How do you motivate and inspire an intelligent 12 y.o. child who feels suffocated by the dreadful Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) in the local educational system?
This pretty much sums up the predicament I was experiencing with my son, Kai before we left for Brisbane last week. Kai is a very happy child with such pure innocence and pure heart. But, I’ve noticed that ever since this year, he has been swarmed by the avanlanche of school worksheets and examination papers given by different teachers. This has taken a toll on his otherwise free-spirit. His school bag is constantly filled with papers of worksheets of different subjects. In addition, his daddy had engaged 2 language tuitors to help him hone his English and Chinese language skills. While trying to plough along with the system, Kai found other distractions to amuse himself from the monotony of school work – he started playing online game like Tanki Online which gave him a certain recognition and sense of achievement in the gaming community. He also engaged himself in listening to classical music and some slapstick youtube videos as a way to de-stress himself. But he is not inspired in his studies, merely doing what he was told. His spirit was somewhat numbed by his current life. Many times, I saw him slacked off and had to remind him to get back to his studies. Soon it became a nag to him and his resistance ensued. Besides loving him and giving him fulfilment at many levels, I knew something was still missing in his life. There was an awareness of the problem, but I didn’t have a solution yet.
