In recent years, we hear and see more and more of our students
achieving strings of straight ‘As’ in UPSR, PMR, SPM and even STPM. Indeed,
it’s an admirable feat and the students, teachers and parents concerned alike
must be mention for such remarkable achievements. At the same time, I wonder if
this same group of people realize that straight A’s is not everything.
It reminds me of a family friend
whose daughter was among these very bright and brilliant students who had
scored straight A’s in UPSR, PMR and SPM. It was at the time when she had just
sat for STPM and was waiting for her results that her mother discovered
something very shocking. She had asked her daughter to help her out in the
kitchen and start with peeling the onions. This brilliant student, holding an
onion in her hand, asked her mother: “when do I stop peeling the layers?”. In
all her growing years her parents had put so much attention on her academic
excellent, so much so she had never lifted a finger to help with household
chores and was not sure how to peel an onion!
This Science faculty student used to
be a loner, not able to strike a simple conversation with fellow students. Her
mother would travel over 100km every weekend to come to campus just to clean
her room, do her laundry and wash and comb her hair as she was not capable of
doing these things herself. Yet, she graduated with 1st Class
Honours. So, what is the value of the straight A’s and 1st Class
Honours when you can’t be independent and self-reliant?
The point I wish to make is that,
educationist, school principals, teachers, students and most of all parents,
need to ensure that each child grows up with a balance in life. Ensure that
apart from aiming straight A’s and 1st Class Honours, every child
acquires the many skills of life that can neither be taught in classrooms nor
tested in exams. Grow up enjoying each stage of life and learn to be part of
and contribute effectively in whatever you do.
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