As a secondary student in Singapore, getting all your distinctions seems to be all that matters in a bid to save a spot in the prestigious JCs. Under Singapore's educational system, students are encouraged or more precisely are expected to work conscientiously since young age. Therefore, drowning themselves in mountainous books and regurgitating lines from their textbooks is what most people resorts to. I witness a student bump himself into a pole while reading a dictionary in the streets. hence, one begs to differ, are these truly necessary in order to achieve education? Education if defined mean the general sense or experience that has a formative effect on the character or physical ability of someone. Thus, it should not have come from books solely, but rather from practical experience. Students should not be compelled to long hours of tedious studies every single day.
First and foremost, it is an undeniable fact that book is the source of knowledge. From the time immemorial, humans rely on books to have a profound understanding of a matter,a footing before conducting any research, or simply to provide a hospital for the mind. Therefore it is understandable that schools strongly encourage their students to fully contemplate their textbooks. Through undertstanding the textbooks compounded with routine exercise of doing various questions, one can grow in mind and widen their expanse of knowledge, all the while widening their horizon. However, as some students have expressed their concern of being unable to cope with such schedule, there can always be an alternative which provides similar learning points but offers relaxation.
Conducting experiments is a way to go. For students who face difficulties in understanding science theories of how chemicals react or how physics law can be applied in our daily lives, various apparatus in the laboratory can serves to be a beneficial tool for such.For instance, to understand law of electricity, one can use batteries, crocodile clips, light bulbs,anmeter, and afterwards assemble a circuit similar to the ones in their textbook. My having a hands-on experience, they can better understand the subjects at hand and apply it in their examinations even daily lives.as John Locke said, 'reading only furnished the mind with the materials of knowledge, it is thinking that makes us read what's ours', the thinking process is the most vital aspect of our learning endeavours. Therefore, the expanse of our thinking should not be confined within the boundaries of our textbooks alone.
The advent of various educational websites also introduces to us a novelty of means of education which is through e-learning. As we know, internet also has its similarity with books, which is a source of boundless knowledge. therefore, we can tap on these resources whenever we feel bored of reading books. websites such as Wolfram-Alpha not only provides the summary of learning outcomes but a lso interactive diagrams and animations available for everyone.
in a nutshell, education not comes only from books but also various means such as experiments or the internet. I believe we should not limit our options to any one of them because the informations from various sources completes one another. as it has been said,'learning is a life long endeavour', we should continue to widen our expanse of knowledge every step of the way.
