Reflective Journal 5: Reflect on SES. You may want to consider the curriculum, the learning process, the assessment, difficulties you faced, how you overcame them, and how might SES be applicable in time to come.
One of the aims of “Socio-economic studies” in Hwachong was to help students better understand the culture of China and America, the two world’s economy superpower, so that our students can do well when working in these two countries in the near future. Having gone through numerous tutorials, I understood the different ways people react to challenges and do things in the East and the West and also how the culture of the East and the West affected the other countries. This will definitely help me to better communicate and work together with people from these two countries as conflicts with the people from these countries due to cultural differences would be kept to the minimum, thus, giving me an edge over the other people whom may not be able to communicate as efficiently due to a lack of understanding of the culture in the country.
Besides being helpful to my work next time, the immediate effect of this curriculum can possibly be seen when I take part in exchange programmes with foreign countries such as China (during BSC or Xi An immersion trip at the end of the year) as being able to understand their culture would mean that I can better immerse in their environment and interact with the people there. Also, when I study in a university next time, I will definitely meet people from different countries, with different cultures and backgrounds. Therefore, SES enables me to communicate with them better, making exchange of ideas and learning more convenient and effective.
However, though the school meant well when they started this new curriculum, students have to be willing to learn so that they can benefit fully from the curriculum. Otherwise, it would be better to have the electives of literature, history or geography like everyone else, as this will at least ensure that we learn certain skills such as analyzing a poetry (in literature) which may possibly allow us to read between the lines more efficiently and accurately (which may be useful in office politics next time).
In my opinion, the main challenge SES faces would be students not being able to see the benefits of this curriculum, and thus not take it seriously. This will lead to the students having a lack of drive to research and prepare for the tutorials, which will ultimately lead to inefficient learning as the student truly learns when he reads up and researches on the tutorials. If he only waits for the teacher to feed him with information, he may not be able to digest the information (judging that he has no background knowledge of what is happening), possibly leading to the failure of this curriculum as no learning has taken place.
As the saying goes, “No system is perfect.” Therefore, there are definitely pros and cons to every system. I feel that the mode of assessment now may not be very useful in gauging whether the student has really benefited from the curriculum. This is because assessments with high weightage such as research paper and term paper can be easily aced by blindly copying and paraphrasing chunks of details from the internet without understanding them. Also, reflective journals, another assessment which carries a high weightage, may not really reflect the student’s true feelings and learning experiences as a student can just look at the work of another student and edit whatever that student has written, before passing it off as his work.
Instead, I feel that the assessment that can best gauge whether a student has understood what has been taught or whether a student has put in the effort to understand what he has researched on is the class participation component which only holds 20% of the termly grade for SES. This is because only when the student opens his mouth to share his views and ideas about a particular topic, can the teacher understand whether the student has learnt. However, it may also be an unfair gauge of a student’s ability as a student may have prepared sufficiently but do not feel comfortable speaking up in class. Therefore, it is very difficult to have a mode of assessment that is the best and a teacher can only gauge the understanding of a student by prompting him in class.
One difficulty I faced in SES would be coping with the deadlines of the assignments and research work. This is because amidst all the homework, project work, ace assignments and tests, I have to spend time preparing for the tutorials before every lesson and also on reflective journals and the preparation of my term presentation which are all very time-consuming due to the long readings and thinking processes which I must go through in order to do a good work.
I overcame this difficulty by occasionally asking for extension of deadlines when the workload is really too much and also managing my time well. I have to prioritize my tasks well and also achieve a balance between work and play so as to cope with the demanding curriculum of the school and also provide myself with opportunities to relax and regenerate.
Overall, I find this curriculum extremely useful as it allows me to really understand the reason behind certain trends of the East and the West due to their culture and look forward to the next lesson!
(Word count: 888)
