Not many of my friends know this, although it’s no big secret, but I didn’t go to primary school in Singapore. I only entered Singapore’s education system in Secondary 1, a couple of years after my family moved from KL to JB. My parents applied for my admission into Bukit Panjang Government High School, which was at that time already a reputable neighbourhood school. I was on a short waiting list, and some time after application, we got word that I had been accepted.

Plunging straight into secondary school after having been in the Malaysian system for six years was a bit of a shock. I struggled to catch up with my classmates because the standard was so much higher, and was consistently at the bottom of the class. My report card would invariably list my class position as 39/42, 40/42. It was almost as if I was specialising in being mediocre.  Considering I was always near the top of my class in primary school, it was quite a big blow to my self-esteem. Still, I made it through the Express stream and went to JC and university, where I wasn’t a stellar student either – not because I had to struggle to make sense of what was going on in class, but because I had my eye on having fun instead of getting an education. I graduated with a second lower honours degree in political science. Second uppers were equivalent to first class in NUS PS at the time, and doled out very sparingly, so a second lower was average. I thought I was so smart to graduate with an honours degree then, but I soon realised that it didn’t mean anything. I certainly am not using anything that I learned in university, in work or life in general!

Despite being a bottom-dweller at school, I’m mildly successful in my career and earn a decent living. I suppose the moral of my story is that it doesn’t really matter if you went to an elite school, or studied for a prestigious degree (not that PS is very prestigious; it just sounds intellectual!), what really matters is how well you are able to perform in a real world context.

Which brings me to the crux of this post. Last weekend, I had words with Alison yet again about putting in more effort to improve her Math. It’s her weakest subject, and one she just can’t seem to improve in, despite us trying group tuition and one-on-one tuition for the last few years. Her marks in Math always hover in the borderline pass numbers.

Alison has a problem with comprehending math language. She is a stellar English student, often scoring in the high nineties, so she definitely does not have a problem with English. But she does have issues with understanding terms such as “of the remainder” when applied to fractions, and has no confidence when it comes to tackling maths problems.

I struggle with the thought that if Alison doesn’t buck up, she is headed for the Normal Academic steam in secondary school. I’m not so much worried about her taking a year longer than her peers to finish secondary school, but about peer influence. I’m not saying that all Normal students are bad – I had many friends in secondary school from the NA class and they were all really cool people – but the reality is that choosing a school with “good” NA stream is more challenging than choosing a “good” secondary school. I’m also concerned with how going to the NA stream will affect Alison’s self-esteem, especially in comparison to her friends and cousins. And let’s not even talk about how the authorities use “meritocracy”, a fancy name for exam results, for everything.

Admittedly, when I talk to Alison about her performance at school, I sometimes tell her that if she wants to be sure of having choices to do whatever she likes in university (law, medicine, accountancy, whatever), she needs to ensure that she makes it to the Express stream. Maybe I do it because I feel that this is the easy way out – if you go to Express, you won’t have to worry about whether you can level up to get to where you want to go. Maybe I want to put the fear in her, so she is convinced that she has to pull up her socks. Or maybe, just maybe, I myself don’t want to be in a position where I have to explain to my achievement-oriented relatives and friends why my seemingly intelligent daughter is in NA when she should be in Express.

I’m aware that this is just one step away from having an elitist mindset, but it’s pretty challenging to reconcile your child’s abilities in the context of the Singapore education system, with what society at large expects. I want my children to go to the Express stream because I don’t want any possibility of them being shortchanged in their opportunities and be thought less of, if they were to go to NA. We need to redefine “success”, because it’s pretty clear that success isn’t your position in class, or how long you take to finish school, but what you are as a person and how you contribute to society at large. For Alison and her peers, it might be too late because educational reform is only just now being discussed and considered. But there’s hope for Zoe, and my wish is that by the time it’s her turn to transition to secondary school, the yardsticks by which we measure success will change. In the meantime, I guess we’ll have to find other ways to help Alison master the convoluted subject that is math.