Why burden children with holiday work?

It is enjoyable and heartening to read Ms Kelly Kishor's article on The Straits Times, Monday, June 28 2010, page A20 "Why burden children with holiday work?"

MY SENTIMENTS, EXACTLY!

I looked at the article, over and over again, savouring the entire article and what it was about. Holidays were meant to be a break away from reality, but in the article, what were the holidays? Projects? Assignments? Discussions? Final year grade? Holidays! WHERE ARE YOU! I think they are lost in the land of homework!



I believe that everyone out there had a wonderful holiday, doing Maths Revision Papers all day long, analysing poems on other days and doing some last minute work such as what Ms Lee gave us on Saturday, the second last day of the holidays. Isn't it just wonderful and brilliant to have such teachers who pile their students with holiday work?

"While the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports is campaigning for "family time"", do we even receive the family time that we always wanted during the school term? Do we even get our rest time when we are not doing work? Do we even have enough time to finish our assigned homework? Do we even sleep more, compensating for the time lost during the school term? Do we... I can go on forever, but I shan't.

What is it with the schools nowadays? Schools are constantly, generously giving out holiday work. While many children in top elite schools like us, have a lot of work, don't we too? Her daughter is just in Secondary 1 and she is already coming "home loaded with projects and assignments" Is that what schools should be doing? Should schools be giving students so much work till they come to schools after the holidays with puffy eyebags? Or should schools stop making the students slog, since the holidays are the students’ rest time? Or is it just the parents?

The parents, being too “kiasu” or rather afraid to lose, would make their children mug. The parents would want to see the results. Is this the correct attitude to life? Is this the correct attitude that they want to show to their own children and make their children adopt? Is this the right attitude that they must have in order to succeed in life? Is this the correct attitude that they must possess in order to work well and gel with their future colleagues? Therefore, parents must be a role model to their children, they must “get away from the mindset that slogging without rest is the only way to compete.” They must know that adequate rest can increase performance significantly; witout it, even the strongest-willed students will succumb to burnout. Is that the ending that parents want to see of their beloved children?

If so, then what is the use of the holidays? Why not just home-school the children? It will be like a holiday, with homework given to you everyday, piled up till it reaches the ceiling. There would be no holidays anymore, just 4 terms in a row. Instead of a 10 week term, make it a 13 term week, such that it will last till the last day of the entire year. Holidays are for students to rest, to take a break from the constant running about in school; to allow the students to catch up with their friends; to allow them to maintain a strong and close bond with their family and their relatives.

Are schools emphasising too much on projects and holiday assignments? Or is it that the parents have too high expectations of their children? Or rather, is it that the children have too much pressure on themselves? Well, it varies from one person to another. However so, one things is for sure, many children have no rest, absolutely no rest at all during the holidays, as they are continuously ladened with the work that their teachers give them. The pressure is constantly rising and the heat is always on...

Man with pistol gets 12½ years, 17 strokes

I refer to The Straits Times of Friday, June 25, 2010, Page A3. “Man with pistol gets 12½ years, 17 strokes”

A brief summary of the entire article: Low Hua Choon, 42 was busted last July for delivering duty-unpaid cigarettes to customers. He also hid a pistol given by his friend, Guan Choon, in a black bag at the back of his truck, which also became a millstone around his neck. A man called, and requested for Hua Choon to deliver the cigarettes to Chai Chee and Ang mo Kio. It was in Ang Mo Kio that he was caught and his fate was sealed. His lawyer said that (as quoted) “ Low wanted to get rid of the pistol, but did not know how to” and “he was ‘very sure’ he would never need to use it”

What are my thoughts: Well, after looking at this same article for the second time, I have contrasting views. My first thoughts were that, this person deserves what he received, which was the proclaimed sentence. However, on second thoughts, I pitied him.

Why is that so? I shall explain my distinct feelings.

On one hand, I know that what he did was reprehensible. He delivered contraband cigarettes, which were duty-unpaid and illegally imported into Singapore. It is against the Singaporean laws, and he should be sentenced to imprisonment. Other than being an illegal contraband cigarette seller, he could have taken up other jobs, instead of engaging in these kinds of unlawful importing and exporting. He could work as a cleaner, having a lawful job, instead of smuggling contraband cigarettes.

Instead of constantly living in fear, with his heart constantly pounding, why not go and learn a new subject at any educational institution? Instead of engaging in unlawful activities, why not learn a new skill that will be useful in the long run? Is it for the money? Will it even benefit him? He knows that he can run, but he can’t hide. Therefore, sooner or later, he will still be caught by the local authorities for just one slight mistake. Is it even worth the hassle, to go through so much, and the eventual result being imprisonment? Therefore, what he did was erroneous. And he deserves his outcome.

On the other hand, I pity him. What is our society becoming of now? It is too meritocratic. Low Hua Choon, being with a record for having a 1994 conviction for rioting and causing grievous hurt, will not get a single chance or opportunity to turn over a new leaf. He is unable to get a job just with the employer looking at his previous criminal records. The employers won’t want a person who is a past offender working under them. Why? He is not trustworthy. If money is lost, or the whole shop is burnt down, the first person that they will blame would be the past offender. This is because of a hasty generalization that criminals are deceitful.

Many people in Singapore reward those that do well, and are biased against those who do their job poorly. Even if he is a post-graduate, but has a criminal record under his belt, it would still be hard on him to get a job. Therefore, Singapore is meritocratic till the extent that past offenders do not get another chance. This forces the past offenders, be it by drug abuse, being a runner or illegal betting, to work for the secret society once again.

With that, I leave you with two questions:

1)Is it right for Singapore to be so meritocratic?
2)With Singapore's laws being so strict, is it propitious for us as Singaporeans?

Thank you.

Human Trafficking: S'pore tells US to put own house in order

What is the definition of human trafficking?

The definition of trafficking is trafficking in persons shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use by force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving and receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs ( From Human Trafficking website)

Now I shall go into the main theme of US – Singapore relations.

I refer to today’s The Straits Time Page A8, "Human Trafficking: S'pore tells US to put own house in order".

What is the main problem now? Singapore is being accused by the US that we are not doing enough to curb sex and labour trafficking. However, what is the US even doing to help reduce its own percentage of labour trafficking and prostitutes. It is not even looking into its own record, and even pronounces on other countries” that we are not making any laws or increasing police patrol to reduce the number of prostitutes and human trafficking. In fact there are even a few reports of the police organising raids on Geylang, an infamous place where sex workers would hang out. Another website that you can look at that talks about the prostitutes is this : Blog for sex workers

We are doing all we can with police raids and frequent Marine Police patrolling the area, we are always trying to make our country perfect and the statistics can show that we are constantly reducing our number of human trafficking. The US say that we do not fully comply with minimum international standards for protecting migrant workers from forced labour or other forms of trafficking.

Is the US even protecting their migrant workers? Is the US even effective in taking “some significant new steps”? Is the US even being efficient by placing itself in Tier 1, and placing Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Brunei, Afghanistan and the Maldives in Tier 2 Watch List? “It has not shown increased efforts in prosecuting more culprits or identifying victims” as quoted by The Straits Times, even the Ministry of Foreign Affairs “called the report “puzzling” because the US had not satisfactorily explained how it had arrived at its conclusions”. How can the US even be placed in Tier 1 when there is “AN AVERAGE of 16,000 foreigners” who are “trafficked into the United States every year”, and another quote by The Straits Times, “Sex trafficking was again the main problem, with 1,018 incidents reported”.

With all the statistics and quotes by The Straits Times, I would like to speak out against what the US has just done. With all its statistics going against them, with so many reports on human trafficking and sex trafficking, how could it rank itself in Tier 1, where it seems like Tier 1 is the best of all the Tiers, having low crime or even no crime. Singapore is even placed in Tier 2 Watch List when its statistics are even lower than that of the US. It is such an irony! Singapore is also said to “have a significant number of victims and have failed to show increasing efforts to combat the situation”.

The United States really needs to look into this situation. I do hope that it would be solved as soon as possible, so that the US – Singapore relations will not be affected.

Please leave your comments below. Thank you!

Plagiarism? YES!!!!

Many people know that there aren’t much benefits of plagiarism, but I will be analyzing it in much detail, so that everyone will be able to weigh the benefits and disadvantages of plagiarism fairly. I shall start off with a cliche question, what is the definition of plagiarism? Plagiarism is defined as "the use of anyone else’s words or ideas without assigning proper credit to their original source."

This includes:
• Assembling parts from various works and submitting the assignment or assessment paper as your own creation.
• Fabricating data from other students’ assignments or assessments and using for the students own advantage.
• Using materials from the Internet without full acknowledgement and proper referencing.

Now, we all know that plagiarism, the utterly reprehensible act of using the thoughts of another, reaping the rewards of that use, and then, not even providing the source of the information, is an officially bad thing. But, let us look at it from the point of view of the plagiarist. There are many different benefits of being a plagiarist, but I am not trying to encourage everyone here to plagiarise, such as time saving, the build-up of the esteem of colleagues, and better self-confidence.
Time saving is a benefit of plagiarism. When the time that is allocated to you is not spent on assignments or questions that will not help you in your long-term, or your career when you start to work, the time can be used in other areas. Time can be saved from doing duplicated research on things or events of what others have already done. The time will not be wasted if it can be spent in other more worthwhile pursuits like honing your skills that will be needed in your dream job or doing some CIP. Also, time management skills can also be improved from plagiarism when the plagiarist spends his or her time wisely on other areas of improvement.
Esteem of colleagues or friends will also be built. This is because many friends would like clever or smart people. Friends and colleagues would also like to make friends with people who can meet the assignment or work deadlines with much efficiency and dispatch while still keeping abreast with the current news or situation. Many people would respect you more and honour you. By that time that happens, your home will be your friends, your work will be your resource that you rely on for answers.

Better self-confidence can also be built upon the foundation of your low self-esteem before you start plagiarizing, without the acknowledgement of your source. By plagiarizing, you will get better in your answers, with better results. By plagiarizing, you will have a higher expectation of yourself and also better self-confidence that is built upon the foundation of your own self-esteem. By having a higher self-confidence, you will believe in yourself more and thus, in the end, you will exude confidence in different ways, such as through presentations, through the socializing with your friends and also when trying to gain the support of your friends or colleagues. Not only so, it can also prove to be a good platform in which weaker students can learn from.

There are also other uses of plagiarizing, which is being efficient and being able to target at your needs, some examples include,

1) speechwriters writing speech for politicians, When a politician, famous sports figure, business executive, or movie star gives a speech or writes a book or newspaper column, frequently the actual writing is done by someone else. Sometimes, in books, this is acknowledged, as in the case of The Autobiography of Malcolm X written by "Malcolm X with the assistance of Alex Haley" (X, 1965).

2) Another and even more common misrepresentation of authorship occurs in bureaucracies, including government, corporate, church and trade union bureaucracies. Work that is done by junior workers is commonly signed by higher officials. The official justification is that the person whose name goes on a document is organizationally responsible for that work, but they also are commonly considered to be "responsible" in terms of gaining credit for doing the work, especially by outsiders.

3) For example, in parliamentary systems, a minister is an elected parliamentarian in charge of a government department. When someone writes a letter to a minister, they receive in reply a letter from the minister which is almost always written by someone in the department and seldom seen by the minister at all. The letter writer seldom thinks of the interaction as having been one with a junior bureaucrat.

Making professional friends is also possible when you start to plagiarize. This is also shown through CopyScape, that when you start to plagiarize, you will be able to make close acquaintanceship with your colleagues or friends which are essential in your everyday lives, in the office, in school or while having a meal together. Acquaintances can also be formed while meeting up with lawyers, friends or people of high importance by impressing them with your knowledge of the current topic at hand. In that way, You will be able to make close friends with professionals and probably even garner their support in the long run.

As for an evolution, you may be wondering what I mean by that. The plagiarist will teach his or her children the advantages of plagiarising, and it will continue down from one generation to another. They will teach their children that it is completely acceptable to misuse the property of others, be it in Powerpoint slides, office documents or other media, especially if you can do so without going through the pesky details such as acknowledging your source of information or the permission of the owner. The children will learn from young how to plagiarise and learn better time management.

Thank you.