And that sweet city with her dreaming spires,/ She needs not June for beauty's heightening

Many of my friends have conveniently, falsely, unthinkingly classified me as a workaholic. I come here not with the aim of refuting this claim, but to clarify this image that so many people have – sadly – mistakenly formed. What they have observed in me is merely a marginally higher level of academic enthusiasm. Yes my friends, I’ve just diagnosed my own ailment, and I’m not a workaholic.

I see academia as a pleasant experience – almost a hobby. I have very strong views on education, and if you have an hour or so to burn, come let’s discuss this – it shall be terrific fun. But no – I shan’t go into an online debate with myself now.

Back to learning attitudes. Yes, I admit that learning is a thoroughly enjoyable experience for me. I love sitting in a classroom where ideas that float around almost displace the air molecules. I love academic discussions. I love having my mind blown/blasted by ideas. I love making discoveries between the cracks of common ideas. I love being my own devil’s advocate.

That said, I detest sitting in a classroom where ideas are stifled. I detest having to compromise because of top-down enforcement of ideas. I detest the feeling of finding my ideas – and my classmates’ ideas – trapped in my mind/their minds or confined to my/their notebooks.

I never thought I’d have to utter this, but yes, TOK exasperates me – completely. I dislike the subject intensely. Or rather, I dislike how it is taught intensely. (Here’s a disclaimer before I launch into my diatribe of the subject: I speak for myself, not for my class, and certainly not for all TOK students.)

This contempt I now bear for TOK shows how drastically things can change over the course of a single year. I recall being all keyed up about TOK at the beginning of Year 5. I wrote in my very first TOK reflection about the profundity of epistemology, about how I was extremely fascinated with knowledge issues (not the Knowledge Issues that the numerous TOK rubrics nag us about – “How does one know this? How does one know that?”, but real issues with knowledge) in various areas of study (not to be confused with the now- unbelievably overused phrase “Areas of Knowledge”), about how I was looking forward to questioning my own learning and learning processes, about how I found joy in exploring the limitations and ambiguities of knowing, learning, knowledge and truth. That sheet of thin, ruled paper sitting insignificantly in the second pocket of my TOK folder on my shelf at home was once brimming with enthusiasm and inquisitiveness. I really hate to admit this, but I sincerely believe all that enthusiasm and inquisitiveness has evaporated.

No, I myself am admittedly still brimming with enthusiasm and inquisitiveness – but unfortunately my mind can no longer assume this attitude when it comes to TOK. I feel unnervingly suffocated by TOK; there was never much room for exploration. I spoke to a teacher (who has since left ACS) about this suffocation and he does agree with me that it can be a cruel blow to one’s academic growth.

It pains me to look at the reflections I wrote in the first two terms last year. I enjoyed the subject! I clearly did. It is excruciatingly evident. The subject has left me like a severely dehydrated traveller in the middle of the Sahara, completely disillusioned by the countless mirages that appear ahead of me. I’m sick of the mirages, so sick of them that if I really stumble upon an oasis in the middle of that forsaken territory I probably won’t notice it – or disregard it, thinking it’s another mirage.

I cannot bring myself to reflect any further.

I dislike finding myself in such a state of ennui and cynicism. Fortunately not all my subjects have rendered me so. The hours spent on my HL subjects have been oh-so-wonderful this year, Math isn’t that much of a pain anymore, my interest for Physics is steadily mounting, and my French lessons have been, as always, incredibly fulfilling.

French ab initio has always been my most enjoyable SL subject. Not (only) because I’m good at it, mind you, but (also) because the experience of language learning is so captivating, so enthralling, so intriguing. Taking French ab initio means sacrificing extra afternoons after school (while all my friends who’ve sevens for Chinese/Malay/Tamil B in their pockets dance their way home), but it also means building up my language bank – and those who know me will tell you how keen I am on that. (French is the fourth language to be added to this language bank, and I assure you it won’t be my last. Being a quadrilinguist doesn’t make me a polyglot – yet!)

I love French lessons. French lessons allow me to engage in private, personal, almost secretive comparative linguistics lessons, as I tear the syntax of English, French and German apart, figure out etymologies of English words from some French words, and struggle to figure out etymologies of French words from the miserable amount of Latin I know. It’s incredible fun.

French lessons have also endeared me to France, a country whose political and military reputation of recent years and decades does not do any justice to its cultural heritage. My French teacher’s wealth of knowledge about French culture – whether regarding fashion, philosophy, gastronomy, or just idiosyncrasies of French people – adds the element of a cultural study to my French lessons. My French lessons are a lovely mix of these things.

Language lessons offer an unbelievable wealth of learning opportunities and are an amazing source of mentally-stimulating things. One of my English teachers once highlighted to my class the differences between language mastery and language proficiency – something I had never taken the time to think about. Language mastery – and not to forget a love for the language – is the central stimulus for the study of literature, and this is what turns novels into splendid pieces of art. (I could spend 4000 words discussing language and literature, but I’ll save that for after 20^th November 2009.)

Shakespeare finally makes plenty of sense (unlike what Sir Ken Robinson joked about Shakespeare: “Stop speaking like that! It’s confusing everybody!”), and King Lear – O, Lear, Lear, Lear, Lear! – is a wonderful play. I jest not. Hats off to The Bard.

World Lit 1 and 2 might be thorns in my flesh as far as contributing to my already-mountainous workload is concerned, but I must concede that my comparative studies of Hedda Gabler and Medea for World Lit 1 and – get this – Miss Julie and The Colour Purple for World Lit 2 have been very enriching.

And oh am I so thankful for being assigned such a damn good pair of English teachers this year! I really am. Yes, I had to use the phrase “damn good”. I’ve never enjoyed English lessons more. These have been my best English/Literature lessons in 18 years – and I’m 18. And the best part: my love for literature (that nearly died in Sec 3-4, that froze in Year 5) is returning. It’s a great feeling. I credit my teachers for rekindling that love. Thank you very, very, very, very, very much, Mrs Goh and Mr Quek.

My two other HLs – History and Economics – have been enjoyable as well. None of these subjects suffocates me like TOK does, and in fact, I think my Econs teacher creates quite the opposite of a suffocating atmosphere; the number of questions he asks and oh, the nature of those questions! He makes studying Economics both a joy and a challenge – an environment I love.

In a recent lesson he bombarded us with questions that shook the foundations of our basic Economics concepts, and I left the classroom with a strange mixture of emotions. Though I was pleased to have had such an enriching lesson, my teacher’s questions also left me stunned; had my knowledge of Economics unravelled like a ball of yarn falling from a skyscraper?

But I strongly feel this is what education should be. Transforming a seemingly dry subject involving theories, plenty of assumptions, hypotheses, numbers and diagrams into a thought-provoking, enlightening, amazing subject is truly demanding on the teacher’s part, and thanks to my Economics teacher, I’ve the benefit of seeing Economics from a new light, a new angle, almost with a new pair of eyes.

I’ve deliberately left HL History till the last. History is my favourite subject and History lessons, needless to say (what a stupid phrase, honestly; I shan’t use it again), are my favourite lessons. I believe I won’t do the lessons or the subject justice by squeezing in a few paragraphs here; I shall devote an entire post to the subject and another post to the lessons. Yes, that’s how much they deserve!

At this point I think it would be appropriate to re-watch and be inspired by Sir Ken Robinson’s video on TED.com about how education should encourage creativity and not kill it. Sir Ken Robinson will tell you that education should encourage us to grow into creativity and not out of it, and his argument is one that I often borrow or build upon when talking about education and its merits. Teachers do make a huge difference; in an education system where nurturing creativity is not exactly the priority, the spirit the teachers bring into classes is very, very significant. It is this spirit that promotes a positive learning attitude – and not platitude – in students, and (perhaps I should say) learners.

To conclude I will just say this: I thirst – and shall continue to do so, until it is finished.