Essay: Are foreigners essential to a country's progress?

While others are groaning over a possibly apocalyptic US election result, I'm just going to share another freestyle essay and a self-critique. 'Freestyle' means no plan, just pure improvisation over a 90 minute time limit. And, yes, I do in that span of time allow pauses to compose my thoughts and make edits along the way.

The essay question as follows:
To what extent are foreigners essential to a country's progress? Discuss with reference to your society.

The essay here:
http://tinyurl.com/oz6y3gn

And the self-critique:

Clearly not a standard essay for the General Paper. With no plan, I let the scope of this essay go out of control and ran into trouble bringing the argument back into focus. The definition of 'foreigners' was difficult to nail down as the concept is more abstract than I had anticipated. While the simple idea of a foreigner is someone born outside of local borders, the conception of 'foreigner' is just as telling of a mindset as it is a place of birth. Besides, how does one discuss a relative thing like 'progress'? So many things to establish even before I can begin to make a case. By the time I got to make 'reference to your society', it was really the tail end of what I could manage within the time allotted. As such, the conclusion tries to make a point I hadn't had time to fully develop, ending on a hyperbole with little to no substantiation. And, yes, some evidence is contrived as well. As for balance, well, a resource is either essential (absolutely must have) or not essential (can live without it) and cannot be partially essential (which makes no logical sense at all). I chose to argue 'essential'. Being decisive motivates a stronger argument than being placatory.

Arguing the extreme

Model essay time!

I detest 'balanced' arguments the way they are commonly taught. What usually results is something of a bipolar nature with little basis for resolution. Instead of arguments, what the kids generally produce are almost verbatim reports of 'he said' vs 'somebody else said', which is a neutral approach, but two arguments for the price of one is NOT an argument -- particularly if they are self-negating and hence, inconclusive.

Instead, I prefer turning the essay question back on myself. I don't care what the eternally conflicting straw-men have to say about the issue. What's important is what I think of the unvarnished truth of the matter. While I rail at the world, I am still able to 'balance' my argument by identifying the imperfections that make up the world and our experience of it, rather than shoehorning in balance via the polar antithesis of the question.

Anyway, here's what I think of the 'pursuit of excellence' and whether is is ALWAYS beneficial to [my] country: absolutely, unequivocally yes!

Edit 01:
Coincidentally, I just read this article about the intentional propagation of ignorance by the BBC, making me wonder if we were actively teaching kids to stay ignorant by teaching them to argue through polar opposites.

The gentle art of fencing

Teaching kids to argue is like issuing each of them a personal sword and teaching them to fence. At first, they are all excited with the weapon in their hand. They wave it around, wildly slicing the air and make sound effects as they play with their new toy [it's NOT a toy].

When the excitement has died down and they are calmer, maybe they will start paying attention to the rules of the sport. The most important rule: stop looking at your opponent's sword. As fun as it may be, the score is not counted by the number of times you hear the sound of metal hitting metal.

In this game, you keep your eyes on the target. You win by stabbing your opponent through the heart.

Last show of the season

[NYeDC in rehearsal at The Arts House]

Just when we thought we were done for the 2016 season, Sirius engineered an invite for NYeDC to perform at Celebrate Drama! 2016. The theme was "Celebrating Diversity", and it so happened that one of the items at Drama Night suited the bill. Not sure how the item entitled, "The Outsiders", fit the definition of "celebrate" but it was about the exclusion of foreign workers from the society they work in and for.

Our biggest problem was that in its original form, the script was very harsh in tone. While we tried to play it for laughs, our in-house audience saw little humour in it as the behaviour depicted was critical and accusatory of our local population. In rebooting the script, we initially struggled with feelings of being censored by our audience feedback. It was hurtful that this item, featuring one of our stronger scripts, was not as well-received as we hoped, and that to be allowed to perform it in public, we had to "balance" the treatment ad make it less insulting to to the people we meant to insult -- or at least to make them reflect on their treatment of foreign workers.

So, how to make the narrative more audience-friendly without watering down our authorial intent? First, we took out all specific location references and kept them to "foreign" and "local", suggesting the same situations could occur anywhere in the world. Then we gave the characters some psychological and emotional depth so that they no longer were playing out stereotypical scenarios to amuse one another (as in the original script), but rather to depict personal experiences and explore how the discriminated feel about being discriminated against. We kept the Singlish delivery because it sounded more real to the narrative.

Having taken audience feedback and reworking the parts that didn't work, we eventually devised a much stronger script than before. The item carried more weight and more authenticity. The situations were still absurd, but the intentions and emotional linkages were much clearer for both the performers and the audience.

And at the end, the one performing the closing monologue delivered with real emotion: the tears; the cracking voice; the breath pattern; the pauses; all real and nothing like we had ever seen her rehearse before. We couldn't have asked for a more powerful closure. Later, we asked her if the script really meant that much to her. And she said she was really feeling the weight of this performance... being the last one of the season! #oscarmoment

Anyway, such an exciting run for the 2015-6 batch of NYeDC members. The 2016-7 lot have big boots to fill.

Reminiscence 2016

Drama Night 2016 marks the close of performing season. A wild ride, taking on big risks and braving every possibility of a crash 'n burn. But I will continue to say, everyone pitched in and gave their all. I am humbled by and grateful for the amount of faith that carried us through to a successful finale. NYeDC, staff, coach, kids, and alumni, hat's off to you all! Thanks for such a fantastic run!

What's Tsupp?

After a 2-year hiatus, The Supplementary Paper (a.k.a. Tsupp) is making another go at publishing student reviews of what's new in the worlds of whatever they're indulging in outside of schoolwork.

Our current roster allows us to publish one story every weekday, as long as the contributors' interest holds up. *fingers crossed

Be nice, click on the link and give the kids some encouragement, 'k? Thanks!

The Literature paradox

The reason why Literature as a school subject is in trouble is because we don't know what we want from it. By 'trouble', I mean that it is declining in take-up by students who are favouring the more 'practical' subjects like the sciences and math. All the hand-wringing that been going on in recent weeks is nothing new -- lit has been in decline for a long time now.

The issue isn't really about whether to keep it on as a subject or phase it out. No one is actively campaigning to eradicate it from the syllabus; a number of vocal supporters are rallying support for it; some are lamenting how pragmatic our society's become; but most are silently indifferent and will neither be sorry nor surprised if it dies a natural death.

I belong to the vocally indifferent camp. We love good books, but the link between the enjoyment of reading and having to take an exam about it is problematic. Both are diametrically opposite activities. Old man story follows:

Way back when I was a green trainee with a class of my own, I had to give a lit test. My objective was to see what creative things the kids could do with the poems they were reading. I designed a test to assess their interpretation of the text through a choreographed or dramatized group movement, i.e., a dramatic reading of the poem of their choice. I even designed a rubric so I could grade the performance with a clear conscience.

As much as the kids were astonished by my test design and rubric which I briefed them on beforehand, they astounded me with their interpretative performances. Working together, not only did they show they understood their poems, they showed that they were able to translate text into visuals, and visuals to aesthetic movement -- and they did it all on their own. I didn't teach them to do anything that they did, I just said, 'GO!', sat back and marvelled.

A couple of days later, I returned to the classroom with a heavy heart and a text-based re-test. Since the kids were sitting for a written exam at the end of the year, my mentors insisted that I give them a written test now. I guess they wanted to see how effectively the kids had memorized their Coles' Notes or whatever else they were studying. I never knew how the kids did on the re-test but I'd like to think that the rescinded test helped them some.

The lit exam is a very different animal from the simple activity of text reading. Despite the fluidity of subject matter, there's nothing whimsical about how questions are to be answered, or subjective in the way the answers are graded. The exam is purely mechanical in its emphasis on critical analysis, and that it rewards logic and structure -- just like the other kind of argumentative academic study. The questions require a scientific hypothesis and a mathematically logical approach to developing a reasoned conclusion.

Lit is a subject that bundles more content than its packaging can possibly hold. It's the elephant all of us blind men are feeling a different aspect of. Yes, it is creative, humanistic, historical, expressive, and everything else a lit buff identifies as good for the growing child; but it is also as practical as it gets, training the same child to think and appreciate current realities while developing a critical mind and a personal voice to match.

The problem is, people don't see how two contradictory objectives can co-exist in the same subject. Me, I enjoyed the books I read and most of the lit classes I attended. And I aced every test and exam I took beyond Sec 2. AND I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one to be able to say that.

I don't believe anyone wants lit to die (apart from those poor sods who only know lit through memorizing notes), but if it is to have a renewed viability, the people setting the syllabus and the people setting the exams will have to start talking to each other once again to figure out how to market the best of both worlds and ditch the public opinion of lit stemming from the worst; while making it relevant to a generation of twits*.

*by which I mean people who tweet. On Twitter. Rather than like some old pedagogue ponderously pontificating on Blogger. 

Double redundancy

Why have I been so tired lately? Silly me! Been running myself ragged doing classroom teaching in the morning and creating online content at night for the same students. The big problem was in feeling neglected, unloved and unappreciated when nobody seemed to be going into the online stuff I've been painstakingly putting together. (And before you ask, even though you are dying to access this massive library of GP-related material, it's hosted on a closed system so I couldn't invite you unless we share the same workplace).

Don't know why it took so long, but I've only just realized that effectively, I'm working two jobs, but only being paid for one. If I bring what I've put online to use in class the next day, the kids would have a reason to access the stuff the night before, wouldn't they? And I wouldn't have to prepare lessons using different material to use in class, although that's what I've been doing since term started. Duh! AND they would come to class better prepared, without feeling like fish out of water so much when I launch into realms of argumentative writing theory and ramble on till past lunchtime.

Have to credit Tami J Eggleston for this insight that should have been obvious, but passed me by completely. Comes from being brain dead from self-inflicted wounds.

Monologues for an audience of one

I know myself as a writer. Too much text. So much I scare people off reading. Lengthy descriptions and unwieldy grammar make people give up and scream, "get to the point already!" Creating long, elaborate set-ups just to deliver a corny, often obscure punchline. Making people scramble for a dictionary to decipher otherwise incomprehensible vocabulary is a sign of compensating for deep-rooted insecurity in a person.

No wonder my GP Forum page (sorry, members only) is near stillborn. The kids are going nowhere near my article commentaries that are longer and more confusing than the articles themselves. It's not that they aren't reading -- the counter tells me they are -- but they're simply stunned into silence within the first paragraph. And in the end, I'm still writing monologues for an audience of one.

Ah well, I've always had trouble talking to people anyway. Conversation is just not my thing.

I do want to keep the Forum running though. Must learn to moderate my tendency towards excessive exposition and stop imposing ideas on the kids. The less I talk, the more they have a chance to say something back.

Currently reading "Ten rules for writing fiction" as a guide to developing my Forum personality. The rules may have been advocated by writers of best-selling fiction, but are still good advice for writers in general.