Value, develop each child's unique talent

Published in Straits Times here.

The original To dream (too) big:

Until I saw framed photos of people in ‘funny gowns and square hats’ in the Tiong Bahru home of a Christian family hosting local school children in the 1970s, I did not know there was such a thing called ‘university’.

Years later while conducting fieldwork in a factory, Mary asked if ‘big school’ (‘university’ in Mandarin) is the same as ‘secondary four’.

‘O’ levels were beyond the imagination of this incredibly gifted seamstress. How was she to inspire her children to ‘dream big’; aspire to university?

The converse is also a problem: parents forcing their children to dream ‘too big’; aspirational parents who are ignorant of a wide range of careers that their children could aspire to (podiatrists, phlebotomists, paralegal, product designer, personal shopper).

When we insist that anything less than becoming a doctor, lawyer or engineer is ‘failure’, we condemn children to a stressful and unhappy childhood.

We need just as much – and therefore appropriate rewards and respect should be accorded – people with excellent service skills to give customers a memorable shopping or dining experience.

But let us not throw out the baby with the bath water. Exams can open doors to ‘poor children’.

Take my English (for speakers of other languages) student Hunta, a refugee and cleaner.

Her sons could have gone to a secondary school assigned by the local council. Instead these aspirational young men chose to sit gruelling exams which gained them admission to possibly the best free grammar school, where 20 boys compete for each place.

Hunta’s older son is already in a Russell Group university. Her younger has been offered a place at Oxford. As a ‘poor’ household, both qualify for substantial financial assistance.

If we view each child as a ‘gift to the nation’, each should be valued for the totality of their natural talents. We need smaller class sizes where professionals (teachers, careers advisers, psychologists) can identify these talents (academic, sporting, artistic, relational or otherwise).

Then, working closely with parents (eg signposting to opportunities and funding), we invest in developing these talents to the fullest.

Only then can we (again) get children of factory workers to top schools and universities, the athletes and artists that make our nation proud, and the service staff who will make it pleasurable for everyone to spend their hard-earned money.