Exam pressure cooker could turn children into disengaged automatons

In Hong Kong unbearable parental pressure for students to score the highest grades is at odds with teachers’ duty to produce well-rounded students in hopes that one day they become upright and productive citizens. But from what I see in my work as a teacher of young people, I have reservations about the effectiveness of our current education system in achieving this lofty objective.

I suppose you can’t really blame the parents when it comes to their unintentional obsession over their children’s academic performance. We all know our school system is exceedingly relentless and competitive; high marks trump everything else. So can one really fault the so-called monster parents and tiger mums for behaving in such a pushy manner? They are, after all, only striving to make sure their child will succeed in such a merciless environment.

But where does happiness stack up in this relentless drive for high academic scores? It’s probably relegated to irrelevance. Without trying to sound like a cliche, we all know that childhood is supposed to be filled with some of the most carefree and joyous memories, and when one takes just the first tentative steps toward a lifetime of learning. But in Hong Kong, that first step is basically just entering a boot camp for years of book learning and homework.

Even after school, vocational and interest classes are scheduled pretty much like another school setting. Free play appears to be virtually non-existent. A child seldom plays ball or simply indulges in some boisterous playground activity after school with friends for a bit of fun, for exercise or to blow off some steam. Even leisure activities, if there are any, it seems, have to be regimented. If a child would like to do something different out of personal interest and different from the group, such as skateboarding for example, such an activity is often not readily encouraged without any regimentation. Do all activities really have to be institutionalized for methodical instruction — because this is a surefire way of suppressing individuality and self-expression?

As a teacher in an English language center, the children I tutor are constantly complaining how their lives are overshadowed by school and private tuition. Most of them attend several different tuition classes in the evening after regular school up until 7 or 8, only to then go home and work on their increasingly mountainous homework pile until bedtime. One student even recently confided to me how disappointed his parents were in him, because he only scored 94 percent, as opposed to previous years when he achieved several marks higher.

Understandably, high marks are needed to gain admission into prestigious institutions for their further studies. However are good grades and high marks of such paramount importance that a child’s other requirements for a holistic development can be completely ignored? If this trend were to continue, we are running the risk of producing a generation of automatons who would struggle to think for themselves and creatively.

What is most disturbing is my discovery that a majority of my students could not communicate effectively and make decisions for themselves. I tremble to think how they would cope in the real world. It seems apparent that schools only teach a lot of children how to pass exams, so when you set a task that involves having to think outside the box or think visually, the student panics and protests that he doesn’t understand the task. A chance at free exchanges would flummox them completely.

I believe the negative impact of constant pressure causes this generation of children to retreat into their smartphones for relief and escape from homework and classes, at the expense of lively interpersonal exchanges which encourage independent thinking. Many children as young as 7 or 8 possess their own smartphones and are addicted to games and video apps. Most of my students think it is acceptable to pull their smartphones out in my class while a lesson is in progress. But people of my generation — and I am not that old — would not dream of contemplating such rude and inconsiderate behavior. It seems somewhere between the current and my generation, our common courtesy has been hijacked by the information technology revolution! And I don’t think it has been for the better.

Children mostly learn by imitation. Could they have picked up such imprudent behavior from their parents and other adults without even realizing they are also wasting their valuable opportunities for learning, not to mention it was an affront to their teacher? Clearly we need to have a community-wide conversation over our current education practices and learning culture!