The Mass Psychosis of Modern Life.

Singapore is a mad place...according to a leading academic. However, it is not just Singapore, for he would consider many places in the world, utterly bonkers.

In 1985, Dr. Burkhardt wrote a paper (the original of which I have yet to find), in which he observed that modern life is possessed of a "mass psychosis" that requires "uniformity and sameness from everyone". He said that this went against the basic human right (as he termed it) of allowing all people to be "unique individuals".

Basically, Dr. Burkhardt is convinced that modern societies are completely mad - particularly those that go in for uniformity.

Now, I happen to be living in a society that goes in for uniformity and sameness in a big way. I can't say that I find myself disagreeing with Dr. Burkhardt's assessment. In fact, his words rang true the moment I read them. It IS mad to insist on uniformity and sameness from everyone. It is completely insane to build a society on conformity. People are unique, by nature...so they should be allowed to be unique in society. Any society that does not allow individuals to blossom and be individuals is, according to Dr. Burkhardt, utterly insane.

It is certain that Dr. Burkhardt would identify Singapore as one of his "mass psychotic" societies, were he to consider it. What, however, can we do about it, as individuals? Unfortunately, I fear that nothing can be done by any particular individual - given the strength of the insistence on sameness around here - apart from what a lot of people do, in fact, do: they emigrate to places more given to allowing individuals to be individual.

It would be interesting to learn what Singapore's leaders would think of learning that, by the standards of a respected academic, their society is mad. Would they take efforts to change the emphasis on uniformity if they knew? Or would they reject the thesis (as one, of course, being uniform in their response and nature), thinking that uniformity and sameness are the ideal by which their society should live by?

I would welcome comments, from around the world, about the extent to which your own society allows you to be an individual, allows you to be whatever and however you want to be. Or, conversely, perhaps you might like to comment about the extent to which your society wants you to be the same as everyone else.

Thanks.

(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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The generosity of Singaporean Education

Singapore boasts of its education system. It prides itself on having a "Number 1" education system. Yet, is this true? From close up one sees something rather different.

Here education is standardized to an absurd degree, such that it is impossible to get the right education for any particular person: what you get is the "standard response".

So far, Ainan has not got what he needs from the education system - what he needs comes from his parents, at home, with a pile of books. The "system" has been most reluctant to offer up its resources to him, as yet (with occasional exceptions that don't alter the general tone of the situation). For instance, rather stingily, a nation filled with chemistry labs, hasn't made one available to Ainan on a regular basis. They would rather the labs sat empty, unused, than have one scientifically passionate child at work in them. The ones that are available, are only so, if we are prepared to, and able to, pay exorbitant fees. Where is Singapore's "great wealth" when it is needed? They can't even afford the expense of one unusual student.

Today, I found evidence that our situation, with respect to Ainan, is not an isolated case. There are other children out there, striving to get the special education they need. One other example is a twelve year child with an interest in Physics, beyond his (or her...we don't know) years. The student in question needed lab space to acquire the skills necessary to take an exam (an exact parallel of our own situation with Ainan, at six, but in a different subject, at a different age.) The education system was making no accommodation for this particular gifted student: no-one and nowhere was prepared to offer them the resources needed. So, what did the parents do? They found a private school that was willing to take their child on and teach them practical physics skills appropriate to the exam - at a price.

Now, I would like you to guess what that price was, per hour, for a nation where many people earn about two or three thousand Singapore dollars per month. Have a long think about what a school, in all good conscience, could, would and should charge a young student in such a situation, for the opportunity to further their passion for physics?

This school charged the desperate parents of this twelve year old, who had nowhere else to go, since nowhere in Singapore was willing to offer them the necessary facilities, a sum that I had to check three times, with the person who told it to me (an administrator at the school concerned), so disbelieving was I, of my ears.

This Singaporean school and bastion of generosity charged the parents of this gifted physics student, SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS an HOUR!

Now, that is the size of the barrier that the parents of unusually gifted students face, here, in Singapore. Only the very, very rich, can afford to give their children a differentiated education. The rest must do with the rubber stamp process offered to everyone else.

I was really appalled. The percentage of parents of gifted children who could actually afford six hundred dollars an hour to give their child the education they need, is vanishingly small. Clearly, this particular gifted child had wealthy parents: most such children do not. Such children, instead, face endless frustration, as the "system" says "no!" to their every special request.

I will write more of the other examples of frustrated gifted children that we have encountered, in Singapore, in due course. In each case, the national education system has failed to accommodate them, in the way which was self-evidently appropriate.

Singapore has a lot to learn, if it is to be the supreme nation it intends to be. Perhaps one of the first lessons should be how to accommodate the exceptional, rather than deny them. The problem with that, of course, is that Singapore just doesn't like to make exceptions. What they don't understand, though, is that making exceptions would make them exceptional, in time to come. Singapore has, it seems, chosen another path: the one that leads to conformity, uniformity and second-rateness.

That is not the choice we are going to make: whatever the "system" says. Unfortunately, we don't have six hundred dollars an hour to buy our way out of the situation...but then, who does?

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and one month, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and seven months, and Tiarnan, two years exactly, 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, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

School uniforms: a toddler's view.

Today, Tiarnan, twenty-three months, accompanied his mother to Ainan's school. While there, they looked around.

Now, Tiarnan has only ever seen Ainan wearing his school uniform, five days a week. He is accustomed to seeing Ainan returning home wearing it. Until this week, this meant returning in the evening, after school. Now, it means returning in the early afternoon, since school now begins early in the morning (too early).

What Tiarnan saw at Ainan's school astonished him. Everywhere he looked there were people who, from a distance, looked just like his eldest brother, (Abang), Ainan. They were all wearing the same distinctive uniform.

Tiarnan turned his head from one school boy to another, saying: "Abang! Abang! Abang!" as he fixed his stare on each one. It was very clear that he thought this identity of uniform most peculiar. Everyone was a "clone" of his eldest brother.

This was Tiarnan's first experience of uniformity of dress. It was clear that he thought it very strange. There was something unnatural about it.

The funny thing is, that adults are accustomed to think of uniforms as "normal" and normalizing. Yet, clearly, the instinctive reaction of toddler Tiarnan was to think of it as odd. Everyone was naturally different - but here they were, all dressed like his Abang.

I rather feel that Tiarnan's reaction is more authentic and more informative. He is telling us that it shouldn't be normal for all children (or adults) to appear the same. Uniqueness has value. Until that moment, in Tiarnan's young life, all people had dressed as individuals. Everyone had been unique. Today, everyone was the same. I think it was a matter of some startlement for him.

So should it be for all of us. Let us be ourselves. Let us be unique.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and no months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and five months, and Tiarnan, twenty-two 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, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)