School Culture?

Was blog-surfing and came across several interesting blogs about my industry. One of the blogs' recent post brought the topic of school culture to mind. He was comparing the "Elite" schools to the "Neighbourhood" schools and his opinion was that there's really not much of a difference in the end result. Well, of course there's a difference but responsibility ultimately lies with the individual and not with the school.

Well, I do agree to a large extent. Its ultimately your life and no matter which school you go to, it's your decision to sink or to swim. My school (as in the current one) is a typical neighbourhood school. We take in average and below average kids. We see them change over the years, pick up bad habits and behaviour from their seniors, lose interest in studies, lose confidence in their abilities, get into trouble with the police. We also see kids who put in effort. We see them excel and produce intelligent pieces of work. We see kids who entered with below average PSLE scores but graduated with single digit L1R5 and got into top JCs. Granted, they don't make up the majority. But they exists. It's really their choice. No one can force them to study if they don't want to.

The main difference between students from "elite" schools and "neighbourhood" schools is really the school culture. In the non-neighbourhood schools, the students are proud of their school. They are proud of their uniform, no matter how ugly it may be... argh... take for example the green pinafore. =_= Even years after they graduated, they'll look back with a certain measure of pride. Well, it differs from individual to individual but at least it was that case for me. I still feel a sense of kinship when I see kids wearing the same uniform as i did so long ago. And in those schools, students have the mindset that they are near the top of the pile. No matter how much you suck in school, you'll always have that mentality that you are good. It could lead to students being over-confident or arrogant, but it sure beats having no confidence in yourself. Failure is not even considered. And because when you tell yourself you must do it, you will do it.

Our kids on the other hand, do not like the school too much. One kid was so ashamed of our uniform that he would rather wear home clothes out and change into the uniform nearer to school. Sure they love their friends. They are warm kids who like most of the teachers etc etc... but when it comes to school pride, I'm pretty sure they have little or none. They don't have much respect for authority and basically have no standards to aspire to.

Expectations for the students of "elite" schools are high. School pride and culture propels them to strive hard to meet those expectations. When there's no culture in a school to speak of, or when the culture is negative instead of positive, all we can do is to have expectations of our kids. For some of them, the very idea of other people having expectations from them is so foreign that they haven't even consider it before. And I think that this very absence of expectations is widening the gap between the students of different schools.

Argh... I just need to get it all out! Although responsibility lies with the individual, most teenagers CANNOT handle this responsibility. They THINK that they can but are influenced by the culture within the school. The school therefore plays a huge part in making or breaking these individuals. And yes, there IS a difference in "elite" and "neighbourhood" schools.