Circling back - I didn’t notice this at the time, but this particular letter mentions two issues: internal motivation and poor study habits. I still have poor study habits 😂 but internal motivation was never actually, properly addressed. I wonder why 🤔
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The cool thing about having had this experience and having spent over a decade reflecting on it is that I’ve gotten pretty sensitive to buried assumptions and derivative reasoning. So much of social reality is buried assumptions and derivative reasoning
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Gd question! I think everyone was under pressure. I think the GEP teachers were under pressure to make sure their kids succeeded- it was a small class (13 kids?) and one kid flunking would’ve been a big smudge on both the teacher’s record, and the system’s
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Interesting to consider then the sheer amount of weight that was on my 13-year-old back - my parents’, my teachers’, the Indian community’s, and arguably the GEP itself, at the time the crown jewel of Singapore’s education system. My failure would hurt *everyone*. Seemed like it!
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The year before that I was called up to the Ministry Of Education HQ and basically interrogated by education officers - and made to sign a “Personal Statement Of Commitment”. It was pretty Kafkaesque ricemedia.co/tortured-geniu
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At the time it never really occurred to me that I could say no to any of this. My community needed it, right? I was a *child*. I just happened to like reading books, & got excited and curious about things in my own way. Which is still how I am now, really
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It’s hard to overstate how much this entire experience has shaped who I am as a person. A part of me still constantly needs to prove that I can be a valuable asset to my community - to any community - and not by jumping through hoops and passing tests, but by being who I am.
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To stand tall and look at society square in the eye, and say with confidence, with love, without anger or bitterness: you were wrong.
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Replying to
I am too busy confronting demons to look down on anybody
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