where to go?

Taking glimpses into the Straits Times seems to have triggered an increase in the number articles i write here. The Economist never produced a similar response. Wholistically speaking, it is the difference in intellectual weight that ultimately creates the difference. Especially when its the forum page. But moving on...

The latest furore seems to be over whether top students should head for elite schools or neighbourhood schools. There are many voices on either side of the great divide, as well as a cacophany of background noise. However, nobody seems to be addressing the concerns raised by the other side. Nevertheless, let us now reconstruct the debate from the bottom up.

First off, let us examine the traditional reasons for top students to go to top schools.
1. The top schools have better teachers
2. Competition spurs achievement
3. Record of better examination results

Now, let us list out some of the disadvantages of going to an elite school.
1. sheltered life/unaware of wider society
2. arrogance/insensitivity

The current vogue suggests that going to a neighbourhood school would address some of the above disadvantages.

Yet, are any of the above assertions based on any logic or fact?

The first assumption is that the best schools also have the best teachers. The evidence usually provided is best results. This logical fallacy is commonly known as post hoc ergo propter hoc. The end result is fact. The top schools have the best results. That is why they are labelled as such. The question, however, is whether these results are caused by having the best teachers, or perhaps other factors. The most obvious factor is the quality of the student intake.

To illustrate, I could fashion a piece of jewellery from 12 different precious stones and platinum. It is admittedly the ugliest thing anyone has ever seen, because honestly, i'm a disgrace to craftsmen everywhere. Fortunately, my abject lack ok skill will hardly affect the value of the piece, simply because its raw components are already worth that much.

As such, there is little reason to believe that the top schools have better teachers. This is not to say that they do not have their share of good teachers, but then so do neighbourhood schools. In fact, the majority of award-winning teachers over the years have not come from the top schools.

The second assumption is that with competition among the brighter students, they will push each other to excel. The spirit of competition is not a bad thing. Nevertheless, the dark side to it is that a sense of extreme individuality and isolationsim may also develop. Competition may also be detrimental to self esteem. The adverse effects could in the end hinder performance.

However, when the brightest are put together into a class, curriculum material can be covered at a much faster pace, yielding more time for teachers to facilitate the development of other skills and project work. This time can also be used for enrichment, which is a Singaporean term for extra-curricular knowledge. The rest of the world uses the term largely in reference to nuclear weapon production. Go figure.

The 3rd and final assumption is that since the school has been producing top results, it will continue to do so, thus benefiting the child. It is a kind of 'rising tide floats all boats' argument, as espoused by Bhagwati. The flaw here is while the students collectively ultimately determine the school's overall results, examination results are largely an individual effort. In other words, just because the entire school did well, doesn't necessarily mean that a particular student did. Anomalies do exist.

So it seems that conventional wisdom regarding the success of top schools is built on shaky ground. Do not be too suprised. Conventional wisdom in general is never very logically robust. Yet the facts persist. Why?

The deciding factor that elite schools have over neighbourhood schools is simply culture. In a school like Raffles Insitution, where the writer was from, a spirit of excellence and achievement was inculcated from day 1. It is written all over school life, from being made to memorise and recite the Principle of Honour, to the roll of exceptional old boys and their achievements at the main entrance, to the annual celebration of the O level result release and the inevitable question of whether we topped Singapore's school rankings again. A student may not enter RI thinking he is any good, but he will leave RI knowing he is one of the best, even though the knowledge may actually be flawed. Nonetheless, the confidence in one's own abilities instilled by the school culture allows for the maximisation of potential to achieve excellent results. I had a classmate who used to languish near the bottom of our class rankings. It was not a comfortable thing in a highly competitive climate, but he made light it, commenting that even if he were rock bottom in RI, he'd still be a top student elsewhere. The confidence and self esteem developed by a school culture can carry students long after they have left the school. More importantly, the school culture is largely unaffected by the coming and going of batch after batch of students. It is built upon past decades of achievement.

Finally there is a good reason to send a child to a top school. But what about the disadvantages?

The intriguing thing to point out here is that the sheltered nature of a top school is precisely what parents are looking for. The endless reminders from parents from all walks of life never deviate from the pattern of studying hard, focusing on grades et cetera. The idea that a school could shelter their offspring from the negative aspects of life, to allow them, even encourage them to focus on their studies is highly appealing to most parents. The filtration of negative distrating influences is precisely what parents look out for. As such, even with enrolment into a neighbourhood school, parents would still attempt to shelter their kids from these life experiences via other means.

The arrogance and insensitivity exhibited by students from the top schools can be mitigated by the lack of exposure. Yet placing them in neighbourhood schools may only serve the heighten their sense of superiority with ample evidence on display. A proven sense of superiority is much harder to counteract later on than a clearly misguided one. And the development of a jaded insensitivity is harder to address than ignorant insensitivity.

At the end of the day, there is no clear logical demonstrations of benefit to top students from enrolment into a neighbourhood school. While acadamic achievement surely is not the be all and end all to life, it is the most significant factor for employment and a basci level of success in life.