Of birds and bees

No, not those birds and bees but the PSLE birds and bees.

After the Science paper (last paper), the boy happily told me, 'There were no bird beak questions'. I know bird beak questions (beak type - eating habits relationship) are easy for many kids but they are not among the boy's strengths. I also know this kind of 'academic weakness' can be addressed by a good diet of Animal Planet and some amount of drilling. However, for various reasons, we never got round to them. Tsk, tsk, lackadaisical parents.

Is this bird carnivorous, herbivorous or omnivorous?

Then came the news about the 'bees' cloze passage which, understandably I suppose, caused some to be up in arms, but which I just put down to being one of those things in life that you can't do much about.

Don't blame me...

For six years, I have known that our attitude towards academic performance is not quite so conventional but I think we have done what we wanted to do: have the boy go through school as painlessly as possible and without hating school while learning some rather more important things such as being a good person and being positive about learning. I wouldn't say we have been lazy or slack or anything near it. We just never believed in keeping his nose on the grindstone in the way others may have done. There is more to life, to put it very simply and mildly.

So, some people may look at his results and wag their fingers at us and say, 'Well, you reap what you sow'. On the other hand, we have also had many congratulations coming in for him and us for his having achieved what he did, considering all that happened in the last few months. I'd like to think we deserve the pats on our backs. Let's just say he did well enough to go where we think he should go and, well, that should be good enough.

I know there are parents and kids who would be disturbed if they get his results but I'm not sure if they will be more disturbed than I was when I read one of today's ST stories about the top students. The story of the child who worked hard for two years, giving herself only 20-minute breaks for meals because she wanted to top the class and get into her 'dream' school struck me really hard. I truly admire her single-mindedness and congratulate her for her stellar results, and I know there are people in this world who love work, like how others may love, say, badminton or movies, but I hope that sometime in her life, she also learns that there is, really, more to life.

The stories of the boy who worked hard with the thought that he was going to get 'plenty of free time after the PSLE' and the top boy's passion for language were a whole lot more palatable. In fact, I like knowing about young people who have an interest in interesting things in life.

So, here we are, near the doorstep of secondary school life where, I suppose, those other birds and bees might await (though I hope they will not be big issues for us). Ya, I am still not focusing on results or O levels or whatever at this point either because, well, there is just a lot more to life...