Singaporean schools are destroying our children.

It doesn't take much observation of Singaporean children, trying to be creative, to realize that they just can't do it. Now, the question is: whose fault is it? I would say the schools themselves.

I have had the privilege of conducting drama classes, at times, with Singaporean children. I say "privilege" because these opportunities have afforded me a chance to learn what is going on inside the minds of young Singaporeans. What I have found there has been disappointing.

Drama is about freedom of the spirit; freedom to express the self and tell the tale of an inner life. Therefore, those who are most free, are most adept at it. Those who know themselves best, are most capable of deep performances. Those most familiar with finding answers within themselves usually have the most to show, dramatically. Yet, in Singaporean schools, I find not freedom, but entrapment. These children are trapped within a prison we cannot see: one made of structures and rules, requirements and regulations. They live in a prison that demands silence and subservience, submissiveness and self-denial. When given the chance to speak, these children have nothing to say.

Teaching drama in Singapore is a painful exercise. The children have no familiarity with their imaginations. They don't know how to summon the imagination to their aid. They don't even, perhaps, know what an imagination is. They give hollow expressions of emotion, that have no feeling. They make pathetic gestures at self-expression. In a class of twenty students, there might be one who is able to focus on their own inner thoughts and do something of modest interest. The others are, almost entirely, incapable of expressing themselves. It is as if they have NO SELF TO EXPRESS. Perhaps there is truth in that, perhaps these children have no selves or are not familiar with themselves. When asked to do something simple, like pretend they have hurt their knee, none of them show any pain; none of them show any discomfort even, they just moan without conviction - it is really quite a pathetic spectacle. When asked to show an emotion, such as sadness, or happiness, they are unable to seem to feel it, they give comic book characterizations, filled with exaggerations. They seem not to be able to reach their feelings. When asked to act out a simple scene, they seem to be unable to become involved in it, unable to consider it real, unable to behave in a way consonant with the situation they have been given. Their actions are half-hearted, and stereotyped, their words are mumbled and unclear and devoid of emotion or conviction and, they don't work together very well - they don't share the imagined space as if each of them occupies it. In short, they do none of the things an actor would normally do to express the inner life of a character, or its outwardly expressed form. Nor do they do any of the things that would normally be required to tell a story.

With work, time and effort, they do improve. Yet, what is clear is that the whole area of using their imagination is foreign to them. The children I have worked with are in their teens - yet it is clear that, despite being relatively mature, they are not acquainted with their own imagination and its powers. They are empty of inspiration. They have no experience in self-expression. It is as if they have lived their whole lives in a cell with no-one to talk to, or share their lives with, so impoverished are their communication skills and sense of how to convey an emotion, a story, an idea. It is, in fact, saddening to witness.

I enjoy, however, trying to open them up, trying to show them how to access their imaginations and make something of it. Some of them respond...others are frozen, unable to go beyond limp, ineffective efforts at stereotyped shells of emotional and ideational portrayal.

What is very, very obvious on seeing the way Singaporean children are, is how impoverished their imaginative skills are compared to children I have seen in other countries. It is just not normal to see so little imagination in teenagers. At least, it is not normal in my experience of life and teaching.

Singaporean schools leave no space for the child to be. There are too many academic demands on them, too many rules, too many regulations, too many fixed behaviour patterns to follow. There is too much emphasis on conformity and there is no permission to be individual or creative. The result is clear: Singapore is producing children whose minds have been amputated. The parts of them labelled "individuality", "creativity" and "imagination" have been cut off, leaving half a child behind.

The political masters, in Singapore, call for more creativity for one reason only: they see money in it. However, what they fail to see is that the educational system they have implemented GUARANTEES that Singaporean children will NOT be creative, will NOT be imaginative and will NOT have much a sense of self.

The only way to make Singapore a more creative place is to throw out the present education system entirely and replace it with a more humane, open, less competitive, more tolerant, welcoming system that is not consumed with rules, regulations and codes of conduct and behaviour. Singapore needs a system that allows children to breathe and be themselves. Then, and only then, will Singapore begin to nurture creative children.

It would be a better world, were this so, for such children would be happier and, ultimately, Singapore would be richer for it - for new things only come from creative children. The rigidified robots presently being produced by Singapore's education system will never, ever do anything in life apart from take orders from someone. Perhaps that is all that the system really wants: components in the economic system, unable to think for themselves or, preferably, think at all.

I would like to see a different system. I would like to see children who live and whose minds come alive when given the chance to express themselves. Perhaps an early sign of success would be drama classes that have some drama in them.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

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