Teacher leaves Singapore to work in New Zealand after seeing how normal it was for her students to be stressed

SINGAPORE: A TikTok user who used to be a teacher in Singapore before leaving the city-state and the profession to relocate to New Zealand explained that she felt she could not “perpetuate a system she no longer believes in.”

In the caption to her post, Esther Peh (@asteroni) expressed concern over the amount of stress students in Singapore are subjected to, saying that in just one year, three of her students approached her before the prelims for Secondary 4 level and told them they had a breakdown.

“And the strangest part was how casually they said it. Almost like, ‘Yeah, I broke down before exams. Haha.’ Like it was normal, and supposed to be funny. And I remember thinking, you are only 16,” she wrote.

Ms Peh added that if this is normal for 16-year-olds, how much more would they believe as they get older that they just have to give up sleep, self-care, and their mental and emotional health “just to keep performing the way the system wants you to?”

She also asked if Singapore has normalised stress too much.

In her video, Ms Peh said she had once been an MOE teacher, but after feeling that she had lost her sense of purpose, she left her job and began providing tuition. However, no matter how much she loved interacting with her students, she realised she no longer believed in the educational system and had no wish to perpetuate it.

She believes that education should be empowering, but what she experienced was that it was breaking students down and putting them under a lot of pressure to perform academically.

“How many of us feel lost… but at the same time we feel trapped in the system?” she asked. “I felt that the system was letting our younger generation down.”

It prepares them to get a tertiary education, and later on, a job, and then a life of accumulating wealth, but Ms Peh feels that many have lost their connection to each other and to nature, and even to themselves.

“I believe that education should develop the whole child. Things I would like to see in education would include communication skills. How do we teach people to set boundaries, to communicate what they want in a respectful, even compassionate manner?”

The former teacher asked how children can find their own voices when they’re being drowned out by pressures of what they should do.

“They need to have agency,” she said.

As for her, she’s in New Zealand to learn permaculture, a subject she is drawn to. 

She wanted to honour this desire, amid the background voices that tell her how impractical it is, or that she can never have a farm in Singapore.

Since it was posted on July 11, her video has received a lot of views, and many commenters expressed the same opinions as Ms Peh.

“I agree w you. I was a teacher in a secondary school before for 7 years, and my values didn’t align with the education system. I left,” wrote one.

“It’s comforting to hear someone put into words exactly what I’ve been feeling, and I’m sure many Singaporeans feel the same way. Everything you said about the education system struck a chord with me. The fact that you were once an MOE teacher before becoming a tutor makes your perspective even more credible,” another added. 

“Currently serving my notice with MOE and I feel you. My kids are in the system, and I do my best to allow them to carve their own path. Some ppl give me weird looks for giving my kids the free play time (no screen time) instead of tuition, but I remind myself… they are only children (6yo and 2yo), and it’s their right to play,” a third wrote. /TISG

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