Reflective journal 5

Reflective Journal 5: Reflect on education. You may choose reflect on the necessary priorities of education, how far the ideals and realities of education converge, how the problems discussed about education in US and China can be resolved. You should explicitly explain how class discussion on education in US and China have influenced/shaped your views.

The objectives and priorities of education vary with different people. From the class discussions pertaining to US and China’s education, I have come up my own list of priorities an ideal education system should have. It should cater to the needs of the economy, produce students with sound moral compass.

Firstly, in order to meet the needs of the economy, we should first identify what our economy needs. Innovation is definitely one of the most important criteria required for the economy to perform well in the globalised world today. However, I noticed a misconception that some of us may have about creativity and innovation. Creativity is the ability to think of and come up with something completely new. Innovation, on the other hand, is “a change in a product offering, service, business model or operations which meaningfully improves the experience of a large number of stakeholders”. (Carpenter, 2010) This means that innovation need not be an invention; it can be an alternative to existing products and most importantly, it must be beneficial to a large group of people. Therefore, what is necessary for innovation is not solely creativity, but also critical thinkers. Critical thinking is essential as it allows one to identify the problems existing in current products or in our daily life and this lays the foundation for innovation.

Before I go on discussing about the needs of the economy, I would like to raise a point regarding the issue as to whether China’s education is stifling innovation. I feel that it is quite biased to say that just because the education system does not produce people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs; it is a failed one that stifles innovation. Furthermore, US have been developed many years before China, which just opened up its economy in 1978. US have a huge head start compared to China and it is only natural that people like Steve Jobs come from US.  In addition, I also feel that rote memorisation has been criticised too much. It does have its merits and this brings me to my next point. For an economy to function properly, the education system also needs to equip its students with scientific and technological literacy. Even though engineers, mid-level accountants are not very much appreciated today, they are still necessary for the economy to function. What is the point of having a brilliant idea but no one capable of materialising it? Furthermore, scientific and technological literacy is also vital to sustain innovation. Without a firm foundation of knowledge, people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates would not have been who they are today.

Moving on from meeting the needs of economy, I feel that producing students who are morally upright is equally, if not more important than catering to the needs of economy. Even if a student is blessed with extraordinary talents, it doesn’t make him useful to society. We need students to have the morals and integrity to always do what is right and what is wrong so that they can become beneficial and contribute to the society. We have rampant cases about frauds and issues pertaining to the lack of morals in various places around the world, like the one about melamine milk. These people are intelligent, but they misused their gift for their own selfish desires at the expense of others’ welfare. In order to produce students with good morals, we need schools to emphasize more on moral education instead of students’ academic grades. The schools and teachers may have attempted to inculcate moral values in students, but the irony is that having good morals does not provide students with admission to college and higher education. At the end of the day, students will just choose to ignore the moral education as the message they are receiving is that getting good grades is the only way to guarantee a bright future. Therefore, in order to accomplish this, we need the cooperation of other stakeholders, including students’ parents, the media, business and corporations. These parties have great influence over the students as they are constantly around and part of their lives, hence their cooperation will definitely be required to nurture morally upright students.

Now when I think about it, there is actually quite little that schools can actually do. Apart from the usual academic subjects, there isn’t really much time left for them to promote innovation and inculcate moral values. In the case of Singapore, although there are many events and competitions held to achieve the above objectives, the opportunities are usually prioritised for those who have good academic grades. Ultimately, it is still grades that are going to be the major factor determining your future. Unless the education systems undergo a reform and prioritise innovation and moral values, schools will be compelled to focus on students’ grades before anything else.

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Reflective journal 4

Reflective Journal 4: Reflect on youth apathy. You may choose reflect on how far you deem yourself to be an apathetic youth by referring to examples from China, the United States and/or Singapore.

Speaking of youth apathy towards politics, I believe it can be defined as indifference and lack of passion towards political affairs occurring especially within the country itself.

As a Singapore youth, I personally feel that we are quite apathetic towards politics. Even though we may be following the news closely and constantly updating ourselves about the current affairs, I do not think that we are politically active. From my point of view, we seem more interested in what is happening rather than what is going to happen. We have no interest or will to participate in politics or try to dictate the future of Singapore. We are just like silent observers of a match merely sitting in front of the television and waiting for the results.

This can be attributed to many areas. Firstly, typical Singaporeans love to complain about almost everything, like the price of houses, ERP and etc. They always push the blame to the government and expect them to resolve the problems efficiently and make them satisfied. Yet at the same time, some of our parents may expect us to work in the government as the job is stable and the pay is favourable. Furthermore, the media and school encourage us to become leaders and stress that being a servant leader means to devote ourselves to the public and striving to make their lives better. I am not so sure about the others, but I get really irritated by this and developed a sense of disgust towards politics. 

Secondly, our interests to participate in politics have been dampened by our government. Singapore may be a democratic society, but in exchange for our stability we have forsaken our rights to freedom of speech to quite a large extent. We can condemn the government today, but if we go overboard the police will be coming after us. The government controls the media and education strictly, such that we will receive propaganda in one way or another. For example, in our social studies textbook, I rarely see any content criticizing the government’s policies, and these criticisms were usually kept minimal.

Secondly, Singapore’s economy is doing very well and stable of as now. Even though our Gini Coefficient is more than 0.4, the government is proving financial assistance in terms of subsidies, incentives and other forms. When the people have their stomachs fed and able to make ends meet, they generally would not want to participate or have anything to do with politics. From this point of view, it is quite similar to the ME Generation in China who are generally more interested in material benefits compared to politics. American Youths on the other hand seem to be more politically active when the nation faces a huge national debt as seen from the 2008 presidential elections. From here I can conclude that the economy of a country affects youths’ activeness in politics to a large extent.

Youths’ political apathy may be beneficial to society to a certain extent as their activeness can bring about dire consequences. Youths are still young and may be rash and impulsive while dealing with sensitive matters. During the Tian An Men incident on June 4^th 1989, the rallies organised by the youths were disorganised and they were too reckless in their actions and demands, which ended forcing the Communist government to send in the army and resulted in a massacre. I am not implying that what they did were wrong nor agreeing with the government’s method of resolving the issue. In fact, I do admire their determination and love for their country which many of us today lack. However, being youths, they lack experience and a calm mind when they tried to reform China. If they took a moment to think about the consequences perhaps the situation would not have ended so tragically.  However, if we think of this issue from another hand, youths’ activeness is also required in politics. They are and will be our future leaders and the pillars that support the nation. If the remain indifferent as it is towards our country’s politics, the future our country will be bleak.

In conclusion, youths’ political activeness is very much dependent on their surroundings and the situation and their surroundings as seen from how active American youths are as compared to the Chinese youths and us. Their activeness in politics can also be a double-edged sword. They are definitely essential for a country’s prosperity and survival and yet can be a potential threat to the country’s stability.  I believe that youths should be encouraged to participate in politics, but their participation should be kept peaceful as much as possible.

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Reflective journal 3

       Reflective Journal 3: Reflect on the changing roles of women. You may choose to consider how the changing roles of women in society made an impact on you by drawing on examples from China, the United States and/or Singapore.

     When I was younger, I always thought that women are natural born housewives, who were supposed to stay at home and take care of the children. This was probably due to the influence of the Hong Kong dramas I watched when I was young. Many of those dramas are set in ancient China where women are still regarded as an inferior gender and discriminations against them are still prevalent in society. Other than this, my family also helped to shape my perceptions of women in this way. My father is the head of household, while my mother is the kind of traditional housewife which usually listens to whatever my father says. In my eyes, it just seems to me that it was natural for women to listen to men in the household since my mother and father was behaving in that manner.

      However, as I grew up, I realised that this perception of male domination in household was not entirely true. When I was in primary five, I saw a househusband for the first time. My friend’s father fetched him back and forth from school every day while his mother worked outside. Now when I start thinking about it, phenomenon like this are becoming a trend. In China, 72% of wives play a role in decision-making in household management and production and 74.7% in investments and loans concerning the family. The rising power of women in households, in my opinion, is quite a beneficial thing. Even though there more and more women working outside and husbands looking after the household, the majority of households still have women staying in. Therefore, they are the ones that have better idea of how the household works and generally will be able to come up with more constructive measures to help the household.

      Other than the change of role in households, women today are also playing a huge role in boosting our economy. In China, there are more than 29 million female entrepreneurs which constitutes around a quarter of the nation’s total. Women in China are also becoming a purchase powerhouse, especially those under 35. Furthermore, the government are also pushing for equal employment opportunities for both genders through various means like setting quotas and etc. Even though this promotes gender equality in the economic sphere, some of us males may tend to think otherwise. With the limited amount of jobs, especially those high paying ones, increasing the number of applicants will greatly reduce our chances to obtain these jobs which most of us dream to have. Now in school, I am already starting to have this fear of being overtaken by my female counterparts. Every now and then I hear stories about how well the females across the road are faring in terms of academic grades and other areas.

     Despite these numerous changes to women’s status and roles today, some of their roles still remain the same. For example, women are, and have always been the ones responsible bearing children and making sure that our population does not decline. However, as women nowadays enjoy much greater rights than they once used to enjoy, they have prioritised other aspects in life like career over marriage and having children. Even if they do have children, it is usually only one or two. This is quite evident in Singapore’s society as the fertility rate in 2010 is only 1.15.

         The impact of low birth rate is very dire and cause social unrest. Firstly, a low birth rate will definitely result in an ageing population, which most developed countries like China and Singapore will be facing in the near future. Secondly, in order to maintain a country’s productivity, the government needs to bring in foreign workers and talents as the local replacement rate is far too low. In China, the effects of ageing population are already very evident. Since most of the families only have one child, the children are carrying a huge economic burden of taking care of the livelihood of their parents. As a result, many of them had to move to other areas which have better jobs prospect and leave their parents alone. Usually these parents are what we call the “空巢老人”， where they live alone with no one to take care of them. From the general elections in Singapore last year, we can also observe the level of unhappiness amongst citizens because they feel that the government is importing way too much foreign talents into Singapore.

       Therefore, even though the roles of women today are very different from the past, but there are certain sacred roles, like child bearers, which only they can have due to natural biological differences. If these roles are not properly carried out, it will affect the society extensively. 

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Reflective journal 2

China’s economy has been progressing very quickly, with its GDP increasing steadily over the years. However, it does not mean that the standard of living of its people is increasing. Despite’s its booming economy; I think that the society is facing the problem of unequal progress. In 2010, China’s Gini coefficient reached 0.47, indicating a huge gap between the rich and the poor. There are constant reports regarding exploitation of workers, food safety issues; corrupted governmental officials and etc. These are signs and evidences to prove that China’s moral education, living standard of the lower income group and other areas are not keeping up with the pace of China’s economic growth.

 In order for China’s society to progress even further, these problems need to be eradicated. First off, the education system needs to place more emphasis on inculcating moral values to the students. This is essential as many of these social problems arose due to the degradation of moral values of certain people, like the Waste oil incident (地沟油事件). From my experience in one of the schools in Peking, the educators do make attempts to promote values among students. However, perhaps due to the fierce competitions, the school and students still focus mainly on academic work and often neglect moral education. Furthermore, this school in Peking cannot be taken as a representative of the whole education system in China. I am unsure about the situation the many different schools spread all around China, whether they are better or much worse. 

The Chinese themselves are also doing their parts to minimise the effects of these problems. One of the methods they used was using the 微博or twitter to spread and raise awareness about the issue at hand. For example, the news of the overloaded school bus that resulted in huge casualties spread very fast through the use of 微博, which caused a public indignation. This pressurised the government to take actions to resolve the problem. Other than that, the Chinese are also beginning to question the legitimacy of the CCP after they have seen how successful the democracy in Taiwan is. This is a sign of China progressing towards a democratic society which makes me feel glad. Since China is one party state, the members of the party have numerous privileges and rights. This will lead to rampant corruption since there is no one to monitor the governmental officials. Quoting from Cai Ying Wen’s speech, “Taiwan must have the voice of opposition”. Likewise for China, it must have an opposition’s voice which can keep the power and privileges of CCP in check.  This can help to suppress the corruption among governmental officials.

On the other hand, the American society is quite different from China’s. Its education system for example, is not as academic oriented. It focuses on a holistic development of a student and areas like moral education. However, people are now sceptical as to they begin to realise that there are loopholes in the system, especially after they seen how the Chinese are doing better in math, science and reading as shown in the PISA results.

The shortcomings of America’s political system are becoming more and more obvious in recent years. During the economic crisis and Obama’s term, there are several examples to prove the incompetency and inefficiency of the current system. For example, many of Obama’s proposals could not be passed down, and the debate about debt ceiling caused the problem to be dragged and become more and more serious. I always thought that this kind of system was almost “perfect” in a way, but now it seems to me that one party state is better for this kind of cases. At least the country does not end up in a political deadlock where the leaders cannot come to a decision.

I think that America is now at a stage where it is starting to realise the shortcomings of its society. In previous century, it has made admirable progress and became a superpower. But, they might have been too complacent with the glories achievement they have had in various areas like math and science which resulted dragged down the pace of progress. Complacency is one of the greatest enemies of progress. However, with the rise of new powers like China and India, America will feel the need to do something in order to remain competitive in this globalised age where it is the survival of the fittest. Having its position threatened by these new powers, I believe that America will progress at a faster rate. However, that is under the condition that its economy recovers. Only before the citizens have their stomach fed before the whole society can progress.