A school with a military tradition

socrates SG

Talking, counseling and reconditioning is only idealistic when it is being talk about. When really carried, the approach still has a relatively visible track record of corrective actions to a certain extend of course.

I agree that talking and conselling is indeed effective... up to a certain point. What happened if the delinquents has reach a stage where no amount of counselling or talking helps ? What should be the next stage of action then ?

While I see your point in conveying that hardcore criminals might not be reformed upon being counseling recipients, I will question the strength or intensity of the corrective session in relation to its intended overriding power to a criminal inherent harbor of crime-spurring elements, rather than the technical effectiveness of the approach itself.

I will question too on the strength or intensity of the corrective session in relation to overwriting delinquents rebellious nature and sometimes lack of plain discipline and arrogance.

And so, all the more immediate task at hand with respect to the above should be the reorienting efforts on the youths sense of lost direction wouldnt it?

How are you going to reorientate the youth's sense of lost direction ? Is solely talking and counseling a fool proof method of achieving this ? Why not steal off their arrogance, cut off their rebellious nature slam them into the hard facts of reality during military training while in the meantime, provide counselling and talk ? Work on both field at the same time. They will be more receptive then isn't it ?

Discipline is important, but sole dependency on that mere aspect alone will merely build up on an ability to comply and to conform, but not reflect and correct.

To comply and conform is needed before reflect and correct. If they do not comply or listen to any words or meet willingly to a councellor, will their words get in and make them reflect and correct ?

But it will still not justify a public decision to dictate their fate and options in life for them.

Is being a criminal, drug addicts or wasting their youth in fights and jails consider an option in life for them ? We should be pulling them onto the right path, not telling them what they had done is their own free will and we have no rights to care for them.

Not just psychology, but it will also sound a little more like punishment to those whom have swayed out of our mainstream system.

I guess my earlier phrasing of statement is a bit bad... What I am trying to say is whether being a nice fellow and resort only to counselling a better method or giving them trainings on discipline and after their trainings they start to receive counseling.

Therefore this question deals with psychology on people. Being just "soft" and pursuading people to change is effective or employing both "hard" and "soft" method to change people is more effective.

Counselling is like both parents being nice to the child and never hit them. They just use words to "pursuade" and "discipline" their children.

Military and counselling is much like a father, playing the role of the "bad guy" and physically discipline a child while the mother plays the role of the "counsellor" who later tell them what had they performed wrongly and what to change.

Which method should be employed ? Different people will resort to different methods to discipline their child. In my case, I will probably resort to the "bad guy" and "counsellor" method to teach my children and prepare them for the world Mr. Green

CX SG

Originally posted by pikamaster:

Singapore is already conditioned enough.

and u judge that HOW?

i hardly think that a kid who has not served NS is fit to comment on that point.

the problems musicians and athletes face are due to repressive environmetnal conditions and repressive laws, like the academic requirements for the SIngapore Arts School and SPorts School.

the law does not forbid u from playing sports or music...

the enviornment is not conduscive not because it is repressive, but because societal norms do not value sports and the arts.

they are seen as "unproductive". even now, though we apparently see an "opening up", are we really seeing a more conduscive enviornment or a dramatically different value system?

the answer is NO. Sg is going into this because it is now seen as "productive" and "profitable" to engage in sports and the arts. they are basically defining these activities with old benchmarks, whether they're relevant or not.

they are not doing it to breed sportsmen and musicians... they're hoping (despite official rhetoric to the contrary) to breed winners and maestros, which is quite frankly, SICK because how can u judge sports and music strictly on these measures?

whatever happened to "sports for life" and "art for art's sake" ?

solidering cannot be put in the same league as these.

perhaps, the negative attitude of soldiering is because it is something forced down our throat, and political rhetoric cannot water that down.

but soldiering as a profession, i think, is very much different from a military school. i beleive it si as noble as any other profession. After all, soldiers protect national security.

u think it noble but u do not see a need to train soldiers for the special demands that they face? so how is that reconciliable?

u are forced to serve NS... but nobody forces u to sign on... this hypothetical military school i was talking about is essentially for regulars.

u don't have to like soldiering, but shouldn't a society respect the aspirations of those who are willing to make that choice and provide the facilities to maximise that potential?

or would your limited, liberal, self rather just oppress these aspirations because u see them as a threat to your narrow vision of liberalism?

but u would promote sports and music because u feel them to be liberating and peaceful? well... lets have our athletes jogging to the tune of Wagner then... we'll see how "free" that turns out to be... Rolling Eyes Leni Riefenstahl and Josef Goebbels would be so proud...

but as for a military school... have you heard of the Vietnam War? the atrocities committed by American soldiers toward Vietnamese wer because fo ahrsh training they received at military schools. and that was the same thing that was in Japan, that gave us the brutal Kempeitai during World War II. SOldiers were traiend to be brutal.

not all G.I's were fornicating white trash...

they innoculated livestock, attended to the health and welfare of the vietnamese they came into contact with and protected them from viet-cong brutalities (which were just as worse, if not more so than american atrocities... ) .

makes me wonder just how much YOU know about the vietnam war...

as for the japanese, the kempeitai were only a small, vocal and brutal part of the imperial army... the army and navy basically just wanted to get on with life after the initial disruptions caused by the invasion.

no theatre commander likes to be in command of a hot-spot! after the initial invasion, they provided security, implemented education and attempted to bring about efficient administration so they could exploit the resources of the places they conquered... just like the dutch and the brits.

would u believe it if i told u that se asia was actually considered a "soft-posting" and a popular R & R destination for japanese troops during the war?

they would've done better if the american submarines had not sunk a ship full of japanese administrators on their way to their appointments here...

it is important to understand what REALLY happened instead of taking at face value what your history text book says.

nobody denies that japanese rule was brutal and harsh, but are we to say that british, dutch and french rule was any better or more humane by comparison? get real... at the very least, they were ALL imperialistic crooks.

and get this straight... they ALL went through military TRAINING... but not all of them went to military SCHOOLs...

the atrocities were commited by soldiers who went through the TRAINING.

the senior officers were the ones who tried to restrain the violence and control the situation... they went to the SCHOOLS. not every japanese officer was a "Tsuji" ... the perversity and depravity of THAT war criminal was not easily matched...

SO, A MILITARY SCHOOL WILL JUZ CREATE A GENERATION OF COLD, CRUEL SINGAPOREANS, WHICH IS WHAT WE DON"T NEED AT ALL!

so... by your logic, MacArthur, Eisenhower, Patton and Schwartzkopf, who were ALL West Point Alumnis were cold, cruel americans which the world doesn't need?

bearing in mind that macarthur was the hero of the southern pacific theatre, liberator of the philippines and genius of the korean war, eisenhower was a WW2 hero as well and president of the USA, patton, again, war hero, the mastermind of numerous allied victories and Schwartzkopf, the man who commanded the gulf war...

these people defeated your "cold cruel japanese " , defeated the even more unscrupulous nazis AND liberated kuwait from the unprovoked iraqi invasion ordered by saddam hussein.

u just have a very skewed idea of what a soldier is... and an even more bizzarre one of what an officer does.

n btw, i salute the sprotsmen and musicians who are trying the best of their art locally. fight for teh arts scene, u guys!

the contemplative pikamaster (who is still agaisnt the Death Penalty)

salute all u want, whoever u want... but why write off any profession just because it doesn't fit into your twisted "liberal" mould?

your contemplation requires more depth and perspective.

Spear SG

I see your point here and I agree with you that it has strong validity. It is regrettable to acknowledge that beyond youth homes run by MCDS and the limited number of counseling avenues, there are too few other alternatives that can offer a stronger medicine apart from counseling. And due to the established procedures, there are also many cases whereby society can do little about.

Take the sentencing of a delinquent youth who has been sent into a Home, subsequently released but is still unrepentant for example.

Without repeated offences or a valid court order, even the parents of the delinquent youth might be helpless to do anything more to the kid. What is persistent will be a rebellious mentality, and unless private counseling is opted for voluntarily, the social structure cant just step in to intervention and implore for alternate judgments to be meted out on the kid for the harboring of an rebellious and non-mainstream mentality.

Perhaps the only legal course of action available will be a prolonged and entangling series of recurring talks, with varying degree which might included even those as provided by the Prison Service, and these will all certainly be prescribed with direct relation to a delinquents breach of law and order. But apart from that, we are unable to carry out any more pressing forms of corrective actions on such youth delinquents in the absence of a criminal breach of law, without infringing into their basic human right and raising hell with the tyrannical style of approach.

Hi^5. Wink

The conventional approach and strategy has emphasized mainly on courses of actions to recondition a subjects mental phenomena, values and precognitive towards society.

Your emphasis and stand on sending delinquents into a military school works along the concept of softening the iron first before hammering it out into mold, which in essence is truly the crucial element for any corrective attempts.

There is nothing wrong with the ultimate technical effectiveness of this approach.

However since the ultimate end goal is for a delinquent to be able to re-enter society again as a better individual, wouldnt you agree that using a civic setting as the platform for reorientation and reforming work will come better over a military platform?

I think the balance between compliance, conformity, reflection and correction will have to be a continuous process within which all 4 elements must be employed in a balanced and mutually supporting manner.

To be fair to the issue in discussion, excessive reliance on either the Comply and Conform Approach or the Reflect and Correct Approach will probably result in either further resistance buildup for the C&C Approach and deliberate oblivious for the R&C Approach.

I am still for the eradication of vice and delinquent mentalities and activities although the personal opinion is that a military boot camp style of approach might come to feel as being slightly overboard.

So YES. I am for the your stand to pull them back onto the right and orthodox path in Life.

However, we would also have to remind ourselves of just how deep we should go into such efforts without becoming overbearing down onto another.

If I were to put this into analogy, it be like describing the case of pulling a delinquent out back on track as the stopping of a car going in reverse where the road at the rear ends with a sharp drop into a valley.

But apart from getting the car to brake and going into neutral, I cannot force the car to proceed forward in a direction where I personally wish for it to go in.

Hmm Think youll make quite a good father next time. Laughing

socrates SG

I guess different people have different opinions on issues such as discipline. Very Happy

I probably watched too much US shows in which they portrayed parents sending their children to a military school when they had lost control of them. Mr. Green

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