2.
The writers position in the article is that parents
are too focused in developing their children's
academic potential and in the process become
over-protective
‘When parents shield their children from every
possible adversity - when they call their teachers
to get an extension on a project, when they
encourage them to choose only those subjects
they are good at – they are denying their children
these character-building experiences’
3.
As such, it hinders their character education
which encompasses skills such as facing
adversity and self-confidence and actually
plays a more significant role in fostering
success in their future and adulthood
‘results have also been achieved among some
young people simply by immersing them in a
culture of character, making them aware of
how certain character traits can lead to
greater success and allowing their own
ambition to take over from there’
4.
Failing at a certain part of life ‘is a critical
part of building character’. As failure is an
essential step to success, children nowadays
must explore out of the comfort zone and
experience setbacks so they will have the
ability to deal with other problems they may
face in the future.
5.
One of MOE’s desired outcomes of education
to be a confident learner and based on the
results of the experiment adults who have not
faced setbacks are ‘less happy and confident’.
Another MOE’s outcome is to be innovative
and enterprising. By allowing them to just
step out of their comfort zone, they will be
motivated and dare to take risks and be more
creative in their thinking. They will have a
broader perspective and take more paths.
6.
Most importantly , one of the desired
outcomes is that one would have to have the
skills necessary to take on challenges of the
future. By allowing children to explore and
dare to take risks although he might face
difficulties, he would develop skills such as
resilience and self-determination that he
cannot learn anywhere else, but nonetheless
essential for success!
7.
If I were the minister of Education, I would
emphasize on holistic education and require
students to excel more in non-academic
areas and be independent and selfenterprising in exploring areas that are
unfamiliar and topics that they are not good
at, but have a strong interest in it.
8.
This could be done by having Students doing
compulsory inter-disciplinary projects that
are not associated with their subject
combination. E.g. A Science Student doing an
inter-disciplinary humanities project.
Students could also be encouraged to look
beyond their borders by associating subjects
they learn with topics that are not common
and seldom talked of.
