The end of school as we know it?
Readers & friends might have noticed by now that I’m quite anti-institution (as opposed to being anti-authority, anti-religion etc). I do recognise institutions can have a useful and necessary role to play in societies as we know it. But I’m just anti-group-think, anti-”this is what you should think”, anti-”you’re either for us or against us”, anti-”only we can think like this, no one else can”, anti-”get out if you are not like us”.
‘
‘
A new way of learning
Readers & friends might have realised I’m anti-school, as school is today, in Sg as specially. Waaaaaay to institutionalised.
With the rise of websites like
http://www.academicearth.org/playlists/
,
http://www.ted.com/
etc, I envision a future world where school has no walls, no buildings, no one to decide what you should be thinking, learning, or desiring. It would be a world where people choose what they want to hear, what they want to see, what they want to experience.
Through tools like Facebook, forums etc, people then discuss what they’ve seen, heard, experienced, so that they can decide for themselves what’s valid and what’s not.
I’m not using the term “children”, but the term “people”, because learning shouldn’t be restricted to just certain age groups.
‘
‘
A new way of employing
Without examinations and certificates, there’ll be so much less egoistical, uncessary, artificially-induced stress on people. But how then can employers know who to hire?
I’m sure many of you who have some working experience know that certificates can be bought, or mugged for, and are sometimes a really poor indication of a person’s ability. Many times, having an intelligent conversation with a person would tell you so much more. A person’s life experience, rather than certificates, would also mean much more. A person who comes in as says, I’ve got top class honors in social work, versus another person who says, ‘when I was 16 I got together with my friends to do this project, which saw 1000 more families having a house to stay.’ —- who is a better hire?
With the decline of lifelong employment , and the increase in contract or project-based employment, the negative effects of making a wrong hire is also much smaller than it used to be.
Can this model work?
‘
Eg. of Non-institutionalised employment
Well I think this model is working quite well in many areas already. Most NGOs, community groups, religious charity groups, voluntary groups operate on this model. We work with different organisations as different points of time for different projects. Most of these volunteers are very motivated to the cause, which was why they volunteered —– project leaders do not have to think up motivating strategies they way they have to in companies which “dump” projects on staff. In large organisations, stupid projects are also undertaken sometimes because leaders who are unfamiliar with the ground situation, force the projects through, resulting in unmotivated staff. With the NGO/VWO model, stupid projects are quickly killed simply because no one would volunteer to work on it.
One huge downside of NGOs and VWOs currently is that, despite the initial motivation that volunteers have, the attrition rate is very high and projects get stalled because volunteers don’t meet deadlines or don’t deliver. Alot of this is linked to the fact that volunteers are unpaid, and most have a full time regular job that they give priority too.
However, if this project-basis employment were applied, and people get paid, and that was their means of living, I think this problem would be solved. There would be a certain proportion of people who still will not deliver, but over time, these people would have gained that reputation, and project groups would not want to involve them anymore.
‘
‘
Non -institutionalised learning & employment works for more than what people think
I recognise too, that this model may not work for every single industry. Perhaps for social work, arts, sports, sales, business etc it may work. But who wants to be treated by a doctor whose skills you’re uncertained about? So I do suppose in some fields, the institutionalised model would work better, and we should retain them. Also, I think 3 year olds still need to go to a playschool; would be very hard on the mothers and fathers to guide them individually!
However, even in fields where we think certificates might be necessary, it may not really be so.
My dad’s an engineer, repairing turbines on oil and gas fields all over the world. He flunked his ‘O’s the first time, scrapped through the second, and then dropped out of poly (he didn’t say so, we found his certs one day! =D . Over the years, he’s read and learnt on his own. Over the last couple of decades, his company (a US MNC) has put so many new staff under his charge to be trained. All these staff are equipped with engineering degrees and masters from all over the world (required by current company policy, not when my dad was hired 4 decades ago!). I’m proud of my dad. I don’t think his story is unique, I think most of us would have heard such stories before. Which really shows that non-institutionalised education can really work!! In fact my dad often complains about the new engineers coming in with rigid textbook knowledge, who soon run out of ideas to solve the technical fault when their knowledge bank runs dry. He’s looking for people who generate solutions, not replicate past solutions.
Is it more ethical to lie or tell the truth?
Now this question is really posed to those who believe that
- humans , male and female, straight and glbtq, etc have inalienable human rights
- informed consent is important
- education/ decreasing ignorance or misinformation enables people to make better choices
- morality should not be legislated or imposed, but can be promoted
For those who believe teenagers should receive abstinence-only education, or that people with HIV deserve it, I’m not talking to you here, please come back another day.
Now, the question: Are there instances where it is more ethical to lie to the public than to tell the public the truth?
(I’m not referring to personal relationships eg. when you tell a dying relative there is hope because you don’t want him to go into despair, or you tell your best friend she’s beautiful to help her with her self-esteem)
This was the situation I was specifically pondering over:
There is a huge difference in societal attitudes towards HIV vs cervical cancer. HIV is many more times stigmatized compared to cervical cancer, even though both are STIs and primarily transmitted through sexual activity.
My hypothesis: Knowledge that cervical cancer is caused by the sexually transmitted virus HPV is much much lower than the knowledge that HIV is an STI (this has been shown true by research). This ignorance results in a much much lower stigmatization level for cervical cancer.
I believe that its because cervical cancer has always been “marketed” as a cancer, and people are asked to do PAP smears to detect and stop it early. Seldom is it “marketed” as an STI. In fact, looking through my old science text books, STI brochures and posters at the DSC clinic in Singapore, cervical cancer does not appear in big words.
The HPV virus as an STI is “marketed” by its less dangerous symptom : genital warts. And genital warts IS stigmatized.
HIV is definitely “marketed” as an STI.
As a result of this ignorance, many more people are willing to discuss cervical cancers openly, and PAP smears can be advertised and encouraged openly.
It does not suffer from the similar backlash that HIV early detection suffers from. My dad has openly asked my mother and I to get the Cervical Cancer vaccine, but he will never think of asking either of us to do an HIV test………
This is where my dilemma comes in, and I’ll like to hear from other human rights supporters.
What is the ethical thing to do?
In this case, ignorance actually protects.
Should we then keep up this public ignorance?
Or should we educate people appropriately, risk stigmatizing cervical cancer, and driving people to hide their symptoms rather than seek help?
Ad used to promote condom use to prevent HIV infection. The caption reads : Cause AIDs ain’t sexy . http://www.afa.org.sg/awarenesscampaign/CosAIDSIsntSexy.asp
- Ad promoting papsmear to detect and treat cervical cancer early. Caption: power over cervical cancer.
http://www.pocc.sg/
Naturally, the next question would be this:
what if we “rebrand” HIV, along the lines of cervical cancer?
Let’s acknowlege that HIV image took off on a bad start and lets try to start with a clean new slate.
Let’s stop the name HV and AIDs, lets call it…… cancer of the immune system, or white blood cell cancer.
Let’s not say HIV test; let’s call it CD4 viability test or NAT(nucleic acid test) or something like that.
Let’s not say retriviral treatment, lets call it chemotherapy …..
Let’s start this from scratch , and do the marketing we’ve done with cervical cancer.
After all, the 2 aren’t so different.
Both spread through sex
Both lethal if not detected and treated early
Both with significant life-prolonging rates with optimal treatment when detected in the earliest stages
What do you think?
Ethical?
Feasible?
(i’m putting up 2 advertisements used in singapore for comparison and hope i don’t get sued for copyright. Look at the cervical cancer one : what if we used exactly the same thing, but changing all the cervical cancer labels for the new HIV labels? )
3 comments