English Blog

Term 3 Blog Post

2008-08-31T01:56:00.000+08:00

Are single sex secondary schools, rather than co-ed schools, better for the full development of a student?

The English intra-class debates have just come to a close and my motion was “single-sex schools rather than co-ed secondary schools are better for the full educational development of a student”. With me in the opposition, believing that co-ed schools are better for the full educational development of a student. Here I shall present both sides of the issue and examine the arguments for and against.

Just for this essay, we shall define the term ‘full educational development’ from two aspects, namely social skills/character and academics. Social skills/character includes communication, personal hygiene and behaviour while academics refer to grades and scores in school.

Supporting the motion, research has shown that students do indeed do better in academics in a single sex school. This greatly supports the motion especially in the academics aspect of ‘full educational development’ of a student. This shows how single sex schools might do better than co-ed schools in terms of academics.

However, there are single sex schools around that are not doing as well as co-ed schools. This might be due to the overall potential of the students though. In Singapore, the top few schools are mostly single sex schools, showing how single sex schools allow students to do better.

Research has also shown that boys are generally favoured in co-ed schools over girls and teachers tend to give boys more attention. This creates imbalanced results, where girls of the same standard as boys do worse. This is also because girls are afraid to speak up and are shy in front of boys, resulting in them losing out during their school experience.

However, as the opposition might argue, this is what happens in real life and is therefore just exposing the students to reality earlier, bracing themselves for the ‘harsh real world’. On the other hand, it is precisely that it happens in reality that students should go to single sex schools to allow themselves to develop to their full potential before entering the real world.

However, co-ed schools provides a fuller development of social interaction skills like interacting with the opposite sex that students from single sex schools lack. These social skills are very important in life, where you need to interact with people of both sexes, in jobs, careers, shops and daily life. Co-ed schools provide a head start and a good platform for students to learn from young, instead of living in an environment filled only with people of the same gender.

Also, males tend to be more gentlemanly and self conscious in co-ed schools as there are people from the opposite sex observing them. This results in better hygiene, smell, looks, behaviour and speech. This produces a better learning environment, as well as a more positive attitude in everyone, making it a conducive learning environment that is harder to attain in single-sex schools.

In conclusion, co-ed schools bring about higher results academically and there are many success stories of students from single sex schools. However, students from co-ed schools learn important life skills that are very practical in life. In this case, it is an argument of social skills versus academics. This leaves me to make a stand and I shall take that of the opposition. Even though single sex schools might do better in grades, co-ed schools don’t do too badly and they learn very important life skills from young that can’t be learnt that easily. Therefore, I feel that single sex schools are not better in providing a full educational development of a student as compared to co-ed schools.

Term 2 Blog Post

2008-05-30T23:25:00.004+08:00

Social Studies Democracy Essay
Today, many nation-states institutionalize democracy as their political system. Democracy has its fair share of ups and downs. Your assignment is to address the following motion given below:

“Democracy creates stability in a society.”

Democracy is a system of government where everyone has an equal say and is treated equally. People get to decide for themselves how they want the country to be run, be it deciding laws, policies or representatives.

Stability in a society would cover not only political, economic but also social stability. A society can be considered stable when there are no frequent riots, protests or unrest.

In my opinion, democracy does create stability in a society. Firstly, democracy is a system where everything is decided by the people, no matter their position in the social hierarchy. Each and every person has his/her right and duty to vote and as it is the people who choose for themselves what they want. Hence, this will lead to the people being happy and satisfied, resulting in social stability. It would also cause political stability as the people get to decide their own representatives and should there be discontent, they can vote them out at the next elections. Due to these two being stable, people are able to work without any obstructions like riots, and overseas investors would feel safe to invest in the country, creating a economic stability at the same time.

However, democracy is decided by the majority and the minority might feel left out or unfairly treated. For example, if a decision is made with the votes being 51% to 49%, even though 51% is still the majority but the 49% is still a huge percentage of the society and they can do much to disrupt the stability of the society. As only the majority decides, the minority will constantly be undermined, shutting out their views on the matter. In the long run, the minority will be discontent and might do things that disrupt the stability of the society.

Drawing on the example of Switzerland, which practices direct democracy where as long as 1% of the electorate signs a petition, a referendum must be held. This enables the people to constantly change the policies which they are dissatisfied with, without having to wait a few years. Switzerland enjoys a stable society and where people are generally happy as they decide how they want to live. This example shows that democracy does create stability in a country.

On the other hand, people might not be able to picture the long term effects of a certain policy and think that it is beneficial for them when actually it might be detrimental. Either that or the representatives they vote in might not be what they thought he/she was. In other words, the initial impression on the people might not be an accurate one, misleading the people into deciding for it.

Then again, the people are able to vote again in the next elections, allowing them to decide whether to continue following the policy/representative.
In conclusion, democracy is decided by the people, making them responsible for their own actions and in Switzerland, democracy is working out for them and people are able to vote the next time, changing their decisions should the first impression be wrong. However, the minority will be at a disadvantage, no matter how close they are to the majority. As a whole, I still agree to a large extent that democracy creates stability in a society as based on the ‘long term criteria’, democracy benefits the society.

Sources:
http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2006/issue3/0306p29.htm
http://www.thelockeinstitute.org/journals/luminary_v1_n1_p3.html
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/street/pl38/demo.htm
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/democracy

Term I Blog Post

2008-03-05T23:19:00.001+08:00

Article taken from:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A364646

The main topic of this article is peer pressure, its causes and effects. This is a teenage issue that teens from all around the world might face. The article starts off with an example: 10 teens are shown three lines of different lengths and are told to raise their hands when whoever’s running the test points to the longest line. However, nine of them have been secretly told to raise their hands at the second choice. The tenth person hesitates for a moment but followed the other nine even though he knew it was the wrong answer. The second time, he hesitates longer but still follows the rest although he knew that they were wrong. This shows how strong peer pressure can be.

The article mentions three causes: to ‘belong’ to a group by acting how the group does, ‘greedy corporations’ that advertise their products, which might be useless, to be cool and lastly, the media which portrays certain people to live happy lives by behaving a certain way, which the teenagers follow.

The article also gave an example of a person who is restrained by her parents from going clubbing with her friends. Her friends, who are mostly her age, 17, would go clubbing and partying till two in the morning but her parents would pick her up at 11.30 daily. On her 18th birthday, she lies to her parents that she is going to watch a midnight movie with some friends (something that her parents allow), but instead goes clubbing with her friends. This shows how parents who do not want their children to ‘turn bad’ might cause harm to their relationship.

In my opinion, teenagers, be it in the past or the present, all want to be with the flow and do not want to be teased by their friends for being different from the mainstream. For example, people with high socks are considered nerds and are constantly teased by their classmates though they might not be that nerdy. To avoid this kind of teasing, people tend to wear ankle socks. In the past, thick frame spectacles were considered ‘cool’ and you could see many people around with thick rimmed spectacles then. The two above examples show that people generally do not want to be that different from others.

Where parents are concerned, I feel that parents have the right to restrain their children but not to the extent where the child’s personal privacy is broken into. Parents should care for their children and children should not lie to their parents to be ‘with the flow’ but instead tell them nicely and parents and children might just come up with a peaceful negotiation like allowing the child to go clubbing on certain days only.

These are my personal views on the matter and the article and I hope that no one will feel offended by it.

Thank you,
Max