Schools act against students for 'flaming' teachers on blogs

Check what Mr Wang Say So's take on this matter.. actually gotta know about this whole issue from his blog.. I don't subscribe to Straits Times and I really don't like to pay to read the news online, so my source of what's going on is mainly from Today (both online and hardcopy) and people's blog.

Now before I go on, let me gush abit about Mr Wang.. I'm a fan :Þ I found his blog a few months back and I've been going back there religiously to read about his takes on certain issues. I like his insights into different matters.. at many times his views are always very logically explained that I just can't help agreeing with him on the matters on hand.. Plus at many times he offers an alternative viewpoint, and he have this knack of going to the heart of the matter whilst the rest of us are going in circles around the surface.

Back to the topic.. schools taking action against students for "flaming" their teachers. Wellz, I'm not really bothered about it.. in fact it's not shocking for me.. I went on a secondary school where the discipline master treated us like army recruits (of course that was in the old days.. these days.. haiz.. standards had dropped..). We have no freedom, everything was controlled, from our hair, to our ties, to our watches, to our shirts, to the length of our skirts and all the way down to our shoes. Our socks were spared, coz our discipline master thought that it would be too much of a hassle for the prefects to walk around with a ruler and measure the lengths.

How much did my controlled us? I was given a demerit point once, for wearing their buddhist prayer beads; I was given another demerit point for not buttoning the topmost button whilst wearing my tie. That's how much we were being controlled. Oh yah, how can i forget, the no-sling-bags rule, all bags have to be haversacks that are blue or black in colour.

But I loved my school. Me and my friends loved to find little ways to break the school rules..

Of course the context of discipline had changed, students had changed and even teachers had changed.

I think this case is very revealing of the world that we're living in today.. that is, we are equipped with powerful technology and yet we lack the moral backbone, moral fibre to properly utilise this powerful tool. With so much power and freedom on hand, we tend to forget that everything comes with a price. We cannot, for even one second, build our happiness on someone else's misery.

Sometimes I really feel that youngsters these days lack discipline and respect for their teachers. They are really too pampered, whatever they want, their parents give in to them. Some people may not believe in physical punishment, I am a firm believer, people have to fall to know that falling down really hurts. Sometimes, we need to give someone a harsh punishment before he knows what he did was wrong.

Respect for teachers.. it's hard these days as a lot of teachers do not deserve the respect. Many teach these days not for the joys of educating our young, they teach coz of many reasons, first being that teaching pays darn well, second, it's one of the easiest job to get in. My teachers used to have a salary cap of 5k, so no matter how long they had teached, their salary remains at 5k. These days, young teachers can earn up to 7~8k, and with less than 10 years of teaching experience under their belts. I feel that MOE's new way of HRM is not very right, by giving the teachers banding, it creates competition. It's good if the competition leads to the teacher devoting more time and effort in teaching the students, but at most times, the competition just leads to backstabbing and a HUGE amount of ass-kissing.. How do I know? my form teacher used to complain to us on how "political" new teachers are.. and how they would not hesitate to jump on someone else's mistakes to push them up the academic ladder.

Of course, there will always be those that teaches for their passion in teaching.. I've met several teachers who are so and I love their lessons.. but sadly these teachers are far and few..

I'm losing what I'm tryin to say.. argh..

I guess my point is, many students these days knows no respect but coz many teachers don't deserve them.

NB:: another point is, blogging is overrated. It is not as all powerful as many think it is, at many times they remain what they started out to be, a place for people to pen down their thoughts. It's pathetic that our local newspapers have nothing better to report and have to keep picking on blogs for their news. Ha.