Confucian Private Secondary School----To Restore Its Former Glory?

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(Sin Chew Daily, 4 January 2011)

As an alumnus of Confucian Private Secondary School, I was, of course, ecstatic when I saw this newspaper article.  Even though Confucian doesn’t seem to make it in newspapers as frequently as it did before the replacement of the headmaster, this newspaper clipping about the new school year was enough to prod me to start writing an article for my blog.  

A thought occurred to me when I saw the four Chinese characters “重振雄风” in the heading of the newspaper article…But it would not be wise to speak (or write) of something you are unsure of, so I searched online and found that my previous assumption wasn’t far from the truth: “重振雄风” can be roughly translated as “to restore its former glory after a period of backwardness, decline and stillness”.

The first conception that got into my head was, since Confucian is now going to “restore its former glory”, doesn't this mean that Confucian has been “backward”,” declining” and “still” at some time in the past?

This got me thinking about the Confucian Graduation Magazine of year 2010, where I saw the testimonial of a Senior Three student (also, incidentally, one of the graduates in the picture of the clipping who achieved excellent results in his UEC Exam).  He wrote that he deeply hoped that Confucian will be able to “arise from the dead”（“起死回生”）.  Hmmm…isn’t this a tad graver than the phrase “restore its former glory”? Because, if you take it literally, Confucian is dead.

How should one define “backward”, “declining”, “still” and “dead”?  I think that this would include many aspects while one is using these words to describe a school.

I think academics would be among those aspects, as what else should a school give priority to other than academic achievements? Extra-curricular activities? For the past few years, under the leadership of former headmaster Mr. Goh Kean Seng, one could be under the impression that the school strongly emphasizes extra-curricular activities rather than academics, because during the school assemblies, I’ve almost always heard him encourage us to participate in more extra-curricular activities, but I’ve almost never heard him encourage us to spend more time studying.  Even if it did occur, it normally was at the end of his speeches, the last of his reports.  As far as I know, most parents would want their children to be outstanding in their studies.  Hence, even if Confucian students are the best of the best in extra-curricular activities, I presume most people in general who assess a school based on its academic achievements would still describe Confucian as “backward” , if the students cannot produce equally brilliant results in their studies.

Now, if you were to describe Confucian students as “declining”, then, with all due respect, I disagree.  The reason is, from what I’ve seen, Confucian students do not display any vast difference in terms of intelligence when interacting with students of different schools.  Confucian students are not, like what you may have heard, “only adept in fundraising” or “incapable of studying”.  Instead, they cry out  “if I don’t participate in the fundraising, I’ll have to do labor work at school, which I don’t want to!” and “my weekends and holidays are filled with activities which require me to go back to school, where in the world can I find the time to study?”.  Therefore, I believe that Confucian students are only temporarily “still” in their studies, and that they are not given the opportunity to reach the limits of their academic capabilities.  This might be because when certain people are in the process of publicizing their ideology that “We must not abandon children who are not suitable for studying!”, I think they might have forgotten about other children who actually are suitable, and may also be interested in, studying.

Next, what about being “dead”? Could this, by any chance, be referring to the reputation of Confucian in the outside world?  If you’ve recently represented Confucian Private Secondary School in a Mathematical competition, you might just get the feeling that those around you don’t think of you as much of a competitor.  They might even stare oddly at you, as though wondering why you even bothered to attend, because if I’m not wrong, Confucian hasn’t had many distinctly excellent accomplishments in Mathematical competitions of late.  If you were representing Confucian in such competitions several decades ago, though, things might be a bit different.  According to a certain veteran with such an experience, people might also stare oddly at you, but that would be because you were representing a school famous for its triumphs in Mathematical competitions.  If you insist to disapprove of comparing the past and present situations based on the grounds that “times are different now!”, then, I venture to ask you, how would one know if one has been progressing, regressing or simply being stagnant?

I truly believe that not a single Confucian-er, myself included, would like Confucian to be described as “backward”, “declining”, “still”, or “dead”.  However, if that is the reality, then it is indeed time for Confucian to start to “restore its former glory” and “arise from the dead”, and refrain from continuing to stroll along this seemingly wrong path.  After all, as said in the Chinese idiom “过而能改，善莫大焉？”, isn’t it a happy event to be able to rectify a wrong?