Taken from ST Forum, Oct 30, 2007

Learning in the classroom: Pity the strugglers and stragglers
DR GOH Kar Cheng's advisory to parents, 'Teach kids to face difficulties' (The Sunday Times, Oct 28), is laudable.

The young ought to be immunised against the potential pitfalls of mental and emotional cave-ins.

Dr Goh's is the plaintive voice of reason and rationality almost inaudible in the rising cacophony of a generation of liberal, literate, articulate, demanding and vocal parents.

Not a few principals and teachers stand in awe of such parents.

Defiant kids who challenge the teacher's authority in the classroom are not uncommon.

Parents take umbrage if a teacher so much as suggest their kids are 'lazy', 'naughty', 'playful', 'inattentive', 'defiant', etc.

Woe betide any teacher who tries to impose firm discipline on errant children whose parents over-protect them.

Holding back kids to do extra work (during recess and after school) because they have been slack, careless, lazy, indifferent, etc, is deemed punitive, counter-productive and restrictive.

For close to 40 years, I taught kids who were academically weak: the tail-end classes.

Those whom I taught from the 60s to the 80s were a hardy lot. They hardly cried nor whined if injured. If punished for any misdemeanour, they bore the correction with equanimity.

Above all, their parents were fully supportive of the teachers whenever their kids were punished for any wrongs.

Dr Goh talks about examination questions, which differentiate bright sparks from the average ones.

I had never come across kids who were traumatised by impossibly tough examination questions before the 90s.

Since then, I have personally come across some really tough ones, which not only whack the daylights out of the weak and average but also demoralise the very bright ones.

Some adults are talking rhetorically about discriminating the hares from the tortoises with nary a concern for the ones not endowed with advantages like good family background, solid parental backing and support, etc.

Presently, even kids in P3 solve challenging mathematics problems, which involve four working steps.

My friend, a retired teacher, struggles to teach his grandchild mathematics problems of this genre. Additionally, some of the questions unfairly test the child's English language comprehension ability.

My compassion and empathy are with the strugglers and stragglers.

Ho Kong Loon