But he does not slumber amiss.

It is one thing to teach history, another to teach values through history, and yet another to teach values through current affairs bound by the unfortunate ties of history. The latter is the attempt of the Ministry of Education (MOE) to teach empathy through Character and Citizenship Education (CCE).

It bears noting that teaching current affairs and then distilling contemporary values from that discourse is a challenging exercise. Firstly, it is not an exercise of neutrality because the matter of the lesson lie in the education of values, which must necessarily be state-founded values. Secondly, it is not an exercise of examination despite history belying the discourse because it would neither be well-scoped nor prudent to attempt to examine the undertones and nuances in full (or even in part).

Nonetheless MOE has chosen to lean on the Israel-Palestine conflict and so it is in this context that we should see (1) MOE’s motivations and (2) MOE’s execution.

MOE’s Motivations

With the benefit of the Ministry’s response, the motivations are

  1. to give students a “safe space” to understand the complex situation, develop their own views and appreciate diverse perspectives involved, and

  2. for students to learn to discern information about the issue and understand the situation from Singapore’s perspective, including the need to preserve cohesion and harmony.

With these motivations, it is thus MOE’s position that the materials were apposite for CCE.

Criticisms

I refer to the open letter and examine them with the benefit of hindsight. In my view, the chief complaints are:

  1. The lesson lacks historical accuracy because it is purported that the lessons only refer to materials beginning from 7 Oct.
  2. The lesson places blame solely on Hamas.
  3. Any attempts by students to correct the misinformation has been ignored, shut down or worse, punished.
  4. Teachers who identify shortcomings on the lesson packages are surveilled or coerced to agree with MOE’s “inaccurate” position, or made to remain silent.
  5. Parents were not consulted on the lesson delivery because the Israel-Palestine conflict is such a sensitive political topic, due in no small part to International Court of Justice proceedings. As a corollary, parents should give express permission for their children to partake in such a class.

The letter cites as the sine qua non of the series of complaints that

MOE should not have allowed discussions on a topic for which (i) as a ministry, it is not prepared to present in an accurate and balanced manner and, (ii) teachers appear ill-equipped to address in the classrooms.

The first and second criticisms

With the benefit of the Ministry’s response, it is the position that the slides contain materials acknowledging happenstances prior to 7 Oct. Nonetheless this is not the tenet of these criticisms.

These criticisms go further to say that even if there were cursory acknowledgements, the core of the lesson turns to focus on happenings after 7 Oct anyways. To this, the ministry indicates that the crux of the lesson is not an examination of history, but rather to distill values arising from the currency of the Israel-Palestine conflict.In this position, I think it is the correct moral for educators to present materials accurate to the scope of the lesson. The lesson is not an examination of history but with the topic of choice, it bears on the educator to offer a sufficient glimpse of the history to “understand the complex situation”, as the Ministry puts it.

It is perhaps unsatisfactory that the lessons afford primacy to events unfolding after 7 Oct, as the criticisms are eager to point out, but the choice of narration should be viewed in light of the motives of the lessons. To forgo doing so would be to put the cart before the horse. Be that as it may, it is important to see the lesson not as a historical recount but as a CCE lesson distilling desired values. In saying so, I find it difficult to say that the tapering of narrative is grossly unsatisfactory even if it is.

But that is not the end of the matter. These criticisms put forth a further prong that the lessons ascribe the blame solely on Hamas. Absent context and the situation of a student in a particular classroom, it is impossible to say what the source of this “blame” is (if it even is a blame) without more.

The third and fourth criticisms

These criticisms strike at the heart of the discourse. If MOE purports to offer an avenue of discourse but turns to shutting it down without occasioning an ephimeral mote of consideration to the view, then it is grossly immoral as to an educator’s role. I find it difficult to believe that educators are “shutting it down”, as the complaint so places, in mala fides. Even if the educator “shuts down” the discourse, it could be proferred that it is done for the means of redirecting the class to the main aim of examining the values to be evinced from the context. Nonetheless, it is difficult to guess what this means. Again, nothing more is said in this claim, which is really a serious allegation striking at the heart of education.

These allegations extend to the educators as well and allege that educators had not been given ample room to air out their concerns and their personal values. To this, the Ministry says that principals and educators made choices (whether judicious or not is not up for discussion) as to the educators’ involvements in support of the lesson package. At this juncture I think it is proper to be realistic: the view of an educator should not overtake the state’s directions and values. If it so happens, an educator allowing his subjective values to take precedence over his lesson delivery is just as serious of a breach of education moral as an educator suffocating classroom discourse.

The fifth criticism

The fifth and final criticism complains that parents were not invited to exercise their permission nor review for their children to attend the lesson. It is unclear, to me, what this achieves. Firstly, certain complaints draw the parallel to Sexuality Education where parents are engaged, as a policy, to indicate their agreement to have their child partake in the lesson. In Sexuality Education, parents are sought for their permission because the content may infringe religious beliefs or practices. It is, however, not the case in a CCE lesson because these lessons are with regards to state values and on active citizenry. It may be the case that certain religious faculties are in turn tied to those party to the Israel-Palestine conflict, but this argument, in my view, is mischaracterised.

After all, the motivation is for students to “develop their own views and appreciate diverse perspectives involved”, so how can it be the case that this motivation is engaged if a student so wishes to opt-out of the lesson? I argue in the opposite direction that parents wishing to exercise their discretion should find pleasure in knowing that schools are addressing an active current affair, and that parents are thus well-placed to supplement the teachings occasioned in the lesson package.

Even if we were to forgo the historical narrative and take the lesson package at face value, what good would it be, in evincing the need to preserve cohesion and harmony, if a student were to be displaced from the classroom?

Seen in totality with the Ministry’s narrative, it is the Ministry’s position that the lesson aims to demonstrate Singapore’s position on the conflict, and so it could not be the case that the lesson package takes the views of the media from which these parents are now basing their perspectives off of, even though they may coincide.

My answer to a question and another

As appears to be at the heart of the lesson lies two questions:

  1. How can we manage our sadness or anger about what is happening in Israel and Gaza in a positive way?
  2. How can we show care and concern for the people in Israel and Gaza?

In my view, the first prompt engages the motives of the lesson package clearly, in line with Singapore’s stance of disallowing politicisation of the conflict and also the evaluated need to remain unaffected by media outrage. It is unfortunate that these complaints arise from what is commonly media outrage associated with social justice warriors, given that I find the complaints seriously misplaced.

It is also part of the complaints that a moral question arises

Why should students be asked to exercise empathy towards Israelis and Palestinians alike when they are not situated alike in the sense that Palestinians have suffered more losses in Gaza?

My answer is this. It is because those citizens unfortunately situated as a party to the war have not asked for their fathers to be lost in the war.

Conclusion

Taking the complaints at its highest, they assess that MOE has failed gravely in its education role, and that educators alike fail squarely in what would be the gravest breaches of education morals. These allegations, together, thus go beyond alleging the professional failures of the educator, but a systemic failure from top-down given that the Ministers, curriculum directorates, principals, and sets of teachers are all similarly situated as stakeholders in enabling the lesson package.

In reading the complaints, it is my position that they are inaccurate at best, and sorely misplaced as a misalignment of values. It appears to me that the desires of supporting certain social justice agendas, though admirable, went too far to attempt to secede the roles of educators and the Ministry in fulfilling its education promise.

In Horace’s “Ars Poetica”, he writes in referring to Homer of Greece, indignor quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus. I become annoyed when the great Homer is drowsy. Or in modern formulation due to the English poet John Dryden, quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus. Even good Homer nods.

But he does not slumber amiss.