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Reply to "QC boy scores 25 CSEC passes"

Mars posted:
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I understand the need for extra curricular activities and what it takes to get into the top schools in the US. Who is to say that this kid is not involved with sports or the many other clubs at school or helping with charitable work? Regardless of the level of his involvement in those activities, I think that his achievement is to be celebrated. He is among the top students in the entire Caribbean and for that I say congratulations. 

We are fooling these kids and their parents by giving them the impression that a 100% focus on passing exams prepares them for life. It doesn't.  Now if he does have extra curricular activities great, but there is evidence that he doesn't.  I will celebrate people who have achieved a ROUNDED education.  Those who can only pass exams are on a fast road to failure and will have a tough road ahead of them if they don't develop skills that they would have had they received a broader based education.

Other bright kids in Guyana have highlighted various projects that they have been involved in outside of school activities, so its not as if this emerging generation is ignorant of the fact that this is important.

I witness the tragedy of many of these immigrant Chinese kids when they enter the workforce.  Good grades but no life skills. No life skills because they didn't participate in anything other than endless study.  This because their parents think that all kids need to do is to pass exams.

I had a colleague who is Chinese so she wanted to give these kids a break.  She ended up having to fire most of them as they needed to be spoon fed which she didn't have the time to do.  In most work environments one needs to display initiative, which includes knowing where and how to ask for help, and this achieved by knowing how to build relationships with people. She reported that these kids all had excellent grades, but they had absolutely no interpersonal skills. As bright as they were she couldn't use them.

There is a reason why in most rich countries there is a high emphasis on extra curricular activities.  In countries like Guyana we need this even more as we lack strong organizational systems and so those who are to succeed have to display even more initiative than in a more advanced society.

 

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FM
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