How holistic do you want your child's education to be?

Sometimes on Facebook and forums, I read posts about parents trying to decide if they should place their child in an above-average neighbourhood school or if they should become a parent volunteer to up their chance at P1 registration.

Then many others would respond to the posts, citing negative examples of what happens in top schools, and that it is more important to have a happy and 'holistic' child than to emphasise on results.

Then the poster would say something about her dropping the idea of enrolling the child in the school, as she wants her child to be happy and to be able to get a holistic education rather than one that emphasises on academic results.

And the respondents would be happy that the poster has reached a 'wise' decision.

I always refrain from responding to such posts. And if I do, I delete my response after typing it in.

Because my response would not be a popular one.

In truth, the top schools are actually better at giving students a holistic education.

Let's define 'holistic'. The term is so overly-used that sometimes I don't even know what people are referring to anymore.

'Holistic education' in short, is the education of the whole child. In Singapore's context, it probably means to provide an education that does not just emphasise on the academics. Co-Curricular Activities (CCA) is one of such means.

However, if you go to the MOE website, nowhere does it mention that our education system aims to provide a 'holistic education'. What it does have is a set of Desired Outcomes of Education, which aims to mould our children into:

a confident person, a self-directed learner, an active contributor and a concerned citizen.

Of course, we may argue that to be the person listed above, the education he receives should ideally be a 'holistic' one in order to be such a person.

In any case, most people would define a 'holistic education' as one that does not emphasise on academic results.

Now, if the education system does not have PSLE as the yardstick at the end of our children's 6-year primary school education, I would say,"To hell with the academics!"

The fact that PSLE is, and will continue to be the yardstick for our children's education.

Academics aside, top schools are still better at providing a holistic education.

Have you seen children who excel in everything, academic, music, art and physical training?

That's how top schools are. They are good at the academics, and good at non-academic activities.

If you want a truly holistic education, the top or good schools are your best bet.

At P4, Coco learnt dragon-boating together with the rest of the students in her level.

What activity teaches you more about co-operation and groupwork spirit than having to row a boat together, to race the other classes?

I don't remember neighbourhood schools having such an activity. Of course, they can have other activities that promote co-operation and groupwork spirit among the students, but I am just quoting a convenient example to show that top schools have the resources and manpower that neighbourhood schools do not have.

Coco's school has an annual swimming event during the curriculum time. They simply play and swim with their friends, or take part in a swimming competition organised by the school during the event. If that is not 'holistic', or simply non-academic, I don't know what is. Again, I haven't heard of neighbourhood schools doing the same thing.

Coming from a school that did not place emphasis on the academics, I have a lot more insights on how a non-academic environment affects a child than an average Joe.

In the name of 'holistic education', the school would spend half a day (from after recess onwards) to celebrate an occasion. Be it Hari Raya, Chinese New Year, Teachers' Day, Children's Day ... you name it, they had it. They also spent the precious curriculum time on giving students dance lessons in celebrating this and that occasion.

It is fine to be holistic, but by doing all these non-academic stuff during curriculum time and over-emphasising the need to celebrate festivals and occasions, the school had unknowingly sent the message that studying is not important to the students.

It was no wonder that the students' results were always very poor, year after year. The students were always excited about rollerblading, dancing and other non-academic programmes but only aimed for a pass at PSLE. As long as they did not repeat PSLE, all's well. Their Facebook posts could go something like this: I got 139 (t-score)! Yay!!!

The new principal who came on board frowned when she saw the results. And she said something that I couldn't agree more:

A child can be as holistic as he can get. At the end of the day, if he does not have the results, many windows will be closed to him.

I know of a child who was a champion at hockey. He had dsa-ed into a neighbourhood school using hockey.

However, he failed his PSLE, so he had to go to a school for PSLE failures, and he never gets to develop or realise his talent.

I find it strange that parents would think that neighbourhood schools are not so result-oriented, and therefore they would be more 'holistic'.

A holistic education is not something that you have when you are lacking in the academics. We have only 6 hours as curriculum time. If the school is not spending them on the academics, I would be very worried. I don't need a holistic education at the expense of what I send my children to school for. They should finish what a school ought to have done before they give my children something extra.