Media and Violence

Mass media has allowed many people to watch any shows without much restrictions in this modern era. This has exposed young children to shows that contain violence or even sexual contents which can be quite explicit and children being young and innocent, they have the tendency to imitate what the characters do in the shows. According to an article published by American Psychological Association, they have conducted a 15 years study on children that have been exposed to violent shows on televisions.

After an extensive research on the behavior of these children, researchers have come to a conclusion that children who are exposed to violent shows tend to be more aggressive when they become young adults on both genders. When they become teenagers, they have a higher probability of using physical actions on the opposite party when angered and they are also more likely to commit a crime than normal people who are not so exposed to violent shows when they were young. For men, they are 300 percent more likely to commit a crime such as traffic violation whereas in women, they are 400 percent more likely to punch or shove another adult. When young, these children might not be able to differentiate between real and virtual life, hence, they act out the violent scenes in the show not knowing that their actions are wrong.

To reduce these kind of behavior in future generations, many methods have been implemented. One of them is the ‘Child Lock’ function that parents can use on the television to restrict certain channels for a period of time and prevent their children from watching violent shows. However, some of them may know the password that their parents use to lock the channels.

In Singapore’s context, television program providers such as Starhub have the ‘Child Lock’ feature and it has prevent children from watching shows that are too explicit for them. Singapore has one of the lowest crime rate in the world and there are also assembly talks and crime prevention exhibition organised to guide the youths on the right track. Counseling sessions are also given to those who are at higher risk of committing crimes. As a result, over the years, crimes related to youths have been decreasing.

http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2003/03/media-violence.aspx1

Singapore youth; Apathetic no more

This article talks about how Singaporean youth today are no longer apathetic and that youths are not materialistic and nonchalant to the politics and society in Singapore. In comprise many examples of how youths step up with the help of the internet and social to prove that Singapore youth are not apathetic as other people may see.

Personally, I feel proud that there are many Singaporean youths stepping out of their comfort zones to explore different ways to help the less fortunate in the society. It is also heart warming to see many other Singaporean youths who willing to volunteer their time to work together with these various social causes. However, this does not reflect the majority of Singapore youths. Many of the Singaporean youths are portraying the negative values of the society due to the influence of media. Therefore, I believe that it is important to involved these youths with the various social work that other more empathic youths in order of them to see the benefit of helping the society. Together, we can nurture a better generation of Singapore youths.

Teenagers today- smarter,tougher,braver

Young people today are more well read and knowledgeable than the previous generations. They are more involved and understand more about the world around them. They may be more rebellious and rowdy, but they are more intelligent than they seem to appear. The writer talked to two girls at a party about various topics ranging from privilege to trauma. Every time she speaks to female students, she always finds herself staggered by how much they have read, how creatively they think and how curiously bull-shit resistant they are. The writer feels that this generation of young people have the ability to change the world.

People always assume that this generation of youths are easy to fool. However, they are wrong. With the Internet, information is always at our fingertips. The Internet has been a big part of the lives of youths of this generation. I do believe that this generation of young people,being more aware of the problems in society, will be able to make a great change in the world. They are the future stakeholders and governors of the world. With their knowledge and skills, the world will see some big changes in the future.

Young people these days are more mature and more sensible. They know their priorities and how they should go about solving their problems. They are more independent and emotionally stable, making them more dependable on.They are adaptable and resilient. They are self-motivated and know what they want. Many of them are not afraid to stand up for what they believe in even when they know that they may be ignored.This makes them stand out much more.Their attitude is admirable and is something that we should all try to acquire.

Parents should stop spoiling their kids

Related: http://preschooler.thebump.com/longterm-effects-spoiling-children-8288.html

Basically this article is regarding Honk Kong, that more and more kids are being spoiled by their parents. Is it only happening in Hong Kong? I believe most of the younger generation of children in Singapore are also being spoiled by their parents starting at a very young age.

Parents must know where to draw the line between giving what the child needs and not what the child wants. Parents should also be clear in giving their  care, love and concern to their child, not giving in to all the demand. Yes, being more affluent means buying better toys for the child but is that necessary? Will the child be playing that forever.

The most precious gift parents can give their child is the correct values to guide them to be an upright person when they grow up. In Singapore, due to the high costs of living, for most Singaporeans to have a child means both parents would have to go out and work in order to support the family and the responsibility of taking care of the child lies in the hands of the domestic helper. That also implies that the time spent with the child is very limited, and so to make up for that, parents buy branded items, good food and  anything their child wants to “appease” them.

This would then lead to the child having the wrong mind-set that they can get whatever they want which is not true in society and by then they would suffer because not all things will go in the way as they wanted and not always people would give in to their demand. Therefore I personally think and fully agree that parents should stop spoiling their kids.

Similarly when you become a parent don’t spoil your kid/s 😉

Reflection on “The Flip Side of Meritocracy”

The author provides many evidences to point out the negative impacts of meritocracy in societies of developed countries. Besides that, he also discusses about the challenges due to the overuse of meritocratic system that Singapore’s government is facing. There several solutions that have been carried out by the government and social organisations such as the Association for Early Childhood Educators (AECES) to cushion the impacts of inequality caused by the meritocracy in educational system in Singapore.

I do agree with the author’s view that a meritocratic educational system is contributing to the rapid development of Singapore from a third world country to a close-to first world country within 40 years. It is significant to say that Singapore has succeeded in developing economically and socially because of its strong belief and implementation of meritocracy. Meritocracy has formed a firm foundation of the development in terms of the quality and ability of policymakers, working capability of people in the country. This ensures the governance of the country to be effective and efficient and the people of the country to stay competitive in the globalised world economy. One example would be that Singapore remains in top 3 positions for the Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) since 2009. GCR is a yearly report published by the World Economic Forum.  The report assesses the ability of countries to provide high levels of prosperity to their citizens. This means Singapore is considered to be a country highly active in global economic activities and the people enjoy a high degree of standard of living because of their high productivity in the economic area. Therefore, meritocracy helps Singaporeans to constantly develop their intellectual and economic abilities to adopt to the fast changing global economy. At the same time, ensuring the improvement in the social well-being of the people.

 

I agree with the author’s point which states that a meritocracy-based educational system brings about social inequality due to the slowdown of the social mobility. The most significant impact of meritocracy is to develop a high and constant degree of social mobility. However, as the society has experienced the inter-generational social mobility, people in that society will be more aware of how crucial is meritocracy being the path to achieve success. Hence, the winners in the meritocratic system will try their best to support their children along the meritocratic path. This leads to an unequal starting point between the winners, or elites, will have more resources and privilege to benefit their children’s education, for examples, preferential primary school admission for the children of alumni and a lower PSLE cut off score for affiliated school. In comparison, children who are less advantaged will have to work harder to achieve better grades than the former in order to reach the same standard of education. This inequality in starting points leads to a greater disparity in level and quality of education among children with different financial background will receive. For instance, statistics shows that only one in eight undergraduates in public universities come from low-income families. This may imply that the meritocratic educational system is not fair to all students and the opportunities for less advantaged to pursue higher education are comparatively lower than children from affluent families. Therefore, meritocracy is accentuating the gap between the rich and poor and this will slow down the social mobility in society.

 

As we have mentioned about the problems brought by the meritocracy, we need to find out feasible and manageable solutions to cushion the negative influence of meritocracy in society. The government has started off by offering financial aid to ensure resources reach to less advantaged students so they do not have to worry about costs education. However, the provision of financial aid by the government is limited. The most effective solutions would be to open and diverse the system by providing more platforms for success. Also, the more privileged should take initiatives to help the less privileged to ensure Singapore’s brand of meritocracy remains compassionate, fair and inclusive.

Pink Floyd : Another Brick in the Wall.

In summary, this video is a protest song against rigid schooling in general and boarding schools in the UK in the particular time period of the 1980s.
It reflects Pink’s perception of the UK’s education systen as an out-of-touch education system bent on producing compliant cogs in the societal wheel, and people who are all seen as being no different from each other in terms of achievement and thought-making.

The lyrics, “thought control” and “dark sarcasm”, indicated the UK government’s intention to mold the school children into mindless drones of society. For Waters, the learning and sadistic delivery of his school teachers produced little more than faceless, social clones who knew the definition of an acre yet who could not produce an original, imaginative thought. Pink sings,” we don’t need no education / thought control,” he’s more than venting his frustrations over the oppressive education he received; he’s also saying that we, as a society, don’t need this type of education if we’re to evolve past these vitriolic cycle.

The children march in unison to the same beat, rolling through a machine only to emerge as putty-faced clones void of individuality. Their hollow eyes and mouths evoke a certain amount of revulsion in the viewer. This is deformed humanity, beaten and pressed into a sightless, speechless mass incapable of seeing or speaking out against the oversized meat grinder that eventually minces them all into the same ground beef-like worms. The images are effective in their exaggeration, making the message painfully clear. Oppression of any kind, whether personally or socially, thorugh stringent and inelastic education, leads to the death of individuality, which in turn leads to soulless homogeneity, which at last leads to decay.

In my opinion,I see the children as revolting against the repressive influence of the teachers, and summarily destroying the school. They use their books to break the glass case to get the hammers and axes. The symbol of the hammer is pervasive in the film, and Pink only embraces this symbol in its destructive capacity towards the end of the film. It represents power, in this case an oppressive force guarded by the teachers. The students, by using their books, a symbol of education, to gain access to this power have found a way early on to take control of their own lives. We see that immediately after the hammers and axes are freed from the glass cabinet, the children begin to smash through a giant wall, thus symbolically freeing themselves from their own walls that threaten to take them over.

Education should not be forced to follow a narrow path to success, and there is a need in the society to diversify their perceptions of success by not leveraging on academic success only. I believe that everyone is free to learn what they desire, and that the relevant stakeholders of education should ensure that education is not forcefully imposed on the younger generations, so as to prevent such negative perceptions of education.

Reflection on “Pink Floyd-Another Brick In The Wall “

Basically, this song narrates the feeling of the Pink Floyd’s bassist, Roger Waters, how he feels towards the education system, especially that in the United Kingdom. Pink Floyd’s song was a protest song against rigid schooling in general and the boarding schools in the UK in particular. Back when Waters was younger, ( early 1950s ) At school, he was humiliated for writing poems in class  After the teacher reads the poem out loud, Pink starts hallucinating the music video of this particular song.

Based on his personal experience, we understand that this song was a mean to express his unhappiness and anger towards the educational system. The title of the song could be analyses as that even through education, everyone else is still the same (another brick), in the same dull society. (represented by the wall) Or in another, “the wall” could be interpreted as a means where the protagonist would isolate himself away from the crowd.

Personally I find that the music video gives off the scary vibe. But through this video, we see how students are forced to do what the system thinks it’s best for us, and what it perceived as right through the instance when the teacher mocked the little boy ( which is suppose to represent the protagonist ) for his passion for poems, and forces him and the other students to repeat after him, and recite mathematics related definitions/formula.

And through the lyrics ” We don’t need no education, We don’t need no thought control’ and the fact that the video had the children  have to do things orderly ( one row, and synchronised movement ), this reinforce the point that education is being forced onto the students, and with the symbolism of the children wearing the mask, it suggests that the inner-self of the students are hidden, and that they are only doing what that is right.

With the meat grinder symbolising the education system, the artiste would want to bring the message across that every one would be the same at the end of the day, and the certificates mean nothing. At the end of the day, we, the students, the children will be like the minced meat,dull, boring, nothing special.

I feel that education is relatively important for us to achieve success. However, everyone has their own strength and weakness, all of us should be allowed to shine and succeed in our own way. Hence, education should not be forced onto students, we should be allowed to develop our talent in different ways. Only when such is achieved, people would be more receptive of the educational system. However, I do agree that, due to practical reasons, we are forced to go through an education system that is highly demanding, perhaps standing at the p.o.v of government, they are just trying their best to assist the younger generation and thus achieve success.

RSA Animate – Changing Education Paradigms

In this video, Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert talks about how we should educate children to take their place in the economies of the 21st century. This has led to many countries wondering how they should improve their education systems. People are being sorted and separated into different streams and are being judged because of that. The Arts are seen to be inferior and these people are seen as unintelligent because they aren’t interested in academic areas. However, the Arts makes you fully alive. You are able to feel and express yourself freely. Sir Ken Robinson points out that in the aspect of education, we should be waking children up and not putting them to sleep. We should be waking them up to see what is inside of themselves and pushing them to their full potential. Countries are still running their education systems like factories such as classification by batches and subjects and separate facilities. In the 21st century, this can not exist anymore as mentioned in the video because intellectual ability does not define one’s capabilities.

In my opinion, we must learn to think outside the box and be more open to new ideas. The 21st century is unpredictable, so we must be prepared to face all challenges. Countries should focus more on this to make sure that the children are able to adapt well to the ever-changing surroundings. We have to ensure that discrimination does not occur. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and the education system has to make the necessary adjustments in order to bring out the best in students.

Pink Floyd – Another Brick In The Wall

Personally I find the video very creepy due to its setting and lighting. 😦

This is the lyrics of the video:

We don’t need no educationÂ
We dont need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it’s just another brick in the wall.
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.

From the video I think there is two major points to look at. Firstly, the video shows that when students enters the education system to study, their true self or true potential is being hidden as all of them wore a mask. It is true because we are only being accessed by the same exam paper and that is not able to determine how well a student does except for the marks. Some students may be better at something that is not tested in the exams and when he doesn’t do so well in the exams most people would call him a failure.

Secondly, is the meat grinding machine which is seen as the education system. Most of the time after receiving years of education we would turn out the same, having the same certificate, same knowledge. In this 21st century, having only knowledge from the textbooks is insufficient. Communication skills, relationship management skills is also needed. Schools are doing their best to improve on this area but I think that it was started a bit late. However I believe in time to come the education system will slowly change its focus to different domains to equip students to face challenges in the real world and ensures that a student receives a more holistic education when in school.

Response to Family and Youth E-lecture

Dad’s Changing Role

Dear A03,

Based on the video, ‘Dad’s Changing Role’, state 3 implications (i.e. Social, Economic, Political) for the Singapore society, should a significant number of fathers here decide to take on such a role more actively.

Please also take into account the impact of the shift on the individual and on the nation.

Please post your response as comments under this post, and watch out for my replies to you (you might have to refresh constantly – because as a dinosaur, I’m not sure if it’s real time or if you need to manually refresh it). My replies could:

1) Get you to comment on another friend’s comment (opinion on your friend’s stand, etc)

2) (if your friends have commented on your response, please reply to their response)

3)  Ask you a probing question which you would have to reply to

Thank you! Please be present or I would have to mark you as absent.

Happy E-learning! 🙂

Miss Geraldine