the demise of morals.

"i don't understand why they (young people) don't just ask their parents for money."
- some NTU girl, straits times 27th oct.

i was super appalled when i read the article. it was a piece about how the young people are not bothered by the current economic downturn. this young 20-year-old undergrad carries a $4000 LV bag among other branded goods. and sighs her way through the interview. when asked about how she felt with regards to her friends who have to work part-time jobs to earn extra cash, she sighed and told the reporter that line.

wow. every few years the young people of singapore will stir up some elitist comment like this and make me wonder if we are all forgoing our morals and integrity for material things. the last one i remember was the daughter of the MP who snubbed a jobless singaporean and asked him to get out her "elitist, uncaring" face. or something like that.

i got to thinking about my own set of values. and how it came about. i have done my fair share of sins when i was young. but ever since coming to know the Lord, i have set my values and morals on the Word of God. well it's a learning curve and a work in progress. but i'm thankful for this set of values that i have and try to abide by, for i know you should never look down on those who are "lesser" that you are. even if you do not have to work to get a nice LV bag because daddy pays for it, you should never tell your friends to ask their parents for money. money their parents may not even have for themselves.

humility is a hard thing to practise. and it's an even harder thing to learn. as educators, we are responsible for our students and to impart in them the knowledge that they need to go out into the world. to run the race with them and help them through every breathlessness, fall, sprain, stitch, pain and victory. but when it comes to the affective domain, how do we teach humility? empathy? creativity? loving kindness? care? honesty? integrity? how do we ensure that our students don't grow up to be soul-less, mindless thieves who don't give a crap about how other people might feel?

i know some are inclined to push this huge and heavy responsibility to the parents. and i do agree that parents play a very important in shaping their children's character from young. but does this let us teachers off the hook? don't think so. out of 24 hours, a child spends a third of it in school, under the care of teachers. so better share this responsibility. i don't quite like teachers who like to push the blame around, blaming everyone but themselves.

well this is such an incoherent post. well all i wanted to say actually was about that girl. and how i'm so sad with the demise of the moral values of our young people.

***

alright, the US elections provides me with endless entertainment and some of it is super hilarious, and some, really sweet. (: i'm almost halfway through obama's 2nd book and he's a great writer (much better than i am, as evident from this post).

and more than that, he's a great speaker and debater. i watched the final debate, and the final question on education. and he summarized his education plan in 5 points, elaborated on each point, then summarized all the points before his time was up. mccain tumbled through his incoherent points. during rebuttal, obama took mccain's incoherent ramblings, extracted out his main ideas, and did a similarities and differences comparison between his own education plan and mccain's ramblings. within minutes. and i was like WOW. he's super smart and a good talker. sounds like president josiah bartlet of the west wing huh.