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School starts today for more than 500,000 children
across the island this new year. As these children stream back to their
schools and begin looking around in their new classrooms, some of them may
notice a classmate or schoolmate missing. And they may realise that the
tsunami which took place far from our shores over the holidays has something
to do with that student's absence from school. |
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Yes, our children return to school nowadays to
face situations which we did not face in our time as schoolchildren. The year
before last year, it was Sars. Children suddenly found their term holidays
extended and home quarantine orders slapped on holidaymakers returning from
Sars-affected countries. |
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I used to be red with envy when I saw students
whip out their mobile phones in the classrooms and corridors of schools.
Simply by flicking their fingers on the phone pad, they could instantly
message classmates, schoolmates and friends, be these chaps in the same school
as theirs or any other school in Singapore. The entire island's schools had
become a very personal communication network for the students. |
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These students could share news and gossip about
their teachers and friends in real time, though they were in their own
classrooms and far away from one another. They could even snap pictures or
video-record scenes and send these instantly - remember the
teacher-scolding-student incident in a JC? |
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And when you were teaching them, you suddenly
realise that it was possible that their minds might be far away, for they
could be looking blankly at you while their fingers were doing the
communication work for them - sms-ing their friends on their mobile phones
which were hidden from your view. |
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Yes, indeed, I thought these students were a
privileged lot - to be born in this time and blessed with the tools that
today's technology had made available to them. But, now, I do not envy them. |
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It's true that in my time - in the 1970's - we had
no gadgets to indulge ourselves in. Why, we didn't even have electronic
calculators in class. They didn't exist then. At secondary school, we were
using logbooks which we had to flip through for sine and cosine calculations.
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It's true that television for us was black and
white till 1973 when colour was introduced in Singapore. I remember I was in
secondary three at Victoria School that year. It was a year I could not
forget, for that same time, my family had our first telephone in our flat in
Toa Payoh. Wow! I thought, what a thrill it was, being able to call my
schoolmates on the telephone and talk to them in the comfort of my home. |
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It's true that looking back, I realise that these
were simple thrills indeed, pale in comparison with what's available to the
young of today. But, while it's true these gadgets have made living a luxury
of a lifestyle for students of today, it's also true that the ills of today -
Sars, birdflu, Tsunami and their lot - were practically unheard of in my time
as a student. |
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The young of today are saddled with these problems
and so they learn to grow up faster than we did in our time as students. It's
not precocity, mind you. It's just that they have found themselves in an
environment which is not as conducive as that which we had when we were as
young as they are now. |
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Whether it's Sars, birdflu, tsunami or whatever
nature may throw in their paths in future, our young will have to face up to
these afflictions for it's a world they have inherited by virtue of their
being born in this day and time. Pluses and minuses considered, I think these
chaps do not have as good a time as we had as students decades ago.
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So, should we still envy our children? |
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Monday with the Editor: Still envy our children?
