves in the libraries and bookshops, and long walk. Though back then, we were rather confined only to the world of physics and mathematics, our progress was tremendous. I don’t see this possibility in Singapore universities now. It appears that, by packing our timetables even in the holidays2, they do not intend to encourage this culture.
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Note here that what we have to do in term times are already tightly arranged by the schools.
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The bulk of my engineering friends cannot make it home in this holiday because of a project in which they need to commit their time in labs every working day. No doubt they need to discuss and design solutions to some problems. But the distinction between this and what I am talking about is a clear one. They are discussing something initiated by the school, including the problems they are looking into.
May 30th, 2005 at 2:05 pm
Well said, indeed. I have often felt that nothing stimulates the creative urge better than simple, mind-numbing boredom.
But boredom is rather different from tedium.
Very often, when people complain of being ‘bored’, they do not mean that there is a lack of tasks to occupy themselves with - rather, that they are swamped with so many that there is no room to indulge in the one or two activities that they truly enjoy.
In particular, it is common for students to feel bored in the run-up to exams, but not immediately after.
Before - they feel compelled to direct their energies towards a task that may be pleasurable at first, but is unlikely to remain so for the whole time.
After - they are relatively free to explore the various possibilities that they have dreamed up while waiting for the exams to end.
The danger is if it never seems to end - if there is one assessment after another, whether in the form of a written test, a school project, or a points-driven school activity.
If a student feels that he or she is constantly struggling to clear a never-ending series of hurdles, then it soon becomes tedious, or ‘boring’.
Interest of any sort - intellectual or emotional - dies a quick death in the face of tedium.
To be bored in the true sense of the word, one must have fewer obligations than necessary to fill the time at one’s disposal.
When these obligations are fulfilled, the mind can then kick in to suggest ways of spending the remaining time.
In my experience, the mind is surprisingly good at this, given half the chance.
But first, it has to be given a chance.
Less work, and more time to chill, is what students could do with.
Initiatives to fill students’ schedules with ‘productive’ and ‘challenging’ tasks to keep them engaged in ‘healthy activities’ are worthy in their aim, but there is such a thing as too much.
The line between laudable and misguided is crossed when students lose interest in the face of the wealth of opportunities that are presented to them.
And the appropriate response to this is not to label them ingrates, but to recognise that they have a need for some ‘me-time’, which may not seem as worthy as learning how to play a musical instrument or to speak a foreign language, but is no less crucial to their development into healthy adults.
The sooner we recognise that, the better.
June 4th, 2005 at 9:53 am
A brilliant remark.
It reminds me of a Milton Friedmann’s phrase “The road to hell is filled with good intentions”, though the context is not exactly the same in this case.
By stuffing up students’ time with “good-intentioned” activities, it actually achieves less. It can be likened to have shot past the maximum point in the diminishing return phenomena.
When never-ending task instructions fill a student’s mind, the deprivation of even a chance of being bored also deprives him a chance to self-learn (too occupied to learn how to learn on his own) - a main purpose of education, as passionately acclaimed by Jia-Ee. Unless, the student is prepared to make some trade-offs.
October 28th, 2006 at 3:58 am
I am a teacher . The only thing i know is,there are so many unuseful lesson for our kids to learn.
I dunno how about other country,but in Indonesia,kids have to learnt so many unecessary lesson.
We were students.Now,if we look back,we’ll find that we’ve wasting so much time for studying something unuseful for our life.
Why we hav to push our kids to learn wat they’re not interested with? Why don’t just let them focus on a subject or a thing that they interested in?
Parents always said,” Come on,pay attention on ur teacher,u will regret it someday in ur future if you missed the lesson.”
But,actually,i feel regret now because my parents always push me to study math,eventhough i never like it. N now,as a mandarin teacher,i never hav an opportunity to used Calculus,n bla bla bla….
N the most weird is,i never study Mandarin while i was a kid.But i learnt it autodidact while i was in High School,n on that time,i just realised that i am fond of it. I enjoyed it. And i’ve got a scholarship for it.
So,why just not let the kids study wat they liked and just let them study wat really useful?
But of course,Kids are kids.Parents always have their own opinion about their kids’future.
Although not all of parents’ decision made for kids r right,but of course the decision’s made for the sake of their children.