Hello. This is not a rant.
*This bears no offence to any personnel in the management of the school. Any unintentional attack is deeply regretted.
Was in a discussion with my P and VP when some words set me thinking quite deeply. I head this post with the title "Student Leadership", which has been a highly controversial issue in recent years. Though I'm old and retired, let me just express my take on this issue.
In light of the recent tug-of-war incident, many questioned the role of the teachers, and much of the blame was eventually pinned on them. Deserving of our sympathy yes, but had the teachers stepped in and as we presume, reject the idea, wouldn't that be a flaw in our system to nurture student leaders? Of course, we ponder about the accountability of the issue and fingers point to the teachers almost instantaneously. The current view supposedly sees a fair balance between the planning of leaders and the teachers' hand in activities, with both parties ready for compromise. However, it seems of less importance that the people who planned and executed the activity take up the responsibility when things go awry. Under 16 our students may be, but for true establishment of leadership take place, we definitely have to be accountable for our actions.
The resultant paranoia of the incident seems to have caught onto the execution of CCA activities nowadays, with more stringent checks and certainly more impassable boundaries. Whilst this seems the obvious thing to do on the surface, I beg to differ. The very need for the second paragraph in this post reveals the trepidation students now face challenging the status quo in the conquest for a better schooling environment. We boast a sustained achievement award for consecutive years, with our all-rounded CCAs achieving nothing less than the best in every competition. Fair enough, our talents have certainly shone in recent years. Hidden behind the glorious record is probably the blood, sweat and tears of the noble seniors, giving in their all for improvement after improvement. Yet they are perpetually bounded by the intangible restrictions, making it almost impossible for any progress. Further, an equation between academic results and CCA involvement has been drawn in close relation, resulting in the drastic omission of various essential activities. Sadly, this sees efforts to maintain, much less improve, the standards of our CCAs diminished.
We've seen a significant number of workshops set up with the intention of maximizing students' potential, mainly in the academic aspect. Various reasons have been cited for the failure to deliver quality results, but "heavy involvement in CCA" doesn't seem to be the major culprits. In stark contrast, the lack of motivation and horsepower to push us in the war against fatigue is of much familiarity today. Whilst I have no agenda to disprove the above hypothesis, this would take years to prove true or false. Likening this to the environmental degradation of the world, the slide in standards would have already been irreversible. Wouldn't it be a case of too little, too late to recover all that has been lost? Quality leaders cannot be nurtured overnight, and a vicious cycle of unthinkable consequences would then be triggered, creating another problem which would take even more years and painstaking efforts to resolve.
I salute our valiant fighters for this cause today. To the CCA leaders who are still bidding for overnight camps in non-uniformed groups, I wish you all the best. There may be reasons for the broken tradition, but I sincerely hope that the original values are not lost. The school has been my second home for four years. I'd hate to see the decline of our dominance built on the back of former leaders, and I pray that the school remains a conducive environment for student leadership.
