on education in Singapore

this is crazy:
The big debate over parent volunteers
what are they chasing after?
what are we chasing after?

it makes me really sad to think of what the kids in the country I grew up in have to face these days =( i remember a friend telling me that she knew of a primary school-age kid (i think he was just in grade 1) who wanted to die because of the overwhelming pressure to do well academically. i imagine him poring over problem after problem in the supplementary exercise books (typical in Asia and i think chinese parents buy them from Singapore and bring them to Canada for their kids to do) while his maid looks on. It would be quite an uncommon scene for the maid, aka the hired full-time domestic helper, to be with the child all day since the mum has to work full-time to support the cost of raising children and sending them off to all kinds of extracurricular activities to keep up with the rest of the society.
in such an affluent society, with great food, the newest malls to go shopping, newest toys and clothes etc., i don't think the kids are happy... they're missing out on so much
and what is it that they'll grow up to become? and choose for their kids in turn?

i have been so blessed with parents who never forced anything on my sisters and i. and it was only by His grace that any good came out of the education system...thanks be to Him!

it's for Him that we're living. may we be standing firm in Christ no matter what the world tells us may we fight for His Kingdom

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9