Primary 5 question exposes stress that singapore students face

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PRIMARY 5 QUESTION EXPOSES STRESS THAT SINGAPORE STUDENTS FACE

Post date:
13 Apr 2015 - 2:18pm








A Singapore Primary school mathematics question that has stumped even adults have some criticise the school for adding further stress to Singapore students.

TV presenter Kenneth Kong shared the Primary 5 question on his Facebook page and which has since garnered more than 3,000 shares.

The question asks students to guess the age of Cheryl, after she gave clues to two boys she just met, Albert and Bernard.

However, the difficulty of the question has raised many eyebrows.

Eileen Tham did not mince her words. "Teaching a P5 this shit," she commented on Kenneth's page.

"This... is neither Math nor English. Why is this even in the paper? More like IQ or Logic question... =_= should go and scold the teacher ask him/her how he set the paper..", Dephanie Quah also said.

"What subject is this? English problem sums??" Muhd Ab Didi added.

Another commenter also questioned the relevance of the question.

"Can any teacher give me a context on how this will be applicable in the students' future?" Ippiki Ookami asked.

On The Straits Times' Facebook page, this has also attracted raging comments.

"How on earth do u explain this thru mathematical formulas. Riddles like these can be played for leisure.. but for maths where kids need grades to ensure a proper certification, that determines their future, can we stick to the basics n the syllabus please? Does the teacher derive pleasure from making kids stress unnecessarily?" Sue Roslan asked.

However, some commenters disagreed.

"You need logical thinking to solve this. That is more important than being able to solve math equations," 龍政宏 said.

"This may be a different approach to education, one that stimulates critical thinking," Aiman Mahfuz added.







Even so, many commenters have questioned the need to include this question as an examination question.

"Oh an 11 yr old is supposed to suddenly develop logic when she is supposed to be getting fundamentals of math right? Since we are developing logic at such a young age might as well lower the age we label as adults," Sue Roslan countered.

"Math is still math. If we want to promote this then have another class altogether for critical thinking. If we expect kids to be able to solve this where even some adults take time, we hold it against them by issuing grades that are on their certification to determine their future in our country where job candidates are mostly segregated by their qualifications?"
Another father, Adam Koh, added: "Poor kids nowadays.. Seeing my own son who is in P6 solving math problems is a big headache.. Solving problem w help from 1 U grad, 3 poly and 1 sec 4 and spend more than a day just to solve a question w more complex solution which P6 is not being taught.. Keep wanting kids to have balance in their lives yet push them at such a young age.. Pity them.. But in actual fact, how many of us apply such complex questions in our daily life.."

"Such questions that determine a child's grades and impacts his/her self esteem is simply unncessary. Our children are not broken nor are they dumb; the system is just ridiculous! We are worried for our kiddos. We r paying for motivational classes and tutors bcos of this absurd system. Pfft!" Ash Sharif remarked as well.

Ang Yu Bin did have a point when he said that, "Mathematics is the language to express logic. Training up your logical thinking helps you to actual understand the mathematical concepts and also the problems they are trying to solve. Remembering the formulas and just applying them blindly is in fact not the way we should be going."

However, where the Singapore education system has been made to be examination-focused and where the syllabus can be overwhelming to the Singapore student, this has upset many Singaporeans.

The common trend in thought is that such questions will result in stress among students, who will feel time-constrained during examinations and might fault themselves for not being able to answer such questions.
Critics do not seem to disagree with this question but disagree with its usage as an examination question, where in the Singapore system, is unnecessarily challenging.

However, if the Singapore education system is reformed to encourage critical logical thinking and creativity and where the focus on syllabus and examinations is reduced, such a question might indeed be welcomed.
As such, even though this question has invited criticism, the true question that it has raised is how the Singapore's education system might be constraining for Singapore's students and if the pursuit of creativity and critical thinking is indeed the path that students should take, the system as a whole should undergo a fundamental rethink in its principles.


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