In my last post I mentioned that the Ministry of Education (MOE) of Singapore has set up a mock classroom at Raffles Place as part of its recruitment drive to get more people to join the teaching profession. I also said that the layout of the mock classroom with its neat rows of tables and chairs indicates the kind of activities that take place in the classroom. Any serious educator will know that such classrooms represents a certain paradigm that the owner of such a classroom has about what schooling ought to be. Thousands of Singaporeans have gone through such an environment, myself included. We all know that such a classroom layout typify a schooling environment in Singapore where the teacher does most of the talking while the students are expected to sit quietly and give their attention to what is said by the teachers.

While the MOE is lauding itself with the latest TIMSS release, the reality is that the Singapore education system, the Singapore school and the Singapore school principals and teachers have only one thing in mind; the examinations. Schooling in Singapore is, even after acknowledging the diverse views about what is education, not about education. It is about or examination or test preparation.

 

The static layout of the Raffles Place classroom suggest a uni-directional approach to teaching. Very old-fashioned and certainly mostly irrelevant in this day and age. It is irrelevant on many counts. John Dewey and Marshall McLuhan (click on the book cover on the left if you want to learn more about McLuhan’s ideas) has already argued that what students are allowed to do, that is what they will learned. If all they get to do most of the times is to try and sit quietly and intently, then all they learn is to sit quietly and intently, and also total obedience and deference to authority.

The neat rows with each chair and desk separated by a space also implies that little team work or co-operative learning is done in the Singapore classroom. This is again easily proven if you ask any Singapore student of today or yesteryear about what goes on in the classroom. How do we expect to produce team workers or even a harmonious society if everyone sits in his little island?

Instead, what we will produce are people who will just await instructions about what they ought to do and how they ought to do it. Forget about cultivating the spirit of inquiry. Even in Science they do not teach scientific inquiry, they teach FACTS! Forget about independent learning too. It does not take place. The only form of independent learning valued is the mugging that one does on your own to ace the examinations. We will produce great muggers willing to work very late. This parallel is seen at the work place where workers in Singapore stay up till very late but showing little in the way of productivity. The Raffles Place classroom will produce people with little initiative. They will expect to be told of the only way of doing things, just as there is one way to answer the questions in the examinations in school.

Worse, as I have quoted from Schmoker in my last post, the continuation of this paradigm of schooling as promoted by the MOE at Raffles Place, will hinder quality teaching and learning from taking place. Teachers and schools will see no need to change their paradigm to fit the present world. The methods of yore still works fine because our students still are among the best in the world based on their performance in international examination scores and wonderful international surveys like TIMSS. We have come to believe our own delusions.

Yesterday, the Singapore paper, the Straits Times carried a report on the newly released Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). The heading says, “Singapore students still top in science”. Singapore is no longer tops in Math as it has lost out to Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea.Singapore’s Math scores did improve over the last TIMSS but there were others who did better. The MOE has also indulged in another round of self-congratulations with this newly released TIMSS results.

What is interesting about the report is that it is found on page 10 of the Home section, which is the second section, of the Straits Times. One wonders why the report was found there. For those new to TIMSS and what it means to Singapore, do a quick search on my site to see how important TIMSS is to Singapore’s image as an education hub. For those who do not want to do any additional browsing, let’s just say that the placings and figures given by TIMSS concerning Singapore’s students has been used by the Singapore government and the MOE (and other foreign observers) as almost an indispensable proof of Singapore’s wonderful education system.

The second interesting thing is that on the same day I also received my copy of the “Educational Leadership” from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Planning (ASCD). This particular edition of Educational Leadership was focused on the use of data to assess performance in schools. One article by Frederick M. Hess is entitled “The New Stupid” where he highlighted how even in schools that have adopted a data-driven approach, they are still barking up the wrong tree. He wrote:

Today’s enthusiastic embrace of data has waltzed us directly from a petulant resistance to performance measures to a reflexive and unsophisticated reliance on a few simple metrics – namely, graduation rates, expenditures, and reading and math test scores of students in grades 3 to 8. The result has been a nifty pirouette from one troubling mind-set to another; with nary a misstep, we have pivoted from the “old stupid” to the “new stupid”.

In another article in the same edition of Educational Leadership, Mike Schmoker wrote in “Measuring What Matters” that:

In many schools, it (data-based reform) has morphed into an unintended obstacle to both effective instruction and intellectually rich, forward-looking education.

For data-driven instruction to transform schooling – which it can – it must serve a master different from rigid accountability formulas. It must aim to help students from all  backgrounds attain an authentic 21st-century education.

As Schmoker highlighted it therefore becomes important to decide first of all what is meant by a 21st-century education. Schmoker pointed out that there is a general consensus that a 21st-century education would have students being able to demonstrate critical thinking and problem-solving. Students should “acquire an ability to argue, analyze others’ arguments, conduct research, and acquire such “habits of mind” as the ability to invent or synthesize information.” It also calls for a new literacy that includes not only the ability to read and write but also make effective presentations. Schmoker then raises the question whether the data that that has been collected by schools promote 21st-century teaching and learning?

Schmoker has drawn the conclusion that in general schools and even whole states in the US “could make steady gains on standardized tests without offering students intellectually challenging tasks.” Schmoker contended that it was test-prep activities that was responsible for much of the increase in test scores, not authentic and intellectually challenging tasks. Schmoker described how classrooms in schools have scenes for:

…ill-devised lessons, aimless group activities, and busy work predominated. Worksheets were everywhere…There was almost no emphasis on critical thinking, problem-solving, reading, discussion, or writing. Ironically, faculties showed little interest in improving instruction because each of these schools enjoyed exceptional test scores, and some had received their respective state’s highest ratings for academic achievement. The data itself created a ceiling on instructional improvement.

While all that I have quoted are from the American experience, I think those who are familiar with Singapore and its much-vaunted education system will know that it describes Singapore’s preoccupation with examinations and also international surveys like TIMSS, that does not match the needs of the 21st-century. If one visits the MOE website, we will see speeches and policy statements that call for the schools to produce students akin to the kinds of students that Schmoker has described as products of a 21st century education system. But what does the MOE test? How does it test its students?

In the same edition of the Straits Times that reported the TIMSS results, there was a report about the MOE’s most recent attempt to recruit teachers. The report was accompanied by a photo of a mock secondary school classroom that was setup at the Raffles Place MRT Station. The picture showed a neat brand new classroom with new chairs and desks. Of course the chairs all faced the front arranged in parade ground fashion, in neat rows. The picture sums up what the MOE is doing. All that it talks about that is new, is all gloss like the new chairs, tables, and computers that it places in the schools. But from the arrangement of that mock classroom, an educator will know the kind of “learning” activities that take place in the classrooms of Singapore’s schools. From this, one can also infer as to the kind of testing that is being done in the Singapore schools. Authentic testing for 21-st century learning certainly does not take place in Singapore schools.

I cannot help feel that often foreign observers who view the Singapore education system tend to see it through rose-tinted glasses. This is not to say that there are no strong points in the Singapore education system. However, some of the examples cited by foreign observers makes me wonder if they are really seeing it for it really is.

For example, the oft-cited prowess of Singapore students in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Singapore’s 10 and 14-year old students came out tops in both Maths and Science among the 49 countries assessed. The Minister for Education, Dr Ng Eng Hen, recently said about the TIMSS results:

But more importantly, note that our lowest quartile is above the median of the world. In other words, students who are academically weaker do better in our system compared to others.

While trying hard not to belittle these results, one wonders how much of it is really due to the school system and the teachers in Singapore? It is a well-known fact that many students in Singapore go for extra tuition with private tutors. Top students go for tuition to get even better grades and weak students go for tuition to improve on their pass grades. That is Singapore’s most well-known educational secret. In fact, the government, has tacitly also encouraged the tuition industry by encouraging local \\”self-help\\” groups like Mendaki, CDAC and Sinda to organise tuition classes as perhaps their main activity to uplift the locals. With a whole army of tutors coaching both top and weak students can we honestly say that the education system in Singapore is as great as they say. This is not to mention the huge amount fo extra classes that the teachers and students have to put in schools in Singapore to drill the students on exam paper type questions. If the system is so good why is there a need for all these?

In my view, what it does suggest is that the school system alone is inadequate to even get most of our students to do well on its own. The exam-oriented curricula covers way too much for most students to absorb or do well within the given time. What the system does is not hothousing the students. What it does is to make them go through a sweat shop. There is a difference between the two. Foreigners who still think that the system is good and is responsible for the good test scores, just need to talk to parents about it. Ask them how much time students have for any other thing besides school and tuition.

What is even more scary is that some schools in neighboring countries like Indonesia, Vietnam and even China want to copy the Singapore school system without considering all these. Do parents really want a system that would mean a lot of private tuition for their children? Is this what education is all about?