humans are coloured by bias....

"....those who are not criminals...."

said by a lady, when asked about her opinion of Normal Technical stream students. before this she had said that she associated e Normal Technical stream with criminals....

I almost *burst*

this is from a rerun of an episode of Get Rea! that was showing on TVMobile on e bus home after wushu on Monday, synopsis below:

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/video/archive_getreal2.htm
Episode 20 - First telecast: 15 September 2004
I Really Not Stupid

They are in the last stream in school. They are labeled hopeless, rebellious. But is the Normal Technical stream really the end of the road for these students?

Diana Ser gets real with a group of Normal Tech students to find out if they are all they are made out to be. And if you are a parent, how would you feel if your child is sent to the Normal Tech stream ? Perhaps if more, and not less, were expected of them, more Normal Tech students can make something of themselves.

we live in pigeonholes built by e pigeonHole Development Board, & we make pigeonholes our way of life too. we sort people based on standard criteria into various catergories labelled with their respective associated stereotypes, imprisoning them in their designated pigeonholes within our minds.

not to say that all Normal Technical stream students are angels, & that none are criminals, but why condemn all of them like this?

************

this show also reminded me of e files that I've seen in one of my dad's previous offices in a secondary school - files for copies of police reports, for letters of parental consent to allow their kids to drop out of school, for letters from parents explaining their kids' absence or tardiness, for letters of expulsion etc. have read some of e parents' letters before, some on foolscap paper, some on scraps of wrinkled paper, mostly written in English, some in Chinese, some that were probably painstakingly written by parents who are barely literate, some that were written by e students themselves or with e help of relatives & signed by their parents....sad that in this day there are still parents who see no reason for their kids to be in school.

also brought to mind e countless times I had to answer calls from e police/security company/teachers who lived near e school/schoolbus operator asking for my dad in e middle of e night because there had been a police case involving one of e students/school alarm had gone off/person holding onto school gate keys couldn't be contacted/etc....& also e times when:

an ex-student seeking revenge for being expelled set fire to e school & burnt down an entire block including e computer labs (nope this is not e Rangoon Secondary School case)....

a student attacked his mother with a chopper & then tried to jump down to his death after she caught him in bed with a girl....

teachers went knocking on a student's door after he'd failed to show up for school for a few days, only to find him alone at home & lying in bed weak from hunger, after his parents had disappeared suddenly without a trace....

& countless other 'The New Paper headline' type of incidents that I've come across while spending time in 3 of my dad's schools, starting from e early '80s - in e days when he had to hold separate sessions in Mandarin, Teochew, Hokkien & Bahasa Melayu while briefing parents who came from various kampungs & even Pulau Ubin.

[ filed under: thewonderingstraycat ]