Education

Aristotle: “The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.”

Sir Walter Scott: “We shall never learn to feel and respect our real calling and destiny, unless we have taught ourselves to consider every thing as moonshine, compared with the education of the heart.”

Rousseau: “Plants are formed by cultivation, men by education. All we lack at birth and need in maturity is given us by education.”

B.F. Skinner: “Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten.”

Oscar Wilde: “Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”

Kinds of education:

• General: Aims at producing intelligent, responsible, well-informed citizens. It is designed to transmit a common heritage rather than to develop trained specialists.
• Vocational: Aims primarily at preparing individuals for a job.
• Special: Provides education opportunities for handicapped or gifted people.
• Adult: Continuing education programmes that allows adults to continue their formal education or develop a skill or hobby.

Controversial Education Policies in Singapore:

• Primarry 4 Streaming
  • Demerit: Student may be late developer
• Secondary 1 Streaming
  • Demerits:
    • Students in Normal stream may develop inferiority complex
    • System could breed elitism, better students feel superior
    • Social stigma for Normal stream students
  • Merits:
    • Allows slower learners more time in secondary education
    • Allows non-academically inclined students to pick up technical and computer skills
    • Faster learners are not hampered in their pace of learning in class
• Bilingualism
  • Demerit: For intelligent students who do not meet the minimum requirement for admission in our university, they usually seek overseas education and often do not return
  • Merit: Helps the nation preserve her cultural roots and the mother-tongue
• Special Assistance Plan (SAP) Schools: Students take languages at first-language level.
  • Demerit: Criteria for selection may not be a good indication of students’ ability to cope with it
  • Merit: Enable better students to obtain a mastery in two instead of one language
• Independent Schools
  • Demerits:
    • Breed elitism
    • Exorbitant school fees
    • Intelligent and deserving students may not be able to afford to study in such schools
  • Merits:
    • Principal is given authority to hire or fire staff
    • Because of slightly higher wages, more quality teachers are attracted to such schools
• Autonomous Schools
  • Demerits:
    • May soon become like independent schools = develop an elite status
    • Adds to the myth that normal schools are inferior
  • Merits:
    • Principals of these schools are allowed more freedom to decide on syllabus and policies
    • Comparable to independent schools in terms of quality of education while maintaining low fees and accessibility to students
• Third and Fourth National University
• Ranking of schools

Vocabulary exercise:

Verbs:
1. Instil
2. Edify
3. Indoctrinate
4. Plagiarise
5. Inculcate

Qualities and Characteristics:
1. Pedantic
2. Industrious
3. Precocious
4. Reluctant (learner)
5. Conscientious
6. Observantist
7. Eclectic
8. Studious
9. Attentive
10. Erudite
11. Esoteric
12. Apathetic
13. Enquiring

People and Places:
1. Alumnus
2. Creche
3. Campus
4. Neophyte
5. Sophomore
6. Pedagogue
7. Apprentice
8. Kindergarten
9. Truant
10. Alma mater
11. Postgraduate
12. Underachiever
13. Academic (Koh)
14. Undergrad
15. Intellectual
16. Academy
17. Invigilator

Terminology:
A.
1. Innate ability
2. Seminar
3. Heuristic learning
4. Syllabus
5. Module
6. Literacy
7. Vocational training
8. In-service training
9. Numeracy
10. Streaming
11. Vertical grouping
12. Cognitive development
13. Inter-disciplinary
14. Extramural
15. Affective development
16. Intelligence quotient

B.
1. Mixed ability
2. Tutorial
3. Aptitude
4. Readability
5. Truancy
6. Continuous assessment
7. Immersion/intensive course
8. Motivation
9. Cross-curricular; study skills

C.
1. Core curriculum
2. Rote learning
3. Dyslexic
4. Extra-curricular
5. Attention seeking behaviour (the Hen)
6. Psycho-motor skills
7. Pastoral care
8. School refusal

Analogies:
1. c
2. a
3. d
4. d
5. c
6. e
7. d

Sentence Completion:
1. b
2. c
3. b
4. e
5. a
6. a
7. d
8. c
9. b

Wordpic: a