I came across LiveWire’s blog on the measure of success. This blog reminds me of a Singapore movie I watched sometime ago called, “I’m Not Stupid” In that movie, the teacher advice the students to study hard to get good result and one day you will be successful person. One of the students replied back to the teacher by asking, “Teacher, you as teacher now teaching us, are you considered a successful person? If not, does that mean you didn’t obtain good result in the past?” A very good question being asked by that students. How to measure the success of one person?
During my recent trip back to my hometown, I managed to catch up with my classmates (from secondary school) and coursemates (from university). Looking back toward our days in school and compare it with what we all are doing now, one thing made me ponder back again about being successful. During the school days, teacher often measure success from the results of your exam. I must admit that during my first year in academic line, I did use exam result as student’s measurement of success. That perception changed over time and now I look at student’s success from another point of view. Exam result is definitely NOT in my list.
Catching up with friends from both secondary school and university has clearly shown to me that exam result is definitely NOT the main criteria of success. I do have friends who are always struggling in secondary school but today they own company(IES) and hire many smart people working under him. I do have friends who excel superbly in exams and even top scorers in school now struggling to make ends meet OR living a very very plain life. Who is the more successful one here?
I know this topic is not something new. But seems now I am entering this phase of life and encoutering this issue, I felt the urge to blog on this topic. Sadly society today still do not have a proper measure of success for a student. Hence, exam results are still used to measure a probability of success and failure of a student, whether in primary, secondary or tertiary education level. But at least I come to one sense, I would not be WOWed by the superb results one student get as I know that is not a 100% guarantee of success that student would be in the future. This is because I do have students who scored really well in their secondary schools but come to university, they struggle badly.
So, how can we measure the success of one student? What is the best way to justify it?
November 25, 2007 at 2:21 am
I am glad that you guys made it in Melbourne. Ever since we were young, you are always one of the top student throughout primary 1 through 6. Me, on the other hand, probably rank 22 in a class of 50. Not that great. I am not sure if you remember our headmaster, George Michael Tan, would have me stand on the table because I did so poor in English. But this man taught me a great lesson. As I stood up on the table with ceiling fan barely touches my hair, I have 2 decision to make. One, make my teacher more angry by getting worse grade or do better. I chose the second part. My proudest moment is when Mr. Tan shook my hand as I got out of the car when he told me that I got an A in English on my final UPSR.
I think that grades does reflect success of a student to a certain extent. I think our emotional intelligent plays important role in success. It’s how we manage our feelings, self awareness, social awareness and relationship management. Like you said, many recent graduates today are struggling meeting ends meet. They think that they are valued more than those who never had higher education. They expect to get better pay than others. Hence, they failed the emotional test. I heard recently that the Malaysian government is working out a program for graduates to help them cope with work life or at least help them find a job. This is due to high unemployment rate among university graduates. This is a sad situation.
Well, Matt, this is an interesting topic. I have heard so many friends called their SPM certificate as toilet paper. It is toilet paper if you don’t apply it in your life. Education is important and should be a tool to success.
Good luck with your schooling and bring some of those kangaroo nut sack. I lost mine a while ago. My in-laws lived in Melbourne for 2 years. I will be home to Kuching for 3 weeks in January. So we won’t see you then.
November 26, 2007 at 2:34 pm
good write up