Mountain climbing not for 12 year old kids!

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

First and foremost, my deepest condolences to the families of the students and teacher who died from the Sabah Mount Kinabalu Earthquake. I believe those students and teachers who survived the tragedy must have suffered tremendous trauma and I hope that psychiatrists are sent to provide the necessary counseling to help them overcome their traumatic shocks and pain.

This article does not seek to pin the blame of the earthquake deaths on anyone. It is true that no matter whether you are an adult or a child, you are subjected to the same risk to death from such sudden acts of nature. However, there is really much to fault MOE and the school for approving and allowing 12 year old kids to go on such a "Mountain Climbing Expedition".

The common excuse given was that the Primary School has been conducting this expeditions for the past few years without incidents, so we should assume there is nothing wrong in having such expedition for 12 year old kids. This is absolutely wrong argument to deflect responsibility for both MOE and the school. It is like saying you have won a few rounds from the Casino and thus, gambling in the Casino is absolutely safe!

The other flawed argument is that when we walk on the street, we also face risk of being injured or killed by car or other accidents. The key thing is, you do not have a choice to face such risk in our daily life but we do have the choice whether to allow our young 12 year old kids to face unnecessary risks for such expedition!

Some people say that we do not want to cultivate kiasu kiasi (timid and cowardly) people so we should continue to support such expedition for 12 year old kids. This is totally a erroneous perspective. We should not cultivate the mindset of recklessness in a bid to secure gungho (overly tough) training for our kids! We should tread the middle path, learn how to take calculated risks and deal with them.

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