The genius within us
Category: Jurnal
Tags: academic success, ainan, education, malay child genius, parental duty, Singapore
I read with much interest, the story about a Singaporean Eurasian (Part Irish, Part Malay) boy, age 8, who has passed his Chemistry O level paper at age 6. He’s probably Singapore’s first known child genius. Recently, he had given a lecture on Chemistry to several primary school students. His ability to articulate his thoughts in an animated, child-ly manner allowed him to impart his knowledge to his peers who would be more than happy to learn from this underaged prodigy.
Ainan, and the Malay child prodigies before him, seem to debunk the myth that Malays are (in very tame terms) less gifted educationally. While many would be quick to point out that Ainan is not a pure Malay (as with Sufiah before him), it should be noted that, like his father, his Malay mother is ambidextrous, suggesting that her left and right brains are equally developed, contributing further to Ainan’s super-genes. It should also be noted that Ainan seems to get most of his genes from his mother as he has clear Malay facial features and therefore is as much a Malay as he can get.
While it’s nice to sensationalise the rise of a young Malay genius, I don’t think that genius has anything to do with race. If the Malays are as stupid as they are made out to be, then Ainan, Sufiah, and even our PSLE and O level Malay top students would be able to crush that label quite thoroughly. I think everyone’s capable of intelligence, if only they tried. I don’t think God made anyone smarter or stupider and then colour coded them. Because if that was true, then Malays would have the intellectual capacity to crunch numbers like Indians and the economic tenacity to control Asia’s business landscape like the Chinese and Japanese.
Intelligence certainly has nothing to do with colour. It has everything to do with effort, and perhaps the luck of good genes. And good genes does not necessarily have anything to do with colour.
I used to think that I was heading for ITE. My grades were horrible in secondary school. I was 2nd last in class, and I got an F9 for Math. I felt dumb. But perhaps, that can be attributed with me mixing with simply the wrong company. When I left the companionship of my good-for-nothing friends, I dedicated most of my time to the improvement of my academic life. And true enough, by the time I conquered my O levels, I scored 2 distinctions (for English and Math) and scored nothing less than B3s for all other subjects.
Good grades came with simply, effort and a conducive academic environment. If Malays were less focussed on wasting time, and gave more attention to studying, I suppose their academic performance as a community would definitely improve.
Many would suggest that the delinquency of Malay youth is a vicious cycle beginning with poverty. In Singapore, Malays aren’t as poor as people in other parts of the world, like Africa or as close as our Indonesian and Filipino neighbours. These citizens have the ill luck of living in a place where they survive with only 1 USD a day. Poor Malay families here at least have a decent shelter over their heads. Perhaps their homes are crampy, and slightly unglamourous for most of us living in new 4 or 5 room apartments, but they get more than 1 USD a day, and these youth should look at how lucky they are compared to others out there.
I have a friend who is now a Senior Systems Analyst at a local Government-affiliated corporation. She came from a broken family and she’s the only person working to support her mother and siblings. She was poor, but that didn’t affect her ability to enter polytechnic with sub-11 L1R4 grades simply because she worked hard. So perhaps, poverty may not be the cause of the lack of academic success of Malay youth. But it is an area of concern that shouldn’t be ignored nonetheless. Still, it does point out to the fact that where there’s effort, there is genius.
It will take more than a collaborative effort from Malay/Muslim agencies to improve Malay academic performance. It has to begin with a family environment that takes education seriously. More importantly, it has to be an environment that makes learning entertaining and fun, an implicit part of life that cannot be segregated into classes, textbooks, timetables and tuition classes. Parents in particular cannot simply release the responsibility of their child’s academic progress to the educational providers, like schools and tuition centres. Good grades come from parents who are involved in the learning process, from parents who can encourage, if not inspire their kids to love knowledge instead of dread it. Parents cannot separate themselves from the process, and neither should they include themselves only at the end of the academic year, sitting in the living room, cane in hand, coffee in the other, and frowning lines comparable to that of Judge Judy.
April 27th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
I feel that it could be somewhat of a self-fulfiling prophecy in this case of perceived malay stupidity. People think malays to be that way, and more often than not, its easier to ust fit the mould than break out of it; be it subconsciously or otherwise.
By the way you type your thoughts, its clear that you yourself are tired of all these connotations people have of your race, and are trying desperately to fend them off. I’m afraid though, by trying to put individual cases of malays (half, in these cases) who are apparant child geniuses, thereafter saying that “malays aren’t stupid!” isn’t the way to go. If anything, it goes against your arguement that anyone has the capacity to be intelligent, regardless of race.
More on your sweeping statements, to say that malays are richer in Singapore than our neighbours? Again, goes against your point that anyone can make it. Besides, Singaporeans as a whole are richer than most of our immediate neighbours.
Another note- africans and filipinos are not malay. Also, to say that Singaporeans are more well off than most of our counterparts in these places is a dangerous thing to say. While many malays are financially stable, how many can compare to the countless Indonesian and Filipino tycoons in these countries, or are you just comparing to the lower end of the populace to make yourself feel better about your race?
June 4th, 2009 at 1:05 am
1. I don’t see how these examples of educationally gifted Malays, even the oft-cited to the point-of-vomit-blood of 2006 PSLE top student, Natasha Nabila, goes against my argument that anyone is capable of intelligence, regardless of race. She comes from a lower-class family, of a blue-collar father and a house-wife mum, and lo and behold, just happens to be Malay, in a neighbourhood school. What was her secret? Pure hard work. That’s my argument here. You haven’t made a case for yourself to debunk my argument.
2. I did not say Malays are richer in Singapore. In fact, I think I made it very clear that we are relatively poorer to other races here. What I’m pointing at and reminding other Malays is that no matter how poor you are, you must be grateful that you are living in Singapore, and not a 3rd world country like Africa, Indonesia or the Philippines. Just because there are tycoons in Indonesia and Philippines does not make these countries economically greater than Singapore. No matter how many thousands of islands and human resources they have, the majority of the population live below the poverty line. If there are so many tycoons in these countries, why aren’t they economically as strong as Singapore??
3. I never said Africans are Malays. I am comparing poverty, not race in that particular paragraph. In any case, Filipinos are ethnically Malay. Please read up your anthropology. They are culturally and ethnically Malay. The Malay archipelago spans from the Malay Peninsula all the way to the Philippines.
4. Malays financially stable?!? Please take a look at the statistics. Most Malays in Singapore are living in debt.
5. Before you try to counter argue, I suggest actually reading up on the cultural and ethnic diversity and reach of the Malay diaspora, the Singapore Malay population and its challenges and the Singapore Malay successes. Don’t embarrass yourself by trying to make an argument of which you haven’t the slightest idea of.
6. I am seriously interested as to how my statements are in any way sweeping. That’s surprising. This isn’t one of those sweeping entries I write about.