Look Around Us - Little Everyday Mundane Observations

Another blog on our daily existence, much of which we do not think about anyway. Some observations that will perhaps open up our eyes and thinking a bit more? I sure hope it will be that way.

I seriously think our little boys (and girls) are being taught that a germless and sterile environment is good. Some germs , in my opinion, is necessary. If not, why would we have inoculation as opposed to immunisation or vaccination, which in essence is introducing a mild form of the disease to build the body's immunity.Note the difference.

Just look at how some fathers chastise their boys for touching any part of the urinals or for not washing their hands thoroughly after their "joint" session. I think this will inculcate obsessive-compulsive disorder. On some occasions I have seen boys spending so much time washing and scrubbing their hands, OCD is probably just what they are suffering from.

Perhaps this will impact their sex lives too? And I know some religions prohibit masturbation, which to me is a normal and healthy outlet for sexual gratification and to release pent-up sexual tension. I am positive OCD will also haunt these guys before and after their gratifying acts if they do not decide to abandon the act altogether of fear of purging some internal power source (another folklore right?)

Have you noticed our students lately? All of them are so myopic , so embroiled in thought and their own world of school and what-not that they are seemingly oblivious to the world. Is this another by-product of our endless academic grind of examinations and tests?

Should not education be to pique their intellectual curiousity and to discover themselves and the world? I don't think even a handful is aware of his existentialism as to whence he came from or to life-and-death happenings on a global scale. The focal length he sees is only as short as the distance between his bespectacled eyes and his prescribed textbook.

Every way you turn, you spot a specky everywhere. That explains why Singapore has the highest incidence of myopia in the world among its young. As things are, he already doesn't read beyond his finely demarcated boundary anyway and this myopism is happeninga s fast as a cheetah can outrun a gazelle.

Any wonder he knows so little of himself and the world. He can certainly regurgitate the lines he memorised in his texts without much understanding or appreciation nor application of the facts.

Except for the few brazen and boisterous ones, I think most of our students are brow-beaten back so much, they cower and slouch in passivity, vegetation and non-critical thinking mode anymore. They consume not produce, the consumerism cult that we have spawned.

Where their only prized possession is that telecommuting mobile phone which is their main pre-occupation other than that blinking tool-box sitting at home or in public spaces. Neo-prints , the haute couture, MP3 players, electronic gadgets , pornography and sex. What this shows is the lack of meaningful and constructive activity one can seriously engage in nowadays. Whatever happened to Science and Gardening Club or Adventure Club or Arts and Crafts Club anymore?

Do we want to continue with another generation of zombies who cannot cope or think as well when compared to much stronger and better-equipped contenders in the field of work, enterprise and science? Who can come up with invention, technology, innovation and well-thought out policies? Or with brilliant works of art and masterpieces in literature and literary works. Even a science-fiction and science non-fiction writer in the likes of Aldous Huxley and Andrew Parker.

What else do we have here except for a retail megamall to show for? If one chooses education or cuisine as one's vocation or avocation, it must be the usual run-of-the-mill commercial tutorial schools or kopi-tiams, food-courts, hawker centres and restaurants. The lowest common denominator to say the least.

Yet they are profiteering for the lowest of the lowest that they provide in terms of quality. I worked for one boss of a commercial school chain and students are flocking and paying through their noses for nonsensical academia.

The Straits Times featured some of our best under 25 in a variety of work other than in an exam-oriented environs. I applaud them. I just hope they are not the far and few in between group and that their work is meaningfully tied in with their aspirations, sustainable many years down the road.

Professor Jared Diamond pointed out that the Northern Chinese swept down onto the Southern half. It is considered barbaric for the Chinese to walk with feet pointing inwards. This is a surprise given that our present day models are taught to do just that in their deportment protocol. It only shows the shifting tide of conventions and norms.

The world we live in today may be for better or worse if the Chinese or even the Muslims had not turned their backs on modernisation and to the world. We can only postulate what this world could have been.