“School is so boring, why can’t I stay at home and play computer games?” This is a common type of response we get from students in Singapore now. Singapore students no longer appreciate education, and many of their daily actions can tell us this. School, to these students, is a place for fun and games, and not study. Typical Singaporean students are speaking in huge strings of vulgarities, with their shirts tucked out and mobile phones on, even when the school rules clearly do not allow these actions. Students nowadays also often turn a deaf ear to the discipline master's advice. This leads to a worry of what these future leaders of the country may become in the future.

Let us take a look at this problem in further detail. The main problems Singapore schools are facing with students are their mindset and attitude. These negative mindsets that they might have are pointed to their teachers, homework, rules and the school itself. We can see many negative mindsets already during classes. The teacher walks into the class, and greets the students. Some students would greet back in an idiotic and rude manner that shows no respect to the teachers. The more lenient teachers are usually the victims of this. Then, as the teacher starts to teach, the students start talking and the teacher is therefore forced to stop to tell the class to stay silent. Then, when silence is obtained, the teachers teach and the students start behaving idiotically and ask the teachers silly questions, as to waste the time of the period so that they can move on to the next lesson. There have been many cases of students going to toilets frequently to waste time. Even when the teachers warn the students that they may have to stay back for remedial lessons, their attempts are to no avail and the students continue to talk or chat with their friends. It seems that teachers are no longer the people to be obeyed; it seems like the students are to be obeyed by their teachers. In the past, teachers were regarded as some sort of “god”, and were treated with utter respect. Now, the teachers are regarded by the students as “obstructions”, people who stop their attempts in having fun at school. We are not trying to suggest that we go back to the past and start teaching in a way that makes students bored easily. However, we are suggesting that the teachers impose a limit to the amount of fun the students are allowed to get, and once the limit is breached, they would be punished.

When the teachers give homework at the end of the lessons finally, we would hear groans and moans, otherwise we would hear some people saying things like,”I shall not bother about the homework today.” Many of these students also copy their friend's work on the deadline.And when the students are obliged to submit their work at the dateline of the work, they would not do so, and the teachers who cannot get the better of the students would have to give in and extend the dateline, making it more hectic for the teachers to mark extra copies of work submitted at a different time. Sometimes, even with an extended deadline, the students do not bother about the homework and continued to delay the due date for the homework. Students also love to gives excuses for their late work and assignments.

We also want to highlight on the students opinion on rules. Rules, like teachers, are treated as “obstructions” to prevent the students from having fun. Therefore, the students do not obey the rules and start using their mobile phones in schools, eating in class, playing with cards when they are forbidden and even bringing game consoles to school! All of these activities are forbidden, but yet they are a common sight in schools. The Discipline Master may conduct spot checks once in a while, but the students would “evacuate” and quickly hide away their cards, etc. They would get away scot-free, and they would resume play after the Discipline Master has left and sometimes even scolding the Discipline Master for disturbing them. Discipline Masters are meant to discipline the students, but in this case the students have gotten too out of hand to be controlled. Also, the Discipline Master may be using a very “old” way of teaching and discipline that the students find funny, therefore they would ignore the discipline master and result in them scolding the Discipline Master. This totally defeats a purpose of the Discipline Master in the first place and also signals to us that students are getting out of hand.

These problems are caused by students who try to be “cool” by defying rules, and think that they would gain a lot of respect if they are “cool”. However, these students are not thinking ahead enough and they are ruining their own futures by trying to be “cool”. Another reason for these problems are that the students have got better environments than the students in the past, or rather the adults today, therefore they take everything for granted and do not stop to consider the consequences of these negative mindsets.

Consequences of this situation may be little, but major. Firstly, students who eventually become leaders of the society in the future would be less capable than the generation before, or in short, a smaller talent pool. There would be less efficient government, services, etc. This may lead to a downfall of our country. Secondly, the education system may be affected, which in turn affects the next generation, which may mean worse situations in the future.

The possible solutions to this are that since the students’ attitude have changed, we let the teachers use the same attitude to treat the students and slowly bring the students attitude back to the standard where it was. Let the teachers appear to be “cool”, and teachers can try interacting with students more to know what they want out of the school. Some teachers already have the ability to control a class properly even without having to scream or shout. Perhaps we can ask other teachers to learn from these teachers so that all the students benefit from the “changed” teachers.

Also, if students are complaining that the workload is too heavy, the workload should be regulated appropriately, and then slowly increase to allow the students to be familiar with a hectic workload so that in the future when they become adults, they have the ability to suit themselves with the hectic workload.

This negative mindset of students if let to continue, would have disastrous impacts on their lives and the entire world in the future. To improve the whole world, and to create a bright future, we need to instill a optimal mindset in our students. There are some solutions to acquire the optimal mindset.

Firstly, teachers have to be revered and students have to lower their expectations of their teachers. Not every teacher may be perfect but student shave to recognise and give necessary acknowledgement for their efforts taken to improve themselves. Students also have to understand that a teacher is not an answering machine who rattles for an answer when a student has doubts. A student should view his teachers as facilitators rather than answering machines as the teachers are not perfect and may have doubts themselves.

Secondly, the students must understand the feelings of their teachers. Teachers have feelings, and the students should realise that all teachers have a limit to the amount of fun that they can stand in their class. Students should know these limits and understand that not every single teacher can tolerate a huge amount of noise and discussion in their classes.

Thirdly, a higher standard of discipline is required. This has to be reinforced but not through harsher modes of punishment. Instead, the teachers can study the wants of the students discreetly and tackle the problem in their mindsets psychologically. This can be more effective than plainly screaming and shouting, which makes the students with negative mindsets even more rebellious.

Therefore, we hope that students, not just from Singapore, are going to improve on their mindsets. We suggest these solutions in hope to let students have a better mindset, and give everyone a better future. Focus for the future and plan ahead, so that the eventual consequences would not be too disastrous.