Learning Journey

ACS won best opposition at Moot Parliament this year. You probably think I’m happy. Well I’m not. I’m very angry at GEP branch. They’re a screwed up bunch of cretins (the irony) and they’ve treated some people very unfairly. GEP branch, we’ve already made our opinions clear through the school. Get your act together and stop being such an embarrassment.

To that friend who has been so torn and so hurt because of all of this... I’m so sorry for everything that happened. It was never once your fault. There’s nothing more that you could have done. Please don’t blame yourself for any of this.....

If ever you need me..... I’ll be waiting for your call.
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Somewhere last week, in the bleak, cold thunderstorm of never ending work, pressure, anxiety, trouble, worry, pain, finally I snapped. I didn’t anymore have the strength to carry on, I didn’t anymore have the will to live.

I locked myself in the bathroom. The tears flowed, as I held a small vial of medicine which was labelled to have lethal consequences when overdosed. I held in my hand many times the maximum dosage of that medicine, debating in my head whether or not I should just do it, as I cried my eyes out. To end it all right then, would have been so easy.

That single desperate hour, is the worst kind of hell I’ve ever felt. I’ve never felt so wretched, so alone, so desolate. Life is difficult, painful, unforgiving. Death is peaceful, easy.

I didn’t do it. I knew I was gonna miss someone when I’m at the some other place you go when you die. I knew he would miss me too. I put the poison back. I’m not sure if that was the right thing to have done.

It had to come to this, because for that hour at least, life had lost all meaning. I think I knew what was missing.

Its true that the Singaporean education system does produce good grades. Its true that academically its a success. Its true that it excels in any measurable criteria.

But it fails in what is immeasurable.

Learning shouldn’t be something that is dreaded, something that is to be terrified of. Unfortunately that’s the way it seems here. Just take a look at the endless amount of homework, projects etc. that have to be finished by students who are in school before sunrise, and home long after dusk.

Our education system produces great academic results. Unfortunately it also produces students who end up hating learning, who end up stressed, tired, angry, who are pushed to the point of trying to end their lives. Hatred. Anger. Suicide. Death.

They call that a “world-class” education system.

Learning should have been fun, enjoyable. Something that I could have looked forward too. The reality is that it isn’t. Because this education stole from me, and stole from every single child, the joy of learning.

I don’t think that’s something you could give back.

We have today as a result of this education, people who are brilliant at memorizing things, people who’s brains contain a great amount of knowledge. But these same people are unenthusiastic about learning, unimaginative, stagnant, boring.

Therein lies our biggest failure.