How Education Stresses Me Out

Not the cleanest edit, but I like it

These engineers are very smart sir, [but] they didn't invent a machine which can measure the pressure on the brain. If they had, we would have come to know that this was not a suicide but a murder.

- 3 Idiots

If you haven't watched 3 Idiots, you should.

TLDR:

1. Automation is taking over jobs & highly qualified graduates are unemployed. Yet, emotional intelligence - which is probably the only thing that distinct humans from machinery - is still not emphasised.

2. We want to be a developed country, but are we prepared (emotionally) for it?

3. Examples from Finland and the Khan Academy.

4. Honestly, we just need a society which is more encouraging and empowering.

One of my French flatmates is currently doing one of his two Masters - after this year at the UK, he will return to France to pursue his second one. My Japanese flatmate told me that it takes at least two years for a fresh grad to land a job (it takes a few months for a recruiter to respond, a few more months for the entire interviewing process, and many more months of waiting for the following intake/cohort - that is if you do pass all the interview stages). My friend from Oxford took six months to secure an employment. As Malaysians, we talk a lot about wanting to be a developed country; but if such high levels of competition is what it means to be a first world country, are we ready for it?

With my qualifications and experiences, I would have secured a job pretty easily and quickly in Malaysia. But it took me many months (stressful and humbling months) to finally get a part-time job in a retail store (and I thank God every day for this miracle). If you're asking what my qualifications/experiences are: Diploma in Mass Comm, Degree in Psychology with Management (First Class), internship with small event management company, two internships with global professional services firms as part of the HR team, part time community manager (social media, mainly), internship doing marketing/design/videos/photography/events, freelance writer, and several leadership experiences. If anyone once thought of applying to study and eventually settling down in the UK to have a better future... good luck, it's certainly not easy. Of course, the stress begins way before the point of having to apply for jobs, let me rewind a little bit (keeekkiriiticiiiikk - if you can't tell, this is the rewind sound).

Personally, studying for exams has always been a stressful thing for me - being a student also suggests that our entire life revolves around exams and performing well, therefore, stress was pretty constant. It doesn't help when facts just didn't make sense to me, information just never clicked in my brain, the techniques I adopted to help me memorise information was perhaps also very poor; thus, I was not a very "smart" student. Because I wasn't very "smart", I attended tuition classes after tuition classes - some not necessarily because I was bad at the subject but because the centres offered discounts when you take more subjects, which resulted in me at the back of halls filled with over 60 students (which was totally ineffective btw) for English and Moral lessons (which was counterproductive because English is my first and best language and morality cannot be taught in classrooms - counterproductive also because I was actually good at these subjects). I reach home in the evening, have dinner, watch TV, finish my homework, go to sleep, and the cycle repeats.

John Rylands Library, Manchester

I previously dwelled on how I viewed myself because of the social constructs that exists in the school environment, and until and unless the fixation on grades evolves, the stress will remain. As mentioned, what I can do to contribute to revamping the system is very little, this article is then for awareness sake, sharing my experiences of being in a first world country and realising that I am totally underprepared to face the "real" stresses of life (adults frame it in such a way where stress felt by students aren't authentic or 'worthy' of attention). I would also include snippets of other models that result in a more stress-free environment. If this article had any aim, it would be just one thing: for adults to acknowledge and to stop dumbing down the stress we experience as students. It has also just been very fun and easy to write about this.

Does It Prepares You for Work (and... Life...)?

The MOE has recently suggested to alter the SPM timetable to avoid having students swim to school due to floods (joke alert), which also meant that some students might have up to three papers in a day. Many have shared their wisdom on Facebook comments - saying that you cannot cram languages, if you truly understood and are familiar, having them in the same day is no problemo; that stress is a good motivator, and this is nothing compared to when you are working. Never-mind the fact that languages nowadays require a lot more memorising than a decade ago, you also don't hit the gym for the first time in life and attempt a 55kg deadlift. You adapt and cope in life gradually, you don't throw a tornado at students and expect them to be able to swim out of it. You don't expect a baby to know how to use chopsticks (joke's on me because I'm 24 and still don't know how to use chopsticks properly). SPM students are only 17, why would you expect them to be able to handle such high levels of stress (for their age), especially when there is little to no emotional or mental support in our community? You learn how to cope with stress, it's a process.

If you have forgotten what it feels like to be taking SPM at 17 - you are about to sit for an exam that will determine the course/path of your life.

Source: boredpanda.com

Perhaps the first step to a less-stressful-schooling-period is adults realising that empathy and compassion goes a long way. Your understanding and validation as parents, guardians or role models give a lot more support than you realise, and that it hurts for you to brush off something that is humongous to us so casually. When you compare our studies to the realities of your responsibilities, you make us feel small, insignificant and weak. You say we are a "sensitive" generation, painting us as weak and vulnerable creatures for having emotions, without realising that emotions are what guides a lot of our decision-making, which makes us functional human-beings. If you're telling us to toughen up, you might as well tell us to be rocks. We are students for over 10 years of our lives and you can't just ignore or discredit the possible stress experienced in ten whole years. Speaking of work and real life, does our education prepare us to be good and responsible adults? Does it groom us to be people who can not only manage our workload, family, friends and other commitments, but also to be citizens that contribute back to our society?

People complain about this generation but they forget who raised us

- Unknown

I don't often compare the education systems of other countries and point to them and say, "this is the best!", I believe what is needed in each country differs, and an effective system is based on the unique traditions, cultures and priorities of each nation. Inserting these snippets would just be a "FYI, this is what they're doing!", alongside my comments on how a system as such could be adapted into our system or why it makes sense.

In Finland (there were news suggesting that Finland would be sending educational experts to help Malaysian revamp its education system, but there hasn't been a lot of update on this), there are no compulsory standardised tests (apart from one at the end of senior year of high school) - no rankings, comparisons or competition between students.

Every school has the same national goals and draws from the same pool of university-trained educators. The result is that a Finnish child has a good shot at getting the same quality education no matter whether he or she lives in a rural village or a university town. - Why Are Finland’s Schools Successful?

From how students are accessed to the quality of teachers, the Finnish education system ensures equality. Although this sounds like a good and holistic plan (which it is, for them), it is also important to realise that they pay really high taxes, which allows them the resources to invest into education (teachers have higher salaries, ICT equipments etc). If we were to adopt the Finnish model, with the limited money that we have, these are the questions: How else can we assess our students? How do we want them to learn? Where do we obtain intrinsically motivated and quality teachers who would be okay with a low(er) pay?

The library was celebrating women who shaped Manchester & had hats.

What is this Adulting You Speak of?

There are already a lot of ongoing conversation about how technology is going to take over many of our jobs, in fact, what we study in Year 1 might be irrelevant by the time we graduate. Prof Mushtak (Provost and CEO of Heriot-Watt University Malaysia, and a personal role model), dwells a lot on the future of education, employment and how there will be more need for emotional intelligence and soft skills. In fact, job markets / the world is now so volatile, saying that you know for certain what are the jobs that would guarantee success in the next ten years would be a lie. So what gives?

Instilling skills that are valued in all job markets, and robots are not excelling at, such as teamworking, communication, creativity, critical thinking and judgement require different teaching methods. - Prof. Mushtak, Preparing Students for Jobs that Don't Exist

We weren't taught to pay taxes or to make politically informed decisions, now we're paying tons of money to gain skills that might not even be necessary by the time we graduate? There are so many uncertainties (which causes stress) in our lives and we have so little control (which also links to stress) over our future, and you're wondering why we're stressed? Hard skills will expire, yet nobody talks about soft skills or an individual's emotional well-being. Also, if you scroll through Facebook or Medium, most articles are talking about productivity and how we need to maximise our time and how we need to churn out results 24/7 and how to utilise our social sessions to network or how you should wake up at 4am because that's what successful CEOs do or how to be rich by 30 - needless to say, it's a lot of pressure to perform.

Exciting snippet: the Khan academy. Backstory of this revolution here.

One of the things I find interesting and easily applicable is this: students watch educational videos in class as well as at home, and the classroom sessions are where problem sets are completed. Which is essentially "flipping" it - where you do your "homework" in class. This made a lot of sense to me... because most of the time, we stumble upon questions whilst trying to finish our work (and not exactly during the class). When we're forced to think of a response, we then begin to realise how much we know or don't know. As such, we are also saved from the trouble of not completing school work in time (and not bullshitting through it) but also the 'embarrassments' of raising up your hands in class to admit you don't have it all figured out. Of course, not all kids can afford gadgets or have access to the Internet, but it's not very different from just reading the text books provided. The question would be: Are students intrinsically motivated to learn independently? Are our school's environments open and encourages curiosity?

If you've been reading this entire article thinking I'm saying these in an angry tone, you can stop now - I have personally learnt to cope and I have identified my strengths and weaknesses, I have a healthy support system and I will soon be out of the education system altogether, I am no longer angry for my own sake. It's just that... if we don't build a healthy environment now where the younger generation are acknowledged and they are shown compassion, or taught on how to deal and manage their emotions, it would also, and eventually, be our own loss. If education prepares us for employment, and employees are the country's assets, we are essentially producing a workforce that is stressed, lacks innovation and lacks compassion - and the cycle continues. I hope we also don't look to the more developed countries and compare ourselves to them but realise that a system that works best for us should be as unique, vivid and creative as the people in this nation.