No publishing, but here is wad i wrote

I penned tis at like.. 630am +++? rite aft i completed my 103 report tis early morn, i tried to do the opinion pce.. seriously, i'm amazingly still alive n awake, even surviving a 2+hr table tennis playing session with Chrno ppl. see? i'm becoming a non-Kyojin n more of a Chrno-ian. so sad rite? aniwae, i wrote in relation to tis today article, which i shall post below.


Are the 'brains' unwilling to face defeat?
Tor Ching Li
chingli@newstoday.com.sg

EVEN as Education Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam is emphasising the role of co-curricular activities (CCAs) as an avenue for different races to interact, the fear of losing seems to be keeping some elite schools from playing ball — football, to be precise.

Through-train schools Hwa Chong Institution and Raffles Institution (RI) have long shied away from soccer as a competitive sport at high school level, a field that is traditionally dominated by neighbourhood schools such as Siglap, Bartley, Hong Kah, Greenview and Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary.

However, the marked absence of this popular sport in some schools — cited by Mr Tharman as in danger of becoming a Malay enclave, if left alone — is not for a lack of interest on the students' part.

According to Mr Bernard Toh, many soccer aficionados in RI — such as his son — want to play the sport.

"I spoke with the headmaster and the director of pupil development about soccer in RI. One of the reasons they gave for not including soccer as a CCA is that they feel that they will not be able to beat the neighbourhood schools," he said. "Must they win in everything they do? Perhaps there should be room to introduce sports purely for the love of the game."

A Hwa Chong Institution teacher told Today that some Secondary One students, obviously disappointed by the absence of soccer as a competitive sport, wanted to introduce the sport as a CCA last year.

This resulted in a discussion among the school's teachers on whether resources should be spent on developing the sport as a CCA. Said the teacher, who did not wish to be named: "The consensus was that we were not really in favour of it as soccer is not a traditional strength, so even if we pour our resources into it, it may not produce results."

Another reason thrown up in the discussion was the concern that the boys might get into fights with players from other schools.

In an official reply to Today, Hwa Chong's deputy principal Hon Chiew Weng said the school's "niche" sports were track and field, gymnastics, air rifle, water polo, canoeing, judo and cross-country events.

"Our school has been champion in these sports for many years. Other sports, including soccer, are promoted more for leisure and fitness purposes," he said.

Mr Hon added that while some of his students have expressed an interest in forming a soccer team, the school has yet to receive a "formal request" regarding this.

While not ruling out the possibility of putting together a competitive soccer team in the near future, Mr Hon pointed out that uniformed group activities seemed to provide better interaction than competitive sports.

"There is also the possibility that the students may invite other schools for friendly matches. We leave it to the students to initiate this activity ... our students are capable enough to decide what they want for sports and leisure," said Mr Hon.

When contacted, RI's public relations officer declined to comment.

For parents such as Mr Toh, it seems a missed opportunity.

"Soccer will expose students from schools such as RI to others in their cohort who have different talents and create opportunities for them to form friendships, learn how it feels to be beaten, then pick themselves up and move on," he said.

"It is one way to realise that different people have different talents, especially as Singapore is getting more pluralistic with different possible paths to success."

Interestingly, both Hwa Chong and RI offer soccer as a CCA at junior college level, in the A division.

Commented Mr Lye C K, a retired physical education teacher: "It's no secret that a lot of the good players from neighbourhood secondary schools don't make it to junior college. Thus, the scene at the A-division level is usually quite different."

I mumble to myself that tellingly, good news has become a rarity in Singapore. Staring at the article in Today in front of me, the headline “Are the ‘brains’ unwilling to face defeat?” probes me to ponder how much the media in Singapore has degraded. And I bet that some soul out there would actually frown upon my thoughts. “Hey. That’s a genuinely GOOD piece of news the industrious reporter has come up with. Give her the credit.”

Yah right.

Somebody was saying something about the discrimination between elite schools and neighbourhood schools. I put forth the notion that this discrimination is due, in no small part, by the media. Noticed how the reporter happily penned “brain” as the headline? In the article, the reporter then goes on to draw the link between “neighbourhood schools such as Siglap, Bartley, Hong Kah, Greenview and Ahmad Ibrahim Secondary” and “the marked absence of this popular sport in some schools — cited by Mr Tharman as in danger of becoming a Malay enclave, if left alone”. I wonder if the above mentioned schools have indeed stopped enrolling non-Malays. The irrelevant links drawn brings out a wide smile on my face. “Saya is enlightened neh!”

And our dear parent, Mr. Toh, is so upset! He says: “Soccer will expose students from schools such as RI to others in their cohort who have different talents and create opportunities for them to form friendships, learn how it feels to be beaten, then pick themselves up and move on.” Dear Mr. Toh, henceforth, all schools shall only have soccer as their CCA and abolish all other CCAs because of your wonderful reasoning. How great that would be! Would that not fit nicely into our Goal 2010? Oh you mean that goal has been changed?

Further comments have surfaced through the Today forum. Let’s check it out!

The general sentiment is that “elite schools” are bad, really bad. They decide against having sports in which they would lose as CCAs (hence, RI has Track and Field, when the best result they ever make is 4th placing, and badminton, where they have not smelt Gold since my time in RI). Despite being able to offer a wide range of CCAs, elite schools are bad! They should, in all economic sense and logic, spend money and resources (since this capital is donated by parents or well-wishers anyway) and set up CCAs in which their students can learn the values of grace and dignity!

After all, losing in a semi-final or a final will not give you the experience of defeat, nor will it teach you the value of losing with dignity.