Secondly, and more importantly, I do agree, if only slightly, with what you say. And I think that’s where the teachers/facilitators should come in. At this age, it shouldn’t be that competitive, that’s the whole point. And it’s quite sad if it is.

But unfortunately what little free time we have is chewed up by homework and the like. The attitude here is somewhat, well for lack of a proper term, it’s quite kiasu. And as human beings we need to take time off to relax too, so basically there’s hardly any time to do what we really like.

In fact even if they allocated 20% of curriculum time to such a purpose, I doubt it’d work. People would just use it for revision. Society is sadly this competitive.

I think the main thing about the teachers is you’ll need teachers who are really passionate about developing the students. And who are willing to give the students the freedom to explore. But that should be the case no matter what, shouldn’t it?

And I agree, I think there’s too much emphasis on passing standardized tests that students aren’t given opportunities to try out new things.

I think your idea would be great for some students. My guess is you’d have to have extremely good teachers for it to work with the rest. Teachers like that are rare. And from what I’ve been hearing, here in America even the good ones don’t have much chance to encourage students to explore. They’re too constrained by the “no child left behind” emphasis on passing standardized tests.

Jean Browman
Cheerful Monk
Transforming Stress Into Personal Power