Wind In My Head: Results fever
Wind In My Head
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Results fever
Once again, the day's come and gone without much hullabaloo. Well, I think there was some, but I think it was overrated. What I'm talking about here is the GCE A Level results, one of the milestones of a typical Singaporean student, one of the little things that they won't have much use for ten years from now.And as always, there were some that deserved what they got and there were some that didn't. Sometimes it's fair and sometimes it isn't. What does bug me is that such a great deal is made out of it. Yes, it's an important exam but sometimes I wonder if we've blown it out of proportion and have become sucked up in this chase for the elusive perfect grade. The days running up to it, we were running ourselves haggard preparing press stories that would basically reflect on our students and the school's effort in a good way. On the day itself, there was the senseless and childish need to compare pass rates and distinction rates with other institutions, almost to the point where it felt like we were taunting the institutions that did not perform as well.
It seems like it is one day when we all revert to children and our childish competitive desires to outdo one another shine at its brightest. If we looked at it very objectively, how is blowing our own trumpet (or whatever that phrase is) and comparing numbers different from the child who boasts very loudly that she's got the best and most expensive sticker book around and it's filled with the prettiest and the most number of stickers?
And when we end up faced with a comparison that seems unfavourable from our point of view, we say snide things, we're bitter, we become bitchy rather than magnanimous. I'm guilty of it too. I just wish it didn't have to be this way. And I suspect if we didn't, as a society, made such a big deal out of it, our kids wouldn't as well. That would mean, they wouldn't think that the world around them has crumbled if in the event that they did not get that perfect score that they were expecting.
Technorati Tags: Singapore, GCE A Level results
Ondine tossed this thought in at 17:11
2 thoughts...
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At 6:25 pm
louist said... While I would agree that for the majority of the students, it wouldn't really matter if some of their scores slipped a little, there are some (eg. those gunning for medicine, law, scholarships, etc) where the difference is significant indeed... thereby affecting their future, ten years from now.
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At 11:43 am
Wei Shi said...
Yep... I feel that all the competition adds excessive pressure on everybody, esp the students...