Lee Kuan Yew and Language Education in Singapore.

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, was quoted, recently, in Petir, the People's Action Party magazine, as saying: "Initially, I believed that intelligence was equated to language ability. Later, I found that they are two different attributes - IQ and a facility for languages. My daughter, a neurologist, confirmed this,". Commentary in the articles that relate to this, state that this realization took 30 years. In the meantime, difficult education policies on bilingualism were implemented - ones that ignored the difficulty of acquiring a second language, for many students.

Now, it seems to me, that the implications of this realization have not been entirely examined. PSLE, for instance, requires, if I am not mistaken, examination in English and "Mother Tongue"...that is, a second language, determined by the race of the examinee. It has always seemed suspect to me, to state that because someone is of a particular race, that they must also be of a particular language. My children, for instance are, yes, half-Malay...but they have far less than half the normal opportunity to learn Malay. You see, I don't speak Malay, so most of the conversation in our household is, necessarily in English. Thus, it is a nonsense to have a policy which requires my children to be Malay speakers (because they have a Malay mother), when they don't really come from a Malay speaking household. There are many families like this, families which have a particular racial background but do NOT have the corresponding language background. Yet, at PSLE, all families must submit to the demand for examination in English and Mother Tongue. As we can see from MM Lee's own admission, this makes no sense at all, with regards to the intended aim of selecting the most able students. Ability in languages is not a catch-all for general mental ability: it is a specific capability. Leonardo da Vinci, the famously polymathic genius, was not so strong in languages: perhaps in Singapore he would have been relegated to poorer schools because of it. How ridiculous is that?

So, let us heed MM Lee's recent acquisition of wisdom regarding languages and IQ. Let us have a PSLE system which does NOT require multiple languages for examination. Perhaps the student can nominate which language exam they wish to take - and take only one. Either that, or they could take both - and ONLY the highest one should count towards the determination of their standing in the PSLE.

The real question we have to answer regarding the PSLE is: what is it for? Is it to determine the relative capability of students, in terms of actual intelligence? If so, drop the multiple language requirement because different students have different opportunities to learn languages, so what is being compared is not their intellects, but their environments. If, however, Singapore just wants a system to determine who is the best fit to a multilingual environment, then carry on the present system unchanged. It doesn't find the smartest students...it just finds those best fitted to a multilingual environment. They are not necessarily the same thing. Just ask Leonardo da Vinci, the famous non-linguist. (By the way, I think Leonardo would have been horrified by Singapore's education system...)

(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.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals. If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

Merry Christmas 2008

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Christmas, in recent years, has been quite surreal for me. When I grew up, in Europe, Christmases were times of chill weather and gloomy skies, but inner cheer and shared good humour. These days, however, Christmases are times of humid, hot weather (gloomy skies, still!) but with the same inner cheer and good humour, though this time shared not with my family of siblings, but with my new family, of children (and a wife). It is different. The feeling is different. In a way, now, I am looking back at my own childhood Christmases, as I see my own children enjoy theirs. I have become the outsider, looking at my own former Christmases, through the lens of how my children see theirs. It is a good perspective, actually - for now I can both enjoy it from the inside and the outside at the same time. Christmas has become more multi-layered for me.

When I was a child, I don't think I saw my parents' perspective on Christmas. I don't think I saw what they saw. I only saw what I saw. Now, however, I see my own Christmas and that of my children, at the same time. I see what my parents saw, having become a parent myself. It is a much more complex perspective and one that, I think, is informative. It is what comes of becoming a parent in the first place. Life's meaning becomes clearer - but ever more complex. Things that were once seen and enjoyed, as a child, are seen and enjoyed, again, as an adult, seeing the children from the outside. It is the same scene - but it has gathered new meanings, new depths and a new sweetness, that it did not have before.

In a way, Christmas is much more meaningful when you are a parent, than when you are a child. As a parent, Christmas truly becomes about giving, as a child it was largely about receiving. As a parent, Christmas is about the pleasure of others (one's children), as a child it was largely about the pleasure of oneself. As I have grown, so has Christmas. It is now a much larger thing than when I was a child. Of course, I don't feel it with the excited intensity of a young child anticipating the opening of their presents - but I do feel something else: the profundity of the moment, its special character for my children. I am ever aware that, for them, these moments become memories that will accompany them through life. They will refer to these times, later, as they grow up. They will become, for them, a time of nostalgia, a time for remembrance and wistfulness. That, in its way, is a greater pleasure, for a parent, than any Christmas was for me, as a child. You see, we are giving our children a memorable childhood, even as we give them an enjoyable Christmas. So, I think the best gift of all, is not any particular present, but the gift of the childhood, itself, of which this Christmas time is part.

One day, my children, now so focussed on their own experience of the moment, will grow and become parents themselves. Then they will see us, as now I see my own parents. They will come to understand what we did, what we were, how we felt and what it all meant. So, one day, it will all have come full circle, and my children shall be parents and their children shall be enjoying the Christmas they provide. There is a definite poetry and profundity in that. The endless (hopefully) cycle of life has a beauty in it that, at times, people forget - or perhaps never knew. We all become each other, in time. Parents were once children. Children shall one day be parents. In time, all perspectives are seen and life is finally understood. The pity of it, of course, is that, once we have lived long enough to truly understand life, that there is little of it left - we shall be old and the time for remaining reflection and reverie shall be short. Then we shall understand something else: how it feels to say goodbye.

I hope that human lives can become longer so that there is more time to enjoy the insight that comes with age. It is such a treasure to have such wisdom, it seems a great pity that its possession should signal the shortness of time to come. So, if I have one Christmas wish it shall be this: that people should learn how to live longer, so as to enjoy the depth of understanding of life, that comes with age. Such a treasure should be enduring and not fleeting. Perhaps if those that understood life, well, lived longer, all might benefit from their perspective and life would become more meaningful for all. The old are to be valued and not scorned, as some societies seem to do. For only the old have truly had time to see life from all perspectives and come to know what it all means. Though they may be physically weak, they can be strong in understanding - and it is for this that they should be valued.

Merry Xmas to everyone, the world over, who happens to stumble on this Christmas post. In particular, Merry Xmas to any of my family members, anywhere, who happens to read this.

(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.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)