onthesannyside: The battle for hearts (Hougang voters) and minds (young childrens')...

The battle for the Hougang vote: You mean no one wants to be a top dog anymore?

Sheesh! This country hasn't gone to the dogs but the Hougang by-election seems to be shaping up to be a contest between two underdogs.

PAP candidate Desmond Choo had earlier said that he is the underdog in the ward, a Workers' Party stronghold. ST reported yesterday (15 May) that WP candidate Png Eng Huat countered that, at the national level, the WP is "definitely the underdog" with only five seats in Parliament, compared with 81 held by the PAP.

Then, in today's ST (see headline above), its main election story started thus: "Win or lose, the underdog in the Hougang race [Mr Choo] plans to be back at work in the single-member constituency on May 28, two days after the polls."

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The battle for your child's education

The mid-year school break is nearly here. In one corner are people like Amanda Tan Pheck Choo, whose poignant letter was published in TODAY (16 May, page 20):

Let the children be

As a former teacher, I was berated by senior teachers for not using "flowery, pretentious sentences", as described in the letter "It's a strong foundation that counts" (May 9), in creative writing.

I was accused of wanting my pupils to fail their Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE).

Recently, my eight-year-old came home with a "creative" writing assignment. She produced a list of "useful words and phrases that her teacher copied from a creative writing book" for the pupils to transfer onto the whiteboard.

The instructions were to write these down in complete sentences. I paused for a second, then asked: "Which of these words are yours?"

"None," came the innocent reply. After doing what the teacher ordered, my little girl asked: "Now, can I write my story?"

In writing, we are told what to write, what title to give it, what words to use and avoid, to discard the unbelievable and play safe. We are given picture compositions about a day at the beach, a bad fall, an incident on a bus -- hardly fodder for interesting discussion.

My spouse, a college teacher, laments the lack of disciplined training in clear, logical thinking and the lack of ideas, persuasive argument and communication skills in his pre-university students.

I wonder where we went wrong, when all this started.

When children are in primary school, why are they not asked for solutions to train disruptions, how to get women to have more babies, how to stop people from smoking? These are just as relatable, if not more fascinating, topics for discussion.

In learning, we are made to learn what the system deems important at this period, for how long, how much, how deep. Mathematics and science are in; free reading, non-examinable topics are out.

But boundaries have to change, to adapt, to involve the child. This is his education, not ours.

This obsession with what to learn and how to present acceptable answers is ultimately a fear of not doing well in the PSLE. Ex-Nominated Member of Parliament Paulin Straughan's proposal to abolish it is a step in the right direction.

Do we need to "accredit" 12-year-olds? Granted, there will always be parents who want their children to stay ahead of the competition and, hence, send them to tuition centres.

There will be those, free of the shackles of exam stress, who would give their children the time and freedom to explore, dream and love learning.

The hope is that schools would then have the courage to ditch homework, to give pupils more curriculum time to read and explore the world around them.

If they do not read, they cannot write. If they cannot write, those famous "flowery, pretentious sentences" will present themselves year after year in PSLE exam scripts.

The writer is a former primary school teacher and a homeschooling mother.

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