First Otaku Battalion

Being the normal tabloid newspaper that it is,  The New Paper once again rides the oft-repeated route to (unorthodox) success by stirring up the “Top-school student does bad things” hotpot once again.  I’m quite disturbed not just at the increasing lack of depth of the articles, and with the cursory editing that is done for the articles featured.  Disregarding the grammatical errors, which occurs like at least 10 times in 1 edition, I’m appalled that articles carrying such dangerous undertones are allowed to be published.

Going back to the article, I have to point out that this article, or the furore, should not have included schools in the first place.  We should be clear on what we are villifying here:  The aggressive and violent act of punching the bus-driver in the heat of the moment.  The other factors are at best, minor mitigating/comdemning ones, and definitely should not be the focus of the matter at all.  Of course, now that I put the issue in this like, doesn’t the matter seem less serious; after all, how many cases of fighting/strife happens in schools, not to mention islandwide everyday.  I’m not belittling the problem here, acts of aggression and violence like this definitely cannot be condoned, but is such an action/crime something deserving of front page news?  If it indeed is, then i guess, the newspapers should be a few hundred pages thick everyday, with reporters having a field day reporting on scuffles happening in school; shouting matches going on in HDB blocks, staring incidents at the coffee-shop etc etc..  I’m spooning it a little thick, but my point is: There ARE more serious issues to write about; forget about global news, there are loads of more interesting articles to write about everyday without the need for massive exaggeration and distortion of the issue at hand.

Moving on to the main point; the catalyst (or trump card) which allows The New Paper to create such a furore:  The allure of smearing/tainting the reputation of what we term as a “exemplary/good” school by critisizing the actions taken by a certain student from that school.  Let’s face it:  All students, regardless of the secondary school they are in, interact with the same forces that constantly exerts an influence on their conscious and sub-conscious mind, the Internet, the media, stereotyping by society etc..  They are all equally susceptible to such forces, so why is the prestige of the school coming into play here?  The general public tends to assume, and equate good results (and thus getting into schools with a higher cut-off point) with good behaviour, which any experienced teacher/counsellor would tell you right in the face that they’re wrong.  The two most important factors influencing teenagers at this age would be peer pressure, and also how society perceives them, and pressures them to conform to such perceptions.  The very fact that the writers DARE to suggest that the VERY same action/crime committed by students should be viewed differently just because they are from different schools speaks volumes, and proves my previous sentence correct.  Why should a student from a top-notch school be condemned more than a student from a neighbourhood school?  Are you trying to say that a student from a neighbourhood school is more inclined to commit such acts/crimes, just because he IS from a neighbourhood school?  Or that the student, based on his school, should be judged on a different/higher pedestal from the others?  People might argue that the school environment here makes a difference, but I’d like to ask them: Do students in neighbourhood schools study radically different subjects from that of top-notch schools?  Do students in neighbourhood face extensively more peer pressure/temptations to do the wrong things compared to top-notch schools?  Let’s face the facts here, and let me take the opportunity to dispel certain myths about the perceived gap/chasm between “good school” students, and “bad school” students:  The “good school” students face the same amount of peer pressure/temptations (which explains why there are those that “fail”, despite the supposedly “superior” environment they are in), the “good school” students have the same number of students with broken families, with parents unable to look after them; there are ”good school” students who also face financial difficulties etc..  Vice versa for the “bad school” students.  So who’s at fault here?  Society for forcing them to conform to their flawed perception of “good school” and “bad school” students, and the media definitely has to shoulder a major part of the blame for propagating such perceptions.  Such articles are good examples of promoting such stereotypes.

If one still insists on pointing out that school culture matters, I’d suggest reading my previous paragraph carefully; I’m not denying that culture doesn’t make a difference; I’m arguing that it makes a difference because we WANT it to make a difference.  Culture sets in when we start to believe in statistics and trends blindly, and start associating certain characteristics to the trends, which leads to stereotyping, then when the students start to believe in such stereotypes and conform to them, a culture is born; a sub-conscious, self-fulfilling culture.

I’m too tired to continue writing, even though I’ve yet to touch on the subsequent actions of the student, his father and the bus driver.  Perhaps later.  The only thing I’d agree with in the articles though, is with the counsellor, who, in short stated that there is no right or wrong in parenting, all parents’ actions are based on what they think is best for their kid, which cannot be faulted.  It is the kids themselves, who interpret, and continue from where the parents start out, who determine if in the end, the action was right or wrong.