A School of Dead Fish

Every year over 40,000 year 12 students wait nervously and impatiently for the moment of truth in their academic career. On a given day in mid-December, final results in the form of an ATAR score along with an aggregate score are released throughout Australia. A majority of parents especially Asian parents misinterpret the ATAR as a percentage score i.e. 99.95 as 99.95% rather than their son/daughter performs better than 99.95% of the total year 12 student population throughout units 3/4. Whilst a majority of students celebrate, jump over the moon and are congratulated by friends and family alike over their deserved success in academia, there are others whom are on the floor filling their rooms with tears after noticing their underwhelming results. This minority group of students fear about the negative feedback and judgment from family and friends if they are pushed to reveal their final results. Some peers are understanding and sympathetic and will comfort them empathetically. However I’m greatly concerned of the students who are experiencing mental breakdowns and contemplating escape from the clutches of society and the intimidating interrogations from their parents. This is one of the reasons why we have suicides and missing person reports because they fear of the physically traumatic backlash for not meeting expectations setup by their parents and teachers. Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese students living in the suburban or rural areas of Asian and Western societies most likely fit under this category and I am just as concerned for the students’ safety as well as the parents’ trauma over the possible loss of their children.

It is evident that the Western education system is both realising and shattering students’ goals of striving their dream career. In my opinion I don’t think it accurately calculates the intelligence of every student across the country because the subject assessments these students undertake don’t undermine a student’s excellence in a particular skill. The score a student receives for a particular subject illustrates their commitment to completion of hurdle tasks provided by their teachers and the costly access to exclusive academic concepts taught by private tutors paid by their parents. Instead of praising the student’s hard work, the Western education system is actually discriminating the affluent and penniless, those who are uncommitted to abide with the laws set by their school and those who are blindly accepting them. Basically students are taught to follow rules and regulations and complete tasks by a given deadline. If deadlines set by the standards and expectations of schooling are not met, the academic sanctions, detentions and mockery that proceeds will no doubt hinder the psychological health and emotional intelligence of these students. The thought of embarrassing performances in subjects they are expected to excel can damage a student’s mentality, which may lead to a serious mental breakdown and ultimately a mental illness like depression, anxiety, ADHD and schizophrenia. A majority of students do follow the rules ensuring the integrity and dignity of their school’s reputation but my attention turns towards the minority. Some describe the minority as stubborn. misbehaving, out-of-touch, undeserving, selfish, hopeless and/or dumb but I see otherwise.

Every student has a brain with all the lobes that comprise the ingenious abilities key to their cognitive processes and body functions. During primary and secondary school years, the brain’s texture is still plastic and has potential to be moulded in different ways depending which skills is mostly utilised by the student. I believe the minority group have the brain capacity to be just as intelligent as the majority of well-behaved high-acheiving students. School is defining intelligence as writing down the correct answers with necessary explanations in a set amount of time regardless if the knowledge learnt is memorised short-term or long-term. In my eyes, school is putting the covers on their curiosities and I feel the key to their fulfilment and happiness in life is to remove the restrictions imposing on students and provide them the freedom to explore their curiosities. I feel like that school is limiting students to use specific parts of their brain rendering the rest of the brain virtually worthless in the classroom. In my opinion, intelligence tests should consist of practical and personal assessments allowing students to utilise every part of their brain from creativity, sensation, movement, emotions, patterns, reactions, problem solving, speech, social skills etc.

— The parietal lobe is responsible for analytical and numerical reasoning skills.
— The Frontal Lobe is responsible for problem solving and verbal reasoning.
— The Cerebellum is responsible for advanced learning skills in mathematics, music and advanced social skills.
— The Hippocampus in the Temporal Lobes is responsible for long-term memory, whereas the Amygdala is the integrating centre for all human emotions.
So far, most standardised exams in Australia and the USA are asking students’ to maximise the use of their Hippocampus with variable support from the Parietal and Frontal Lobes and the Cerebellum. This will activate biochemical pathways in our Amygdala adjacent to our Hippocampus which illustrates the stressful predicaments every student faces during examination time. When students take their seats bracing themselves for their ultimate test of knowledge, the motivation to perform at their maximum doesn’t kick in until later. Because the biochemical processes from the Amygdala inhibit students’ logical reasoning and problem solving abilities, the outcomes from possible failure is unnerving and unsettling to many students hence more memorable leading to a loss of focus on the task at hand. It would be reasonable for students to relieve those fears of failure by giving them the opportunity to write down a short personal journal prior to starting their written examination.

However all hope is not lost for our children’s education. So far Finland is leading the way towards not only a successful but an enjoyable education system for children. Although it was considered optional, the day-care and pre-school nursery-kindergarten facilities offered were quite popular amongst Finnish families. Tuition fees are non-existent and all meals are fully subsidised and served to every full-time student. Comparing their system to conventional education systems in Australia, USA and the UK, it achieves excellence from public funds without the need to select, track or stream students during their learning. Every student is assessed individually without the need for competitiveness and rivalry between students in the same subjects. Instead of being taught by teachers, they basically assist the student’s learning capabilities and curiosities. Despite their unorthodox methods in teaching, their consistent marvellous results in the PISA study, hence a high education index speaks for itself. You can read more about Finland’s Education System via these links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Finland
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlOfZL_J5fo