first, i've mentioned this to a number of people before, most recently to Mel/Jim after the lunch after the softball finals - there is no denying that being in a brand-name school, and having been all my life, the people i'm exposed to are, generally, very similar to me.
by similar i mean we have pretty lofty aspirations that we take for granted, we hang out at one in a number of regular places, and our view of the world is, in some sense, limited to this context that has been built around us since our childhood.
this is particularly true for AC ppl, simply because there are AC primary schools (say, unlike Raffles, which gets its students from all over) and SC/MG primary schools as well, and so when the guys and gals come to ACIB, we have been in the same environment around the same sort of ppl for more than 10 years.
for a long while, it never occurred to me that this 12-year schooling i receive is in fact not the most "regular", since only a very very small proportion of my cohort would ever have had this unique, insular experience.
there are both benefits and drawbacks of this, but one thing that hit me about 2 years back is that i'm part of a very limited minority - there are so many secondary schools in singapore whose names i would never recognize.
even having been out of the school for a year in NJ, while expanding the circle of ppl i knew wider than at any other point in my life, i was still kept in the same sphere and hung out at the same places (KAP/Holland/6th Ave)- there were probably only a handful of non-brand-name ppl in my IP level, but i did get to know lots of others in the mainstream JC side who came from everywhere.
now onto IB.
if being in AC was limiting, being in IB practically makes you one in 500 (i'm really pulling this figure from nowhere, on the assumption that there are about 25000 18-year-olds around).
the closest ppl to us if academic gusto, sheer competitiveness and concentration of talent (this may sound exaggerated and prideful, and no offense to my many friends from any number of other JCs) are anything to go by, would be RJ.
that being said, from my severely limited knowledge of what the A Levels are like, it is a course best suited to the Singaporean psyche - willed memory of insurmountable volumes of content within 22 months and a final exam that determines one's university future.
that there is a final exam for IB kids is perhaps as far as the similarities end.
the approach towards academia that i've adopted since entering IB is miles different from the above description - there is much more active, conscious thinking and awareness of the demands of me in each subject.
our 6 subjects, while already separating us from A Level students, mean that being adept at interdisciplinarity isn't so much a choice as it is a requirement to do well.
of these, the English A1 course stands out as a hallmark of all that the IB stands for - original thought, depth of knowledge and a general frowning at unthinking memory work.
its label is a misnomer - there is no literature course outside the good language faculties of the world''s universities that will prove more comprehensive.
but this comprehensiveness only extends to those who take the course when it is raised to its highest potential - not just scrapping by with a 4 or 5, but ceaselessly attempting to break the 7 barrier (because 6 is possible without too much effort, but the leap to 7 requires innumerable amounts of time that may sometimes be proportionately gargantuan when compared to that extra 1% that lifts you fron 79 to the magical 80)
so ends my musings of the past 19 months of the IB course.
i'm definitely glad i'm doing it, and trying to do it well, and that's a good thing as seeing there're another 4 months of this to get through =)
