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Subject: Why are Singaporean not creative? Author: coralseadreaming [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] Date Posted: 17:06:24 06/27/04 Sun In reply to: critical_mind 's message, "A Brief History of the Idea of Critical Thinking" on 00:20:48 03/28/04 Sun Newsgroups: soc.culture.singapore Date: 2003-08-20 03:19:13 PST The above subject has been agitating my mind for some time especially as it affects Singapore's ability to advance into several global spheres of excellence .Without creative thinking the ability to rise to the top of entrepreneurial success is limited. The main race the Chinese are born entrepreneurs - second only to the Jews.Singaporeans are gamblers by nature as are the Chinese which has spread to all the other races - gambling is the streak of entreneurial talent that drives people to strike out on their own and try for new opportunity. Why have Singaporeans not been successful in going out on their own in business especially in industry despite their genes and the gambling instinct? I look back at the education and I find that our education system for the past 40 years has been geared towards producing mathematic and science scholars. But to what end? I have schooled with maths and science scholars and worked with them and I found from the beginning that these maths and science scholars are almost to a man completely lacking in imagination or creative talent. What is being good at maths or science mean? That they are tutored or trained to get at the right answers or answer the problems posed in the prescribed manner. If you have tremendous diligence ie to do homework and memorise on daily basis you will eventually score high marks and since the scope of the curriculum is limited for "O" and "A" levels they can cram and imbibe to succeed at obtaining high marks. There must of course be at least a little higher than normal IQ if they are to gain distinctions. But what is missing is the ability to think out of the box i.e be original thinker with creative ideas. By allowing such diligent students who succeeded by cramming to obtain high honours it distorted the parameters of what a scholar or creative thinker should be. These creativeless thinkers then went on to head the civil service and other bodies by virtue of stepping from one higher stone to another and getting help from the guangxi.- network of old boys, colleagues, etc.. What we ended with is group of top govt and private organisations headed by this top scholarly group who do not have the creative ability or the lateral thinking to break out on their own or worse to forge new frontiers of learning or industry. I have seen this in the PSA , and in the govt services and in private companies here in Singapore and those Singapore companies who sent their managers overseas. Very few of them can function by themselves without assistance from several quarters when they venture out of Singapore. The learning curve is always painful and sometimes mortal. What we lack in our education system is the ability to pick out not only those who have discipline and diligence in studying but also the ability to be creative - they must augment their maths and science studies with literature, art, music, subjects etc and only those who can also excel in these creative sciences should be selected for scholarships. Of all the maths and science students or scholars in the past decades that I know of there is only one really top mathematics brain who also proved to be creative - he is a PHD in structural enginering and also won UOB artist of the year competition and mad as a hatter. - Lau Yu Dong.This is a really creative and tip top thinker. My take here is that the Singapore education system should be revamped to allow not only for those with discipline and diligence to attain top honours but that they must also excel in the humanities and the arts such as literature and music, and painting etc This will ensure that not only do they prove they can think out problems from models they learnt and apply focus and concentration but come up with solutions that no one else could have come up with from their pure thinking processes. These are the people we want at the top. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]