Give the children a break from studies

The holidays have begun but parents are not about to let their children out of "school." Apart from a few days of holiday outings, the rest of the long holidays are spent studying to equip for better performance for the next hurdle. Thus children are enrolled for holiday classes, run either by the school or private centers. Very popular are courses for preparation of high stake examinations such as the UPSR, PMR SPM with focus on major subjects like Bahasa Malaysia, English, Mathematics and Science.

I'm not against learning but as the saying goes All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Another saying with similar inference is There's a season for everything - a season for work and a season for rest.

Children should be allowed to expand their horizon beyond their studies. Exposing them to spheres outside of academic subjects will actually make better students. Drama, creativity courses and survival camps would serve them better in the long run than dry, academic subjects. This has been confirmed by educational experts who suggest that we bring our prior knowledge into our studying.

High Stake Exams

The UPSR results are out! Joey passed with 7A's. Her mother, Li Qi was overjoyed. So am I! I had taught her and her siblings English.
"How will you reward her?" I asked the mother.
"We'll see," she responded.
I wonder if this high stake exam will still be on next year. There was talk that it might be scrapped because it can be a source of great stress for candidates. It's true that written exams may not be the best assessment of a student's abilities. After all, one's performance in a big exam is dependent on several factors apart from head knowledge. An otherwise brilliant student may not perform well because some circumstance has upset his/ her equilibrium. A cold, poor sleep, bad news can take its toil on one's thinking skills at a time such as this.
Despite such factors, I personally feel that exams are valid instruments for assessment.