Recently there was a suggestion from the political leaders to introduce political education to Singapore schools. Law Minister K. Shanmugam proposed that schools teach comparative political systems in the hope improving the Government’s effectiveness in reaching out to younger Singaporeans. The goal is that Singaporeans be better informed about their political choices.

I will not discuss what others have already pointed out or alluded to by others like the issue of “objectiveness” in such an undertaking (see for example here and here). Nor will I discuss whether it is a new thing to introduce political education in schools in Singapore. It has been done for years. I will instead suggest an alternative to political education in schools.

What is most needed for citizens of Singapore to be “better informed about their political choices” is to teach them to think. Yes, I know we have the grand “Thinking Schools, Learning Nation” (TSLN) slogan dished out by the Ministry of Education (MOE) of Singapore which runs most of the schools in Singapore. Yes, I know the MOE has also rolled out thinking skills programs in the past and invited thinking skills gurus from all over. But ask any parent or student or teacher in Singapore, and they will tell you teaching thinking skills is not at the forefront of education in Singapore despite all all the hype and international conferences on thinking organized by MOE. It is still Trivial Pursuit-style written examinations that is central to the education system currently.

I am calling for a renewed effort to teach thinking seriously in schools. I am calling for the thinking agenda to be at the forefront of all educational endeavor in Singapore schools. I am calling for the teaching of thinking to be done not just because there are “thinking skills questions” in the high-stakes examination papers. I am calling for a change in the assessment of learning in Singapore schools to reflect this emphasis on thinking.

You can only get people who can make informed choices only when you have produced students who can think and reason. It is only when students are seriously taught to be inculcated with good habits of mind that they will become good decision makers. It is when they can display curiosity, and an investigative mind.  It is when they can do systems analysis. It is when students can check assumptions, do deductive and inductive reasoning, classify, compare, analyze for errors and analyze for multiple perspectives that they can be making good decisions about their lives, including decisions about politics.

This are the skills that Singapore students need to be able to do well. These are the skills that will help them not only make better informed political decisions but also in other spheres of their lives. Teaching political education is a only a half-baked solution and invites cynicism about its very existence.

“The biggest challenge I see is in time constraint – we need time to build rapport and we also need time to ensure that the students do well.” ~ Daniel Tan, primary school teacher, Singapore quoted in the Straits Times, January 20, 2010.

The above quotation is the response of a teacher in Singapore in response to a lecture by two American psychologists at the National Institute of Education (NIE) in Singapore. The two psychologists, Professors Edward Deci and Richard Ryan from the University of Rochester had delivered a lecture at the NIE on their findings in a 20-year period study on nurturing motivated learners and the effects of testing which had covered covering 15 countries.

No surprise that they recommended that students be given autonomy to decide how and what to learn. They also recommended that teachers spend less time on preparing students for tests. They also recommended that teachers build strong rapport with students. So this is what the research says. I will also add that this is not new.

I find the reaction to the findings by the teacher that I have quoted above interesting. He identified time constraint as “the biggest challenge.” My question is why is there a time constraint? Why is studying tied to time? He said that time is needed “to ensure that the students do well.”

Do well in what? The learning and deep understanding of concepts? Surely not as that should not be limited by a time cap. So where did that time constraint come from. Singaporeans will know he was probably referring to the high stakes examinations that Singapore students need to sit for in the course of their student life in Singapore schools.

What has been said at the lecture is nothing new to the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Singapore. I am certain they know that. But why bother with learning from research (and the MOE has been pushing for research-based teaching) when it is continually ignored in favor of administrative convenience? High stakes examinations are an administrative convenience rather than a tool to assist teaching and learning.

The remark also points to the MOE’s continuing love affair with high stakes examinations despite all the evidence to the contrary about the effects of such an approach in schools. When will “doing well” in school refer to a deep understanding of concepts instead of being well-drilled to examinations like the PSLE, GCE O and A levels?

At the end of the day, the remark suggests that all teachers in Singapore know that all that really matters in Singapore schools are the results of these high stakes assessments. All else for the MOE is just a PR exercise for the gullible, both local and foreign.

“Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts; nothing else will ever be of any service to them.”

Mr. Gradgrind

From Charles Dickens’ Hard Times

Does this sound familiar to you? Many schools all over the world have as their educational philosophy something similar to that of Mr Gradgrind’s. The sad thing is that when Dickens wrote that it was for an age long gone, namely, the Industrial Revolution.

Yet such a view about what schooling should be all about is still very much prevalent, even in a country like Singapore, which is often lauded for its “good” education system. The emphasis is on stuffing the brain. Just fill the brain with facts. The teachers’ job is to fill the brains with facts, or more accurately, as David Perkins has pointed out, with “factlets” or disparate bits of information with little relevance except for the great Trivial Pursuit game that most high stakes examinations are.

Never mind if the facts make little sense to the students. What is important is that they pass their examinations which for many is just a ticket to a place in a university or a job. For many, they will never see the relevance of the thousands of bits of information that they have learned in school. Makes one wonder if all that learning has been a monumental waste of time and money?