I had stated that I am against students idolising Hitler.
However, in terms of leadership capabilities, Hitler is no doubt
one person who had great leadership qualities. This was
acknowledged by several books written on leadership skills.
Therefore, obviously the students had done some research before
naming their team creatively for the Leadership
Camp. ( Though they might get better response if they
chose LKY).
Through this minor incident, it was obvious that our system limits
our students' creativity. There are several threads in this forum
comparing foriegn and local talents, many acknowledged that local
talents lack of creativity, risk taking and articulation. Putting
yourself into the shoes of the students, would you, after this
incident still try again to dare to be different? Or would your
rather follow the model answers of the 10 years series (Like most
of our scholars and elites did)? Or worst of all, most, like me
will choose not to participate in such activities again?
Sounds familiar, yes, this is what our society is. There is no room
for creativity. If you think out of the box, you are out of the
game. We are moulded from young to become a "yes" man. We grew up
memorising model answers from 10 years series. My son learnt to
find the odd one out when he was in K1. It was imprinted in him
that if you are different, you are the odd one out. However, I have
always asked him to look at things in a different angle, I have
always thought him that If you are different, you are
special
Lastly, I would like to once again stress that I am against
students, or anyone from idolising Hitler. However, I felt that
once in a while, we should always give rooms to our students to let
their imagination run wild and to do what they had wanted to do. I
believe that was in the mind of the teachers running the camp and
thats why they did not stop the team from using the name. To these
teachers, I would say, good job. To those who do not agree, I would
urge you to think twice, otherwise, we will be like what the
Chinese says: "Scared of human in front of the ship; afraid of
ghosts at the tail of the ship"(Chuan2 Qian2 Pa4 Ren2, Chuan2 Wei3
Pa4 Gui3) and end up doing and gaining nothing.
