Are Our Kids Today Spoilt?

In a conversation with close friend recently, he lemented about how his 19-year old son ask his mum to buy lunch for him despite the fact that he has his own car, he had not been home since the previous day. To make things worse, my friend and his wife were busy that morning. In respose to the ninteen year old's request the mother began to dash off to get lunch while the father felt that the young could and should go get his own food. As simple as this incident may be it triggered an arguement between the couple.

My friend further lemented that despite having bought his son a car. The son complain - to the mother - that the car is no good and he wished to have another better one. The car he has is an older Wira. A couple of days ago I visied my sister and spotted that her 15 year old daughter had a new hair do. She calls it rebonding (something that no matter how hard I try, I can never understand what it is). It was done at a hhigh-end salon and costed RM 360 to the shock of her mother and I. Again the father thinks it's just a few ringgit hair do at the neighbour salon. These events prompts us to think about the past and of "those days" back then when things were different. My friend with the 19 year old son, recalled his childhood days where he had to help his father work just to earn every meal each day. Life was tough. When he managed to get into university, his father only provided him with RM 450 year for fees and he had to work is way through and support himself on all other necessary expenses. I am sure most of us have such stories to tell. Some will argue that we live in different times from our parents and their parents as well. Perhaps they are right. As a parent I am of the opinion that our children do not necessarily need to endure the same kind of hardship we or our own parents have endured because times are different. So, how do we draw the line. Should our kids do laundry? We did it. Only now, there is the washing machine. Should we have our kids involved in housework and chores? Then again there are maids. Some parents have argued with me that the kids can make better use of their time to do and learn things, etc, etc. But how many children do we know turn off the television when they have free time? How should we give them pocket money and help them realize the value of money?

The real challenge will really be how are we encupsulate these experiences from ourselves and our fore-fathers, transforming them to values so as our children can appreciate and they themselves can internalize, integrate with their own experiences, moulding them to be better people.

Something to think about.

KV

What Is the Ideal School?

Reflecting on NST Jan 19, 2006's Commentary by Abdul Razak Ahmad entitled "COMMENT: ‘Ideal’ schools face multi-culturalism woe" (see below for full article) I am still trying to understand the objectives of the introduction of Mandarin and Tamil in schools. Here are some of my thoughts.


Too much effort to facilitate multi-culturalism?

Of late much of the local news talks about the need to enhance multi-culturalism in schools. There is to some extent admission that the Sekolah Kebangsaans are too centered on a particular race and religion and this gives a not-so-positive perception of these schools. Hence, the MOE is trying to address this perception, on reason is the introduction of the Mandarin and Tamil classes (an initiative hit the wall due to shortage of teachers). How will it be introduced and who will learn them? Will be similar to the POL lessons we had back in the 70's? The bigger question is how will be the multiculturalism be enhanced with the introduction of these two languages?

I think this is a "hit and miss" situation. Firstly, I think parents who send their children to Chinese schools (particularly) and Tamil Schools do so not because of language alone. In the case of Chinese schools, it is the perception that they are more discipline when it comes to learning maths and science - better for students, language is secondary - at least this is what I understand. This is the main reason non-Chinese sends their children to schools from what I gather. Another reason is the perception that the Sekolah Kebangsaans tend to be "too Islamic" and non-muslim parents would not want to send their children there. Can the mere introduction of the Mandarin and Tamil lessons be able to address this. Is this an effort balance numbera of the Malays-Chinese-Indian ratio in the Sekolah Kebangsaans merely to statistically demonstrate schools are multi-cultural?

I personally feel that there is not enough effort to really build bridges across the cultures. It seems that there are just too much effort to encourage assimilation of cultures but not enough effort put to promote inter-cultural appreciation.

Perhaps the MOE needs to do a poll and get real feedback from the ground to hear from the parents (and students) what they feel and what they want.


What about academic, personal and spiritual development?

The bigger picture which I feel the MOE needs to really address is this - are our schools churning individuals who are developed (at least prepared) to be academically, socially and spiritually round? Is our current education system really helping our future generation be thinking, mature people. Perhaps this is the common denominator that cuts accross all racial and cultural changes, perhaps we should all start thinking about our children's future and not get too caught up in the multiculturalism thingy.

Are we providing wholesome enough and all rounded education to our children to be better people?

Regards,
KV

Link to NST Jan 19, 2006's Commentary by Abdul Razak Ahmad entitled "COMMENT: ‘Ideal’ schools face multi-culturalism woe"