Term 3 Week 3 Assignment

   After reading Janelle Lee's letter, she has widened my insight on the way schools are run nowadays. She has allowed me to see many of the flaws in our education system which we have overlooked. She has brought to light some of the major flaws which our education system faces, from the fact that all we do is memorize facts from the textbooks, hardly understanding why, to the teaching of moral education, a subject which we all have an experience in.
  Janelle actually only has two main points in her letter. The first would be directed at the way schools teach right now. Nowadays in schools, teachers spend countless of hours getting us to memorize facts, and most of the times, students follow this without question. The main reason for this is that memorizing facts is the fastest way to achieve good results, and both parties know this. However, there will always be these one or two inquisitive ones who will probe with the question why. However, instead of answering them, what do some teachers do? They shoo them off. Even though this is not true everywhere, it happens in Singapore, and still happens. I feel that what Janelle says is very true, and I agree with her.
  The next point which Janelle talked about, is about the way we learn our civics and moral education. Almost all of us have had the experience of being thought this lesson in a classroom, however is this really the way to teach it? With a whiteboard, a textbook and a workbook filled with instructional pictures and fill in the blank questions? Is this really the best method to teach us how to be gracious? To be nice? To do the right thing? How can books give us a sense of what is right? Shouldn't it come naturally?
  Which with the above points she has made, I agree with the letter which she has sent whole-heartedly. She shows a lot of insight for a secondary four student.
  Finally, with all that, I feel that an ideal education program is possible. The only set back to this would be the problem which man has faced throughout the centuries... Time. If we wanted to, everything could be done. The only problem about this is time. Without time nothing is possible, and thus, I feel if the government could spend more time in this aspect, the education program would be more ideal.