Yale-NUS Closure - Part III.

 

Yale-NUS college is not letting go. 508 members (about 60% of the alumni) have signed a statement “questioning the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) decision to close the college.” 

Minister Chan has told parliament on Sept 13 that money is not the main motivation behind the decision to merge YNC with USP. It was a factor though. YNC costs $90,800 a year for each student. The govt subsidised $70,300 a year. The student pays the rest of it, that is, $20,500 being its tuition fees. 

Yes, a liberal arts education is rather expensive, but “comparable institutions overseas will cost the Singaporean student four times as much.” That was an extract from the alumni statement, and it would be a greater deprivation for students from poor background. “Additionally, those who go overseas may not return, thereby exacerbating the brain drain in Singapore.”

Shanice Stanislaus, who graduated in 2017, said: “They keep saying it’s money or accessibility, but I think it’s more than that. Instead of just coming out and facing these questions, I watched NUS respond in silence or with carefully crafted statements.”

Lesson? I have three in fact, and they start with the letter Y-N-C.

1) Y - yah, WH-Y? This charade has been going for long enough. It’s been one month now (since 27 Aug), and money was initially the main consideration. At least that was the impression I got. 

And then, it got relegated to being one of the factors, as Mr Chan puts it in Parliament, but without any further clarification. I thought Parliamentary debate or discussion was supposed to clear the air. It however left it thick, heavy, and at times, hazy. 

Next comes the assurance of a road map for liberal arts education in the new merger, akin to YNC 2.0. But todate, the alumni questioned why “the institution currently has no website, curriculum and admissions or financial aid policy despite being scheduled to open next year.” 

It is like you are given a 1000-piece puzzle to assemble. The whole alumni then rush to participate in the hope of seeing the full picture. Yet, as they piece it together, after weeks of patience and due diligence, they discover that the puzzle box comes with 500 pieces short. It was not meant to be completed in the first place. You then walk away feeling shortchanged. And I call that the dumbstruck or flabbergasted effect. 

2) N - it stands for “Not On My Watch”. YNC will come to an end in 2025, and 2021 intake will be the last batch. The governing board is making the transition for its new intake next year. It is hoped that those affected (and concerned) will just let it go silently into the night.

But, besides the gobsmacked YNC’s president and 60% of the alumni, recently we have another protest arising, and it comes from a group of faculty members from the college. 

They too released an open letter “disagreeing with the de facto closure of the college.” They broke rank, broke the silence and broke the alabaster flask, releasing the tuberose fragrance of a bold united front, standing together to reject the justification given for the closure. 

It reports, ““they also questioned the school’s ability to ensure a “full Yale-NUS experience” for the remaining cohorts of students, and publicly condemned what they described as a “breach of trust” by decision-makers from the NUS.””

Mind you, the 19-page letter states: “Given the obvious negative outcomes for Yale-NUS College’s many stakeholders, who collectively put their trust in Yale and NUS...and given the many questions that remain unanswered about the rationale, process and timing of the decision, we express our disappointment, sadness and disagreement with the decision to close the Yale-NUS College.”

Breach of trust in a trusted institution is a strong word to use, especially when it is used by those who work within that same institution. And it makes for even more strident protest when one faculty member stood up and hollered - “Show me the money!” 

Well, the more refined construction of that is this: “If the NUS leadership thinks that Yale-NUS college was a declining institution, then show us the metrics because as scholars, we work with evidence.” Ouch.

Now, if YNC is fading into the night, that is, sooner or later, because the powers-that-be has spoken, it is definitely not going quietly into the night. At least the fight at the frontline is this rallying cry - “Not On Our Watch!”

And finally, Y-N...

3) C is for Cost. No, not money. It is a value far beyond that. It is the cost of an education, one involving the liberal arts, an interdisciplinary education to open minds, for all and sundry, regardless of your background, and whether you stay in a landed property or a rented HDB flat. 

It is a universal understanding of the world not just for purposes of a vocation, profession or technical skill. It aims to nurture connoisseurs with an eye for compassion, not technocrats with a measuring tape. It is a desire to understand beyond the utility of a subject that is designed to fit narrowly in the marketplace. 

An education like that serves to broaden the mind, plumb the depth of one’s heart seeking for meaning beyond the economic metric. The benefit of such an education may not be immediately obvious. It may not even produce the results desired by those who impatiently shake the money tree, hoping for the juicy fruit to fall onto one’s lap in an orgasmic spree. 

But, as Peter Ooi, who graduated in 2018, puts it: “the benefits of Yale-NUS might be hard to quantify. But Singapore should not abandon a project just because its outcomes are less tangible, or because it is too impatient to wait for its fruits to ripen.”

Well, that is the cost of a liberal arts education. One that seeks to impart life’s lessons worthy of a free person. One that aims to discipline her down-to-earth pupil to question, challenge, provoke and confront, not to be echo-chamber, but a city on the hill, a guiding light. 

Let me end with the words of abolitionist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson for your evening digest. 

“Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.” 

Good night.

 

Yale-NUS Closure - Part II.

 

The plot thickens...further.

Last Saturday, when I read about President Tan Eng Chye’s explanation that it is about the money, I paused for thought. He said YNC only managed to raise $80m of its intended target $300m in endowed donations “to build a sustainable overall endowment of $1 billion.” 

Well, if money is the issue, then maybe there is some just cause for closure? 

But this morning, it is the alumni strikes back when three former YNC grads (Tee Zhuo, Melody Madhavan and Ng Yi Ming) wrote a rebuttal to President Tan’s Saturday’s article. And I un-paused, and wonder, will the real slim shady please stand up? 

Here is why, and there is more than meets the eye when it comes to money.

The alumni trio cited former Yale president Richard Levin, who said this: “If people are saying that finances were the issue, they’re simply incorrect.”

President Levin added that the gap could be easily closed if enough run way was given. Mind you, East Coast plan was not built in a day right? What’s more, president Tan has left out one detail: that $300m fund-raising target was set for the year 2030. 

So, YNC has about ten more years to go to hit the target. According to the article, $20m a year for the next ten years is not exactly a herculean task. It is definitely not a crisis of unsustainability, as President Tan puts it. 

“To put things in perspective, top liberal arts colleges in the United States that have at least US$1 billion (S$1.34 billion) in endowment, such as Williams College or Amherst College, are over 200 years old. Yale-NUS was expected to achieve the same total endowment in a tenth of the time.” 

Make sense? So, will the real Slim Shady pls stand up? 

FYI, that reference is directed at a rap made popular due to the need to smoke out the real Eminem amongst the many fakes. Likewise, will the real reason for the YNC closure pls fess up? 

Because this has been going on for long enough, and whether one is gobsmacked or flabbergasted, it is fast mutating into a situation where this Latin phrase seems most apt: “suppressio veri suggestio falsi" - that is, suppression of the truth is the suggestion of the lie or lies. 

I know this is none of my business. I graduated decades ago. I do not come from such prestigious higher education. But, this contest for truth at our higher educational institution (that is supposed to be accorded the highest moral standing) is disconcerting. Lives are affected. Hopes dashed. Our young wants an account. Don’t they deserve it? 

There’s in fact more than that money issue mentioned in the article. If you read it, the whole of it, you will note that the new college that replaces YNC is off to a less-than-inspiring start. There is no scaling up to an inclusive interdisciplinary liberal arts education as promised, because the batch intake is very much still the same. Maybe time will tell? There is even a risk of conflation between liberal arts and interdisciplinary education, because the two are rather distinct concepts.

And there is also the issue of autonomy. This is how the alumni trio explain it. 

“But far from autonomy, the New College will not have a dedicated faculty or its own majors. Instead, students will, like other NUS students, choose their major or specialisation from existing schools and faculties within NUS.”

“The intense and close-knit interaction between students and faculty inside and outside the classroom, so integral to the success of liberal arts colleges, will also be lost.”

For more details, you will have to read the article. But my point, after all said, is to invite you to reassess that assurance given by our then education minister Ong Ye Kung in parliament: “a liberal arts school will have a place in Singapore’s education landscape.” 

The question to be asked is, what kind of liberal arts school are we hoping to set up? Liberal arts with socialist or Asian characteristics? 

And, if this saga is anything to go by, it seems like the way it is managed is based on this underlying theme: when you can’t stand the heat in the kitchen, you don’t just get out, you shut it down, toss up some platitudes, and start another cooking school. 

Alas, will the real slim shady pls stand up? 

Ps: Let’s just hope for some clarity in the upcoming townhall meeting.

 

Yale-NUS Closure - Part I.

 In a break up, save the children. 

In a nutshell, that’s the theme of Assoc Editor Chua Mui Hong’s article this morning. Good read, balanced read. She addressed the angst, but reminded those who signed the petition that it is the future of the school that they will have to have hope in. Her concluding words are embracing to the heart and soul, and I will flesh it out later. Before that, let’s go for the jugular...

Leading the charge is none other than Yale-NUS College (YNC) President Tan Tai Yong. The break up more than ruffled his feathers. He expressed that he was “gobsmacked and flabbergasted.” Those are strong words. 

As an aside, gobsmack means “utterly astonished” and flabbergasted means “greatly surprised or astonished.” President Tan could even have been aghast, dumbfounded or even speechless, but you get the drift. 

If the decision to close YNC was a top-down reaction, then President Tan’s astonishment was also a top-down reaction. Just that it was a top-down that gave a good down-up suckerpunch on those who think they know better. 

And it also gave the YNC students, past and present, a good seize-the-day-and-gather-ye-rosebud kind of ventilation that they needed to sign on the dotted line demanding for an accounting and awakening. To put it bluntly, one can even see it as woke culture on steroid at campus. 

Anyway, Chua doesn’t mince her words here. From an objective standpoint, and written on official ink, she wrote: “Making a decision to shut a college over the head of its president and governing board smacks of hubris, a disregard for institutional autonomy and a total lack of respect and trust for the individuals involved.” 

She added: “Sadly, from my experience, this is by no means unusual in Singapore.” Ouch...how’s that for a returning-hand gobsmack serve?

Well, if you are into conspiracy theories, it is anyone’s guess why this was done under the student-body radar, even behind the back of the college’s president. Alas, that is the problem when you take matters into your own ironclad-hand and wring it from top-down. It just leaves big gaps for scurrilous speculations to fill. And, can you blame the busy grapevine and wagging tongues? 

Mind you, this is no ordinary institution. It’s the creme-de-la-creme of Southeast Asia, and tops amongst the world. That is, only the best brains are packed into those formidable four-walls that many can only quietly admire from afar. 

But then, we all know that the best brains do not necessarily equate with a good soul when push comes to shove, and I guess there is more than meets the eye here. That is why even YNC president is gobsmacked, utterly astonished.

At this point, let me just say that strict paternalism may be necessary when running the country in a crisis or in a state of genuine emergency, not one that is desperately man-made. 

But during more prosperous times, when a nation is in her grooves of secure development, the leadership must double-down on father-knows-best and double-up on mother-and-child-bonding. Anything less would generate more heat than light, or more suspicion than affection.

As Chua puts it: “...such high-handed decision-making is guaranteed to foment distrust and cynicism, loosen cohesion and drive a wedge between leaders and people. Already, some YNC students are talking about feeling betrayed.”

Here, I recall a phrase from Dead Poets Society that goes like this: “I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. To put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived.” 

That is the marrow-sucking energy of our young this day and age. And an institution of such repute and stature would want to harness that energy, not by a I-know-best stance, but with mutual respect, trust and nurturance.

For we need brain, yes, but we need soul too. More importantly, we need heart, and here is Chua’s heart-felt plea to those aggrieved as I end. Have a great weekend. 

“Your feelings today of hurt, anger, disappointment and betrayal over the decision are valid. Vent them safely with your friends, then set them aside.” 

“Be cool-headed and analytical about what's best about YNC that is worth preserving. Then channel your energy into trying to preserve the best of that spirit and energy in the new NUS college. Remember that disrespecting NUS is disrespecting half your heritage.”

“And deep within you, don't let the flame die. What you feel now is the rage and despair of the powerless in the face of decisions made by those with power that affect you directly. One day, when you become powerful yourself, when you are in positions of authority, remember how it feels like to be powerless and not respected.”

“And then resolve always to do your best to act differently - to make decisions in a different way, that includes not excludes, that shares power not removes it, that respects stakeholders, not treat them as dispensable.”

“Creating such a culture of collaborative leadership would be a good legacy of YNC for Singapore.”

 

Walking with Jesus by the Beach.

 

If this were a dream...

One day, I was walking on the beach with Jesus and I had so many questions to ask him. There is no better time, right? And I know the time I have with him will not last for long. So I decided to go for the tough questions, and wonder how would Jesus answer them. Didn’t the Bible say, Jesus is the answer?

So I asked him about gays. Can’t let that opportunity pass right? I really wanted to know what he thinks of them. I told him some Christians are quite hung up on it.

Jesus was rather surprised with the question. He said there are other questions I could have asked him, and I chose that? While he was living on earth, he said there was only one group of people he had singled out. And they were not the gays. Not the prostitutes. Not the tax collectors. Not even the rich or the rulers. 

That one group he singled out is not defined by color, creed, wealth, or well, sexual orientation. That group was however defined by the double lives they had lived. He said this group made religion a coverup for their hypocrisy. And the worse ones exploit what is sacred and pure to justify their profanity. 

They used flawless words to further their fallen deeds. They are like weeds in a garden of diversity, and the only agenda of weeds is to divide and conquer. 

At this point, Jesus reminded me that if we had lived the life he had lived, a life true to the gospel of love, faith and hope, we would not have bothered about gays, atheists, prostitutes or the rich. He said it would be a life so deep, fulfilling and impactful, it’d practically testify for itself. 

Spreading the gospel, he said, would have been about a life lived to the fullest, beyond the purpose of this world, and not one about the vanity of empty words, or a restless heart that is so desperate to be right. 

Jesus said that we are called to be the salt and light of the world. But he wonder, where is the salt? Where is the light? 

He told me that people were very curious about the way he had lived on earth. They were curious because he was just different. And that difference also made many of them question themselves, that is, asking themselves questions that take many sermons to pull out. 

He said his life defied all natural expectations. He explained that, where they were supposed to hate, he loved. Where they were supposed to stone, he protected. Where they were supposed to condemn, he became the condemned. That enduring difference stoke a lot of curiosity. And that curiosity is the salt and light embodied that quietly leads and guides.

And while fear was the initial reaction, a life he had lived eventually gave them the courage and purpose to live fearlessly. He said if we do not live out the gospel the way he had lived, our words are like salt that has lost its value, or like dimmers working to blur the light, not guide others out of darkness. 

At this moment, I thought to myself, indeed, where is the salt, the light, and the curiosity? We have blended so well with the world that instead of defying natural expectations, we met them all. Where we are supposed to give and sacrifice, we strive and horde. Where we are supposed to examine our own hearts, we can’t wait to cast the first stone. Where we are supposed to rejoice in suffering for righteousness, we hide in cowardice, ashamed of the gospel. And where we are supposed to live our life by the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, we live it out by the glib tongue of men. 

As I was heavy in thoughts, I didn’t realise that we had walked to the end of the beach. Jesus then looked at me and smiled. He said he knows I have many questions to ask him, but, he said that the answer to the ones that matter is much better lived out than asked. 

He said that my faith has to first be experiential, for the depth of it depends on the depth of my experiences. He also said at most times, a life well lived answers the question even before the question is asked. 

And with that, he left, leaving me with a clarity I have been seeking after when I first started walking with him by the beach.

 

Scholarship, meritocracy and equality.

162 students received their scholarships yesterday, and some of them are those who have worked their way up from Normal stream to ITE and Poly. Their stories are inspiring. 

Steven, 19, comes from a family of 10 and his mother is the sole breadwinner. His father had to stop working due to health reasons. Steven was an active member of the student council at ITE Graduation 2021 ceremony yesterday. Steven received the Tay Eng Soon Scholarship.

Fiqri Nur Haziq Abu Bakar is another. He was a nurse during Covid-19 pandemic. The 21-year-old graduated from Ngee Ann Poly last year and “spent six months caring for migrant workers infected by Covid-19.” Fiqri was from the normal stream and he hopes this inspires other students from the normal stream too. 

Another ITE student, Koh Yan Xi, 19, also received a scholarship, the Ngee Ann Kongsi Gold Medal in recognition of her achievements. She had “to juggle a part-time job at McDonald’s with co-leading a class entrepreneurship project to sell vacuum-packed soup and using the proceeds to purchase food for school cleaners.” 

There are many more, and I guess that is the trampoline effect where, regardless of which station in life you are from, you stand an equal chance to bounce your way up just as long as you work towards it and don’t give up.

Let me share that I once had a conversation with a young adult and he told me that if one doesn’t work hard in Singapore, he will end up in ITE or Poly. I shook my head and told him that education ought to build character first and foremost before knowledge. For without character, your knowledge is all puffed up and it serves no purpose in society except to divide it further. 

We as a society suffer the consequences of our own pride, and a prideful mindset alienates humanity. It is not just self-serving, it is self-destroying. 

Ultimately, we can choose either to look at society from a one-track, chronologically challenged mindset, or look at it from a wide lens when the sun shines on everyone, regardless of schools, status or stream. 

But, what is chronologically challenged Mike? Well, it is a clock preset by the meritocratic discipline master with a deadline or quota to meet. Each child is thus put through the grind, that same and uniform grind, even when each child is gifted differently. One indiscriminate ruler is therefore used to measure all heights, even though each child grows at their own pace. 

And then that child is forced to compete with the others, while he carries loads of expectations on his back, all the time hoping to make his parents proud, and trying in vain to find acceptance and a sense of identity and belonging in a society that is wound up by a less than kinder development clock. 

This brings me to what Minister Chan said the day before. He invited all parents to take stock. He asked us to have “more frank conversations with our children and families on the definition of success.”

He took himself as an example. “As a parent myself, I have come to realise that success must be defined by helping my children realise their own potential, developing their own strengths and helping them to be confident in themselves.”

He said: “The greatest assurance parents can give their children is to provide them with confidence to find their own way.”

Those words are power words. They are a good reminder for parents with children, and a timely comfort for children yearning for understanding. 

Let me just say that I have always thought LKY was right to say that a rising economic tide raises all boats. He is still right about that now, for what good is democracy if you can’t even feed your family. 

But, like meritocracy, if it goes unchecked, or on autopilot, it risks crossing a threshold where the society is divided, between the haves and have-nots, the rich and the poor. It is just a matter of time. 

And the spillover effect of that is a progressive downward slide, which yields another risk, that is, a society in crisis. We are in fact leading the trend here as our inequality gap is one of the widest, compounded by a high cost of living. 

While Minister Chan made good sense when he said that “the greatest assurance parents can give their children is to provide them with confidence to find their own way,” yet if the landscape that the child is supposed to navigate has not changed, or has changed little, with a gaping income/social hole, then isn’t the child embarking on an impossible journey which may just bring him back to square one?

And that is why I highlighted the scholarships awarded to students of different backgrounds, and that is one of the crucial steps (amongst many) to taking a wide lens view of things where the sun truly shines on all, on each and every child, regardless. 

For the wide lens’ view sees the whole journey of a child’s potential, while the microscopic one sees only a particular point in time, and on that narrow/rigid basis, it judges a life that has yet to bloom for a lifetime.

 

Helping kids deal with trauma.

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Helping kids deal with traumatic events. That’s the news in ST Life this morning. And yes, it’s about RVHS incident: a life taken, another broken, and a nation grieves together. 

Now, it’s time to console and bravely live on. I guess that is why the word ”encourage” is made up of “en” which means “within, in” and what we are familiar with “courage”. Together, it yields en-courage.

It is one person putting another within the strength and hope of courage, thereby confronting trials together, with a warm hand to hold as we move forward. 

We all need that sometimes. The young and the old, the living and the dying. For who can fully understand why things happen the way they did? Why the innocent bears the pain? Why a marriage fails? Why tomorrow seems so bleak? Why we can’t let go of the past? And why is God silent? Or, is anyone out there? 

We strengthen the heart by encouraging it. We heal the brokenness with the courage that hope brings. We live a day by faith, and walk in step with it. Ultimately hope is an invisible force lifting every step from the ankle up, giving us just enough to take the next step and the next. 

Moving forward for many takes many pauses. Within each pause is the call for encouragement, a cry for a warm hand to hold. Within each pause is a call for understanding, a call to share our brokenness. And we need to know that we are not alone, that someone has been there and is ready to stand in the gap. 

In the papers yesterday, Janice Tay wrote an article entitled “Wishes after a storm”. Janice is a manager at Shimaya Stays, a machiya accommodation venture in Kyoto.

Janice wrote about a yearly festival in Japan. “Every year, to celebrate the summer festival of Tanabata, Kodai-ji, a temple in Kyoto, invites nursery and kindergarten children to make a wish on tanzaku. The bright strips of paper, along with other decorations, are then tied to bamboo set out for everyone to enjoy.”

“But this year, a storm the night before the event strips the papers away. By late afternoon of the next day, a temple worker is still trying to restore the wishes to the bamboo.”

The children are persistent when it comes to hanging their wishes on tanzaku. The storm may blow away the strips of wishes or hope, but they would return the next day to look for them. The kids, together with their parents, will enquire with the temple worker about their tanzaku. 

““A family unable to find the right tanzaku asks the worker for help. He dashes back into the temple, returning some time later with a handful of paper. "This is all that's left inside, I'm afraid," he says.””

“He still has stacks of decorations to string up but he makes the time to go through the strips one by one with the family. And the missing tanzaku is found. The wish is duly read out: "I want to be a giant koppa."”

Koppa? Well, according to Janice, it is supposed to spell “Kappa” and the five-year-old boy’s wishes was to be a demon with webbed hands. But that’s ok, a wish is a wish. 

Janice also observed that “a little girl cannot find her wish. She squats next to a stalk of bamboo, crestfallen.”

“The vendor tries to cheer her up, telling her about the great winds in the night. She keeps the stream of conversation going, her busy hands never stopping as she makes sure the child doesn't feel alone.”

We adults do the same thing too. We harbour many wishes, hopes. We tie the tanzaku in our hearts. Yet, not all of them are alike though. Some of us wish our own version of “koppa”, that is, wishes that carry darker undertones. But that is how we cope, the best way we know how.

And yes, we do lose sight of them too when the storms in our life come. The wind blowing them away. Some of us let them go, because we don’t see much hope in those wishes. They are just wishes. Vain hope?

Maybe we need it more than ever now. Hope is like living waters to our soul. We need the refreshing stream to uplift spirit. And even going through hard times, we should never stop hoping. Like the kids’ enthusiasm in seeking for theirs, we should allow their enthusiasm to encourage our hearts. They never gave up looking for hope, neither should we. 

As we encourage our children, their innocence encourages us too. Their simple faith lifts ours up. We too need to know we are not alone. And at times, we hold their hand to move forward with courage, and they too hold our hand to move us forward with them. One step at a time, and together, never losing sight of hope.

 

President Halimah - help youth facing mental health issues.

 

She may be a shoo-in for president, but last Saturday, she came forward and made a lot of sense. Prompted by the tragic RVHS incident, President Halimah noted that the 16-year-old had attempted suicide 2 years ago. He was then referred to IMH for treatment. 

“Attempted suicides are a real cry for help. We don’t know the full details, particularly whether he had continued to receive psychiatric help or medication in order to deal with his mental health after that episode,” Mdm Halimah said. 

“We also don’t know whether it was due to school or...other factors affecting him as the causes of mental breakdowns are numerous and sometimes there is more than one factor at play.”

That made sense. I can think of a metaphor here: An avalanche starts with a flake of snow. And as it goes downhill, it adds to its weight, burden and size, until it comes to a stage where you can’t stop it anymore. To the young sufferer, it has become monolithic, having a mind of its own, and the only way forward for an avalanche is to continue its destined downward path, until it hits rock bottom. 

Indeed, many factors contribute to the fall, and they all add up, to give it the oppressive strength to overpower, to rob whatever sliver of hope the child may still desperately cling on to. 

However, Mdm Halimah confronted the issue head on. She singled out parents, teachers, school and society at large. She said we are “ill-equipped to deal with the situation.” 

“”For parents,” she said, “the great difficulty is in not knowing whether the child is perhaps going through a growth phase, as "all adolescents with growth hormones raging through their bodies sometimes act out", or whether it is because of something much deeper.””

For teachers, well, they are already overloaded with work, “it is not possible to delve deeply into the issues affecting one child, which will require close monitoring, observation and engagement.”

And lastly...school/society. She mentioned how society has imposed high expectations on the young. She said: “We expect to see a linear progression in their performance with no interruption whatsoever, like some well-oiled machinery.”

"Parents compare all the time. We often say that a well-developed, healthy child is better than a troubled child who seems to be shooting all As but is suffering, but we actually send different signals to them.”

Yes, I concur. The signals are frustratingly mixed. We are, in reality, how our society has wound us up to be. You wind it up anti-clockwise, for example, and you get a society that is, well, none the wiser. 

Our child is trying his/her darnest shooting all As, but is suffering, missing some academic marks, and disappointing us. They feel that they have to earn our affection, and even successfully jumping one academic hoop, with many more to go in their young life, they still harbour this crippling sense that they are just not good enough, because like Mdm Halimah said, “parents compare all the time.” 

In a race to one finishing line after another, they are surely many running behind and many running in front, because there is only on top spot, one silver medalist and one bronze consolation. 

In fact, in an intensely meritocratic and competitive society like ours, it is better for our child’s mental health to stand one step below the silver medalist, because to get 2nd place and then miss the mark by that much (or that little) is going to oppress the soul of the poor child, and his/her parents will be consumed or obsessed with the question, why can’t you come out tops?

Alas, the child is called by society’s many impersonal coaches to jump hoops so that at the end of one hoop is a hug and a smile waiting for them from the one they desperately seek approval from. But it never lasts, that is, the affection like milk and canned food, has an almost instant expiry date, before they are let go again to earn that same mechanical affection by jumping over another hoop and another and another. 

Mdm Halimah puts it well, even against the same society that was the handmaiden of her pathway to the presidential top spot: “we expect to see a linear progression in their performance with no interruption whatsoever, like some well-oiled machinery.”

As an well-oiled machinery, we are all its nuts and bolts, the cogs and wheels in its mechanical flow, chugging along, to ensure it doesn’t deviate from its one-track, linear pathway to superior economic growth and maintaining that first world status. No derailment should stop that flow, and for every derailment, we just have to power the speed up to compensate (if not overcompensate).

This is where Mdm Halimah also observes: “There is still so much ignorance, stereotyping and prejudice in our society against people with mental health issues that parents fear doing more harm than good to their children's future by seeking treatment, which they delay with disastrous consequences."

Well, that ignorance and prejudice flow from how the society is wound up. It still goes anti-clockwise and we are thus none the wiser, or we simply refuse to face up to the reality/truth that something has to give in our relentless one-track advancement.

Let me end with the presidential advice: "It takes a tragedy like this to start us thinking deeply again about the mental health of our young. Most of our children can cope, are resilient and will grow up well. But not all children are the same. Some do need more help and not just from the school, but from everyone."

Yes, in a race, when you fire the first shot, you expect to see winners and losers at the end of it. That finish-line red ribbon is made for only the winner’s chest, and all the others, well, they lost. And we will compare, even if we pretend it really doesn’t matter, because comparing, like the coronavirus, is just highly infectious, and it runs in our veins in a society that is fiercely competitive, always striving for that top spot. 

Indeed, we are a well-oiled machinery, and that is from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.