spirits that linger on the hwachong hill.

not quite in the mood to write anything for my is yet, so here i am, on the blog! thought that it would be pretty interesting to comment a little on what the school has been up to lately...

wonder if anyone has noticed, but the school seems to be talking a lot about spirit, spirit and more spirit (for the uninformed, please go read your emb, and you'll probably get half of what i am saying :P). ok, ignoring the ineffective pun in my entry's title, really, what is the spirit that we have been looking for all this while?

it might be useful to think of the word, 'zeitgeist'. it basically refers to the spirit of an era, for the poorly-versed-in-german individuals like me. if i'm thinking it the right way, we are in the midst of a paradigm shift (in education, that is). the uncertainties of ip, our dreadful expectations of the a levels, the pressures of the school upon our batch. then, perhaps, the spirit that we are referring to, is one of fighting, one of excellence.

the spirit of resistance, and the orientation of ourselves in these chaotic times.

perhaps, you might say that i'm just making a caricature of the current situation. but, take a moment and think. is that what i'm trying to say?

my point is, in the midst of all these educational reforms and talk about having a unified spirit, the original "spirits" have vanished. chi high's motto is "自强不息". looking at this motto, beyond its basic notion of resilience, it implies some form of individualism. now, look at hcjc's motto, "live with passion, lead with compassion". no doubt, the "live with passion" part does contain the individualist idea of cest la vie, the relentless personal pursuit of pleasure and happiness in life. however, once you couple it with "lead with compassion", conflict arises. leadership essentially means some organisation of society. how would a person (chi high guys, in particular) reconcile his individualist ideas with this whole new notion of leadership and social responsibility? as we try to bring about this reconciliation, we lose some values that we have picked up in chi high and assimilate some from the hcjc environment. the questions any one of us in the ip has to ask in the end is, "are we complete? are we perfect chi high and/or hcjc entities?"

when the school admits that there is a (possibly) unbridgeable gap between faculty spirit and school spirit, as well as one that exists between chi high spirit and hcjc spirit, what are we left with, and what ought to be questioned? the thing is, the adminstration of both sections of the institution are concerned with different goals. why are people more supportive of the faculty concept? after all, hcjc and faculties are but discourses in our minds. and hcjc has a stronger presence to the rest of singapore, compared to ares, apollo, athena or artemis alone. so, why can't we translate (or why haven't we translated) the passion for our individual faculties into love for our school? or why can't we love hcjc the same way we adore chi high?

my guess is that we are used to some autonomy and liberal-mindedness in the way we conduct our lives in school (individualism, i guess?). sure, we had disciplinarians in chi high as well, and there were plenty of rules to abide by. but, at least, we had the freedom to do things, be it wacky or sensible. we don't try to ascribe some political correctness to the way we do things. we could cheer for a friend in the auditorium in chi high and not get chided for it. we could obtain support (perhaps, much faster) for activities we would have liked to initiate. we could stay around in classrooms much later (till about 6pm when the guards had to pull down shutters, or until some cca group wanted to use the room) and do work/play com games/sleep. we could exercise our options when it came to public lectures, self-study sessions etc. we aren't forced into things. and even if the event was compulsory, the teacher or person-in-charge makes an effort to highlight the benefits of attending (e.g. credit points, free food :P). but here, in hcjc, so many things are done against our will. we have to attend lectures that don't make any sense/benefit us, we have to give self-addressed envelopes for results to be mailed to us, we have to tolerate programmes that we have no wish of/need for attending (e.g. a-star math lecture series)... the list goes on. someone might reply that this is all being overly idealistic, to always have options given to us. i'm not asking that we always have options, but, at the very least, the administration should only make compulsory those events that are HIGHLY relevant to a specific group. trying to make a one-size-fits-all solution only foists structures upon us that stifle creativity and thinking.

it is also much more economical for an individual to make his mark at a lower rung of the hierarchy. how so? is it not easier for a person to organise a faculty outing, compared to the task of organising prom? people are willing to invest time and/or money in the whole concept of consortia and faculties, because it ensures a higher chance of success with a proportionately lower amount of effort. add to that the fact that there is much more red tape waiting to trip a school councillor, compared to a fac com member, it is only natural that we seek the easier way out to achieve a "worthwhile" success. in this sense, it is much more worth it to accommodate the idea of "faculty" and keep it at that level, rather than elevating it to "love of the school". glory for the school is best left to the more talented minority to achieve in other niche areas.

to hazard a third guess, i think that the administration on both sides are misguided with respect to that "institution spirit" that they would so like to have. it is ridiculous to think that all it takes to form a unified hc spirit is a jacket designed by a hwachongian for all hwachongians. it is naive to think that an institution can share the same vision, just by inventing an umbrella name for two distinct educational bodies. materialism won't bring us anywhere near that ideal goal of a unified hc. only when both chi high and hcjc (basically, every single teacher, student and administrative staff in the institution) agree upon some common normative principles and vision that are not merely phrased in a feel-good, castle-in-the-air manner, can a true hci exist.

but for now, the best that we have is aptly described on the walls facing bukit timah road, "Hwa Chong Institution, incorporating The Chinese High School and Hwa Chong Junior College".

mere incorporation, not integration.