identity

Reading the article in today's paper about the 'Hottest Teacher' in Singapore, I am, once again, reminded about how fragile the line is for teachers to segregate their work life from their personal life. Indeed, it is difficult to do so especially when our own perspectives and experiences can influence how we will teach and relate to students, as so often told to us by the 'experts' from a particular institution.

This brings to my mind the caption "Moulding the future of the nation", which we are so familiar with it. How do we want to 'mould' the minds of the young generation? How is it possible to 'mould' someone's mind with a particular idea/thought when it can be possible that some teachers may come from a different position in relation to the official position?

More applicable to myself would be: How is it possible to reconcile what I had learnt in the University to what is being taught in schools today? This is so especially in the realms of National Education and Social Studies, among other subjects. When I studied the module on Nation-building in Singapore under the History Department in NUS, I felt really free. Free in terms of how I am able to read from multiple perspectives of the same historical event. Free in terms of how we can critique the perspectives.

Education in Singapore can be very political, in my opinion. It is made even more political when we are told that education should be apolitical. When in fact, it is not.

How, then, is it possible to segregate work from our personal lives?