Tuesday, May 29, 2007 - GP holiday assignment 1- Freedom of expression or social responsibility? :

Question: Singer believes that freedom of expression is essential to any democracy and therefore should not be limited. On the other hand, Szilagyi believes that more focus should be placed on social responsibility. In the context of Singapore’s multi-racial society, where there is cultural ad religious pluralism, which author’s view do you think should be adopted?

Upon reflecting on the articles written by Singer and Szilagyi, I have reached a realisation that many demonstrations, protests and riots occurring in this world stems out from religious differences which result in differing views and opinion on issues, straining relationships and deepening rifts between countries. They refuse to give way, insensitive to other religious beliefs and give no hesitation in criticising others’ sacred beliefs. For 17 years I have lived in democratic Singapore, cases of racial discrimination and condemnation of religious figures are few to count. I believe that in Singapore’s multi- racial society, where there is cultural and religious pluralism, more focus should be placed on social responsibility (Szilagzi’s view) rather than freedom of expression.

To begin with, let me emphasize that by stating my stand here does not mean I feel that freedom of expression should be disregarded. Freedom of expression refers to the right to express personal opinions freely. It is important to an extent that it allows sharing of different views from people of various racial groups, hence exposing us to diverse opinions. The government can also judge from these views whether a certain policy receives favourable response and from there, the government can make amendments to existing policies to suit the welfare of its citizens.

However, freedom of expression can lead to harmful consequences too. As seen in the previous years, several bloggers have been arrested for posting racist remarks on the web. It reflects on us how irresponsible these people are in posting such hurtful and insensitive comments about other religions without considerations of the possible consequences they may face. Hence, I strongly believe that the key to a democratic society is to practise social responsibility.

So the next question one may ponder upon is, how do we practise social responsibility and in what way should the government promote this value among Singaporeans? Well, practising it is actually quite simple. In my opinion, we can do our part by simply ensuring that we do not express negative remarks about racial beliefs or criticize any religious figures. For example, Jesus Christ, Buddha, monks, etcetera. Singaporeans must be sensitive to racial issues and avoid finger pointing and recriminations in the aftermath of racial disputes. Second, in a nation with racial diversity, Singaporeans should learn to tolerate different cultures so that there would be racial harmony. Interacting with our neighbours of various religions help in social bonding, hence citizens would learn to appreciate diverse values and foster stronger ties with people of different races.

I think that to place more focus on social responsibility, the government must take on an active role in promoting this value among Singaporeans. First, I believe that the government should monitor the media’s progress in ‘leading an informed, high quality discussion, with due respect for minority rights’ as mentioned in the article. The media should be careful in carrying out discussions by not depicting biasedness, revealing racist cartoons and jokes. In addition, the government could hold dialogue sessions to further emphasize the role of citizens in practising social responsibility. I feel strongly that it is especially important for the younger generations of today to actively participate in these events because this value should be instilled in them from young so that they can lead Singapore well in future.

To end off, I believe that should freedom of expression be limited and social responsibility be widely promoted, Singapore would be a democratic country with a diverse racial pool of citizens living harmoniously together as a nation.

The future ain't what it used to be. hugged teddy at 1:40 AM

Thursday, May 24, 2007 - Contemplating on: should girls and boys receive their education separately? :

(As i have been nominated by my class to go for the 2nd round of gp blogging competition, well,here goes..)

Despite the increasing number of students opting for co-ed schools in Singapore, there was previously a heated debate on whether girls and boys should receive their education separately. I believe this has put much confusion among parents and even aroused major discussions on careful planning that must be taken into consideration by them. Is there really a difference in sending children to a single-sex school and a co-education one? I have different views on this topic.


I disagree to a large extent that boys and girls should be educated separately because it is an undeniable fact that boys and girls studying in single sex school has a major impact on society in terms of gender discrimination and education. Research shows that in a co-ed school, students tend to get along better with their peers and they also gain greater understanding of their classmates of the opposite sex. Studying in an environment with mixed genders gives us additional opportunities to make more friends, especially with people who are of a different gender from us. Not forgetting the fact that it allows easier communication between girls and boys, we would learn important lessons of building good, lasting relationships with one another.

Secondly, when pupils engage in group projects and discussions, they grasp a hold of the opposite gender's views and opinions of various aspects of life. For instance, the girls would comprehend the boys' mentality and behavior towards many issues.

Furthermore, I think that co-ed schools also inspire more motivation and support in students when it comes to examinations. Some boys may outdo the girls, triggering those who are lagging behind to think that they are losing out to their peers. Due to competitive reasons, having pupils of mixed genders in schools is a positive form of encouragement, spurring and striving the pupils on to perform better than the rest of their schoolmates. From these, we can observe that there are more positive outcomes of studying in a co-ed school than a single-sex one.

However, we cannot simply neglect the advantages that single-sex schools may bring to pupils. Supporters point to studies showing that in single-sex schools, girls are moe assertive in class without boys and they generally respond better to more collaborative teaching methods. The aim to remove boys from classes definitely boosted the confidence of girls but it did little to improve academic performance. This also causes lesser interaction and interests between pupils. Nevertheless, without boys in class, shy girls tend to speak up more often than before because of their introverted feelings towards the male species.

In addition, there are stereotypes that need to be debunked. Different people have their own perceptions. Several, especially parental beliefs, may feel that girls are smarter than boys, since most girls are quiet and intelligent whereas boys are usually known for their loudness and aggressive character. This is an example of gender discrimination. Many think that students should learn in a different atmosphere which includes boys in the class. On the contrary, this is rather competitive as it is one of the main factors that often help to determine final grades. Some girls may not perform well in athletes sports unlike most boys, but they surpass boys in languages and home economics. Single-sex schools provide more same-gender student role models, offer enhanced leadership opportunities and have fewer social distractions such as pupils engaging in boy-girl relationships. Therefore, I think that being educated separately can cultivate the students' interests as well as further strengthening their potentials.

Overall, I believe that there are more pros than cons in educating pupils together in terms of growth development, psychological and social aspects. Although educating pupils separately would strain working relationships among them, positive outcomes of receiving education separately still exist. Nonetheless, the government must take this matter into serious consideration as it may still affect the society negatively. Parents must also try to cast away fears of their children being exposed to pupils of different genders and assist them in making a wise decision as to which school to choose from by taking into account the needs and abilities of their children to mingle with people.

The future ain't what it used to be. hugged teddy at 5:40 AM

Saturday, May 19, 2007 - Contemplating on: Elitism and its insights :

Elites are commonly referred to as individuals from glorious backgrounds who most probably attend prestigious schools and excel remarkably well in academic studies.

I feel that what make elites different from the norm is their abilities to perform tasks more intelligently and their impeccable way they carry themselves. However, they do share similarities like the rest of us from humbler backgrounds, it is a pity we tend to overlook these resemblances to grumble how much we envy them and wish that somehow our identities could be switched.

Black eyes, however flash with envy of green everywhere I turn.

Some of us feel that elitism has negative influences on fellow peers and society. Personally, I feel that no doubt a number of elites do belittle schoolmates who do not perform as splendidly as themselves in studies. They define success as being able to secure a position in a highly recognised school or university. Some of us conveniently label them as muggers who study like bookworms for the entire day. Others argue by saying that elites score well in tests even if they do not bury their heads in volumes of books and piles of notes like the rest of us do.

Well, I admit I do agree to the latter sometimes.

Nevertheless, elites face their own struggles too.

First, some elites I know of do not wish to be looked upon as geniuses or superior to their friends from neighbourhood schools as it may create a rift in the relationship. It would cause communication problems and awkward situations may arise if one considers himself as inferior and sees his friend from a top school as smarter and brainier than him.

Second, elites face stress in their own school too. They often feel pressurised to push themselves hard so as not to fall behind the rest of their elite schoolmates. Everyone thinks that everyone else in an elite. So they constantly seek ways and means to enter the ranks of an elite too.

Also, elites encounter circumstances when they are expected to meet people’s high expectations of them. For instance, during inter-school competitions, audiences would whisper among themselves and comment straightaway that the elite schools would definitely win hands down. If they lose, people would see them in a different light and this would cause the students to feel that they have contradicted the glorious, victorious image of their school.

In a nutshell, I feel that we should not view elites as a different species from ourselves. Instead of feeling jealous, why not learn from elites? It would foster better communication and friendship between elites and non-elites so that in future, the gap would slowly disappear.

The future ain't what it used to be. hugged teddy at 12:48 AM

Friday, May 11, 2007 - Contemplating on: going fanatical over celebrities :

Sometimes I shudder at the sight of mobs of crazy fans pushing and screaming at ear-piercing volume to declaretheir love for their favourite celebrity. Be it actors, singers or rock bands, countless teenagers from around the globe do not give a second thought to grab the opportunity to meet their idols.

It was featured in the Gen Y column in The Straits' Times a couple of years back about teenagers' instant obligation to part with their hard-earned savings to catch flights to Hong Kong or Taiwan to attend their idols' concert. A ticket costs at least a few hundred dollars. How can teenagers as young as sixteen, empty their piggy banks so that they can trail their idols around half a world away? Looks like stars nowadays have secured a significant place in the hearts of numerous youths.

However, this trend could impose problems on teenagers and their families. To be able to save up enough money to buy a concert ticket, a teenager may scrimp and save. He would choose to forgo his daily meals, leading to unhealthy dieting habits and may fall ill due to gastric pains. In the long run, he would ask his parents for their hard earned money from months of work, increasing the family financial burdens. Parents give allowance to children for their daily meals, to purchase textbooks and studying materials, not to splurge on unneccessary items like concert tickets. As teenagers continue to worship their idols, focus would be shifted from their academic persuits to idolising these famous stars.

Are they blinded by the stardom of the celebrities? Is it the thrill of seeing someone famous that makes them starry-eyed? I wonder why fans get into a tussle with one another for a towel that reeks of a celebrity’s perspiration. It disgusts me to learn that some even go to the extreme to bid for female celebrities’ underwear. Ugh.

Hard-core fans may argue that these may act as support and encouragement to their idols who work so hard to release an album and they should do their best as a fan to let them know that their effort are appreciated. Others may feel that owning a piece of clothing or jewellery that previously belonged to their idols give them a sense of closeness to them.

I believe that the fateful incident involving Yang Li Juan, her father and the Heavenly King Andy Lau still lingers in our minds. Yang dropped out of school at the age of 16 to become a full time Andy Lau fan after having a dream that she believes true love will exist between Andy Lau and herself. To fufil her dream of meeting her idol, her father borrowed thousands of dollars from loansharks so that they could fly to Hong Kong together to meet him. Later on, Yang only had a chance to take a photo with Andy Lau. Her father was so agonised that he drowned himself. Even after that, Yang insisted that he must talk to her for at least an hour and a half to fulfil her father’s wish which was stated in his suicide letter before his death.

I strongly believe that this is an uneccessary death and it was because of Yang, who became so enamoured with her idol that caused her father’s demise. Why the need to borrow from loansharks so that Yang could finally meet her idol? Why go to the extreme that one must die to make the celebrity feel regret for the rest of his life?

I feel that this incident is really incredulous and it is definitely not worthwhile to be fall head over heels over a celebrity that one loses his sanity.

Outrageous.

The future ain't what it used to be. hugged teddy at 11:53 PM

Friday, May 4, 2007 - Crime and punishment :

Which do you think should be the more important aim for the legal and judicial processes: punishment or rehablilitation?

I feel that rehabilitation is a more important aim of the legal and judicial processes than punishment. The main reason stems out from the positive impacts of giving counselling, guidance and advice through rehabilitation to crime offenders outweighs the impacts of punishment.

Usually, rehabilitation is offered to crime offenders like drug consumers, pilfering, those who attempted suicide and other minor offences which can be solved by rehabilitation. I think that the aim of rehabilitation is to urge these people to mend their ways by understanding their needs and allocate resources to best help different people restore their morals values and self confidence.

I believe that rehabilitation is more effective than punishment in the sense that it uses long term professional help from trained counsellors or psychologists to encourage and change the mindset of offenders and give them vocational training during their prison term. This is done so that they would regain their impetus to live an optismictic life after being released from prison.

On the other hand, punishment serves like a retribution to crime offenders where the government avenges the crime by inflicting violence on them by caning, death sentence or even torture in come countries. In my opinion, punishment would lead crime offenders to feel more resentful and bear greater grudges against the society in the long run. This is because they would perhaps release their hatred and frustration of being punished into the society when they are released. They may demonstrate the violence that they experienced in prison to other potential victims like their friends and family members whenever they feel provoked.

In addition, some offenders may not learn their lessons and repeat their crimes again once they are let out of prison. I believe that this may be simply because during their prison term, there was no one to guide them out of their dark offences, no one to give support and encouragement to them. Few would go out of jail a changed man, optimistic and changed for a better. I suppose offenders who have undergone punishment are more likely to have low self-esteem and self- worth when they face discrimination against them from the society.

In a nutshell, the legal and judicial processes should include more rehabilitation for crime offenders. Crime offenders are so because of the way they are brought up- perhaps they did not receive enough education, parental guidance or of negative influence by external grounds. In my view, rehabilitation would ensure a higher percentage of crime offenders changing for the better as professional advice and care are extended to them in prison. It would definitely help offenders return to society as useful and kind people. However, it should not be applicable to those who repeat offences over and over again although they have received rehabilitation. These people are simply taking advantage of the benevolence of the law and thus I believe they should be given punishment instead.

The future ain't what it used to be. hugged teddy at 8:43 PM

Thursday, May 3, 2007 - Contemplating- On standards of resilience of the Y generation :

The recent resilience workshop held in school on 9th April has left several lessons deep-rooted into my heart and what I am about to share in this post are my reflections and learning points gained from this meaningful seminar.

Resilience is defined as the abiity to recover quickly from change or misfortune; or simply, buoyancy.

As we all know, life is not a bed of roses. In certain points of our lives, we face failures, unsurmountable problems, domestic woes and conflicts at work. How do we cope with these difficulties? Resilience teaches us to be flexible and control our emotions while tackling with issues. It also builds our determination and will through events that impede us from reaching the outcomes we desire.

In today’s society, I recognise that the Y generation has become more vulnerable and helpless to failures. What is it that contributes to this phenomenon? I believe that the entry of rising number of parents into the workforce has a significant part to play in the problem. When children comes home from school, their parents are busy toiling at their offices. When their exhausted parents return home from work, all worn-out and weary, the childen would be fast asleep in the comfort of the own bedrooms. There is hardly any interaction between parents and their offsprings. Even during weekends, parents are still not released by the tight grip of work shedule. Hence, the youngsters today do not share their problems to their parents. They bottle their feelings up, shut themselves out from care of their parents if any, and end up suffering the pain themselves. Problems which remain unsolved accumulate till the youths simply could not take it and break down.

Another reason may be parenting may fall short at home where parents themselves do not teach their children about being strong when facing adversities and to be independent. Instead, they carry the burden of solving their children’s problems. When we read the daily papers, we can easily find articles of youths taking their own lives because they did not have the courage to admit their wrong-doings, or having experienced a failure in a local examination, or they lacked the confidence in juggling schoolwork with family break-ups. All these stressful events has taken a toll on the youth’s frame of mind. It all voices down to resilience.

We all must have resilience so that we could stand tall and not cower away when meeting difficulties. Resilience can be displayed a easily as this; when someone does badly in his exams, he thinks through the reasons that could have contributed to his failure like poor revision methods or lack of time managability, and then think of solutions which would help him succeed like signing up for workshops which would improve these skills that he lacks.

When we feel like giving up, negative thoughts would flood our minds, causing us feel that there is no way out, we should accept our fate. However, I beg to differ. We have the power to fight back. We can counter-attack these thoughts by thinking of positive things that we actually can do. This is a demonstration of resilience too.

Resilience is crucial, especially when we step into the workforce, which is a more confusing world than we, the Y generation is in right now. Resilience would come into real use in future, hence we must practise it from a young age so that we would be able to deal with any kind of problems. It enables us to develop robustness and strength. Resilience is nurtured; we are not born with it.

Through resilience, I am sure the youths today, like me, can discover love in whatever they are doing. Through resilience, we could experience the best of things and challenge ourselves against the things we think is impossible!

The future ain't what it used to be. hugged teddy at 10:00 PM

Wednesday, May 2, 2007 - Contemplating: On Parenting :

Parenting might be one of the few scopes which I rarely, or never pondered upon before until today, where it hit me with a startling relevation that perhaps parenting has ceased to exist like before.

No doubt, the world is advancing swiftly, adults scramble to quicken their working pace to keep up in the rat race and the ones left behind struggle to make ends meet. The tremendous stress of job competition is so intense that many adults unknowingly shift their focus from their families to their precious careers.

The result of this ubiquitious phenomenon is certainly hitting hard on the children of these working adults. To start with, children would feel neglected and unloved by their parents, especialy when parents fail to keep their promises of spending quality time with their offsprings. For kids as young as toddlers, parents are needed most for encouragement as care. Parenting is imperative in the imparting of moral values, monitoring of children's behaviors and mannerisms and of course guide them along while making sure that the children stays on the right tracks.

Failed parenting comes with a whole lot of head- splitting problems. Say, recalcitrant children who simply refuses to comply with their parents' wishes. Or wayward kids who have no sense of manners and climb to the top of their parents' heads. Or worse still, crime-proned children who follow the footsteps of their incorrigible parents who fail to display a respectable example for them.

Parents who are clueless about effective parenting face the consequences of children being less undestanding, tolerant and respectful towards others. Children tend to be less sociable, cower away from responsibilities and often fail to distinguish the rights from the wrongs.

To curb this problem, I believe that parenting courses are useful in helping parents understand their children's needs and discipline them in an effective way. To further emphasize the importance of parenting, the author in the TIME magazine also feel that companies should introduce schemes to allow employees with young, growing children to take a few days off from their hectic schedules to spend quality time with ther offsprings.

For me, I have always enjoyed fine, noble parenting from my parents that I can say that I am brought up as a refined and upright child. Good parenting can never be replaced by anything, not teachers at the childcare centre, nor the maid, nor anyone else.

Parents are the only people who can nurture their children to become what they are today.

Nurture.

The future ain't what it used to be. hugged teddy at 6:15 AM