Schools that stifle the life of a child.

Children should be filled with abundant energy. They should have a need to create, to do, to move, to speak, to be. A child is not, and should not ever be, something akin to a mannequin – yet that is precisely what some schools seem to want from them.

Recently, a family friend who is endeavouring to get her child into an international school in Malaysia, found out something rather peculiar concerning the British International School in Kuala Lumpur. She learnt that this school penalizes children who fidget or move about, in any way, during the entrance exam into the first year of the Primary school. The British International School actually MARKS DOWN little kids who don’t sit still enough, during exams. I found this revelation to be profoundly disturbing for what it says about the school’s attitude towards children and its seemingly rather poor understanding of them.

It seems that many modern schools want children not to be children. They want them, instead, to be statues, that sit in silence, and imbibe knowledge passively and correctly and regurgitate it, on command, in exams, to bring praises on the school, for their wonderful performance.

Many children learn by doing, not by listening passively. They need to DO things, to move and interact with the world. Such children will not do well in a school that requires immobility from them.

To my mind, a school that wants stillness from children, is a school that does not want to deal with how children really are. It is a school that wants children to behave in a compliant manner for its own convenience. To me, such a school seems too like a prison for comfort.

Just reflect on what the British International School is doing. It is penalizing students for a desire to move. Thus, a bright, but undesirably mobile child, will find themselves marked down. It is possible therefore that a less bright, but compulsively still, unmoving child will end up with “higher” marks. Thus, it is that the brighter pupil might not get a place and the duller pupil would be offered one. The overall tendency would be for the school to be filled with obedient, still, even inactive children, who conform to the required social behaviours. I don’t know about you, but to me, such unmoving, compliant conformity fills me with a kind of psychological horror that is very difficult to shake off. I certainly would not wish any of my children to attend a school which places such importance on the controllability and immobility of children.

Now, I don’t know what the exam policy is for other international schools in Malaysia, or elsewhere. It may be that the British International School is not alone in this strangely stifling policy. If you know of anywhere else that implements such penalties for a child’s movement, please let me know, below. Thank you.

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How America lost an immigrant.

I once had a Green Card, for America - yes, that much prized Green Card. To maintain my Green Card, I made sure that I spent some time in America, every year. Yet, one day, I decided that enough was enough. America didn't seem worth the effort.

One year, you see, I was trying to enter the US at JFK Airport, with my Green Card in hand. Oddly, however, I was stopped by the immigration fellow and asked to go to a special holding room. There I sat, the only white face in a sea of dark skinned immigrants from countries no one has ever heard of. I thought it most peculiar.

As I waited - and they really made me wait - I looked around and watched what unfolded. It soon became quite clear that many of my fellow waiters were in for some trouble. America didn't want to let them in. America was suspicious of their origins and intentions and had little trouble finding reasons to deny them entry.

As I waited, I became more and more nervous, watching how ill my fellow waiters were treated. Those doing the interrogations - sorry "interviewing" - were very aggressive. The primary interviewers were a large black man who would look at home in a boxing ring - and his black female assistant. Neither seemed able to smile and both were rather harsh in their discourse with their victims.

Eventually, it was my turn. The interrogation was unbelievably aggressive. They seemed possessed of the idea that it was wrong to spend so long outside the USA - and why had I done so? (I wondered at this since I was within the legal limit to maintain my card, of less than one year, outside). They went back and forth, levying a barrage of almost shouted questions upon me. I had never been spoken to in this way before. The vehemence of their style of questioning bordered on the violent. I felt myself shake a little, convinced that I was going to be sent back on the plane I had come in on.

Yet, as I thought that, I had another thought: why, on Earth, would I want to live in a country that bullied people at immigration, in such a way? I was being abused and harangued, simply because I had decided to take a plane to the USA. They even did this despite the Irish passport I was carrying and the Green Card in my hand. It was at that moment that I kind of decided that I would never, again, be subject to the bullying immigration officers of the United States: I would never again set foot in the "Land of the Free". (Free from what, I wonder? Certainly, they are not free from aggression, harrassment, or bullying.)

As it turned out, I never did go back to the United States. The unpleasant experience I had had was so distinct in memory that it quite decided me that the US was no place to be. Indeed, only someone inured to violence and aggression could possibly choose such a place, as a home.

As a final thought, I am left to wonder at the extent of the harrassment levied out to others not possessed of a "Green Card"...for I was a legal resident...and still they were abusive. The whole situation is mindboggling. What a country.

(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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