Sloganeering

On the tee-shirt of one of the guys who was at the fitness centre in Katong yesterday, where Noi and I were keeping up with New Year resolutions: Training Makes Me Feel Good. How refreshing it was to read a reasonably modest claim for once. (Training does make you feel good, by the way.)

The barrage of false or inflated claims we seem to live amongst is surely evidence, if evidence were needed, of the self-deceiving nature of our species. This type of nonsense is particularly prevalent, I find, in the world of education. Schools these days seem to take it as part of the nature of things that they must claim to effect extraordinary transformations in the lives of their 'clients'. (This word, which I have actually seen used of schools minus any sense of irony, seems more appropriate somehow in this context.) I've even read the nonsense in lesson plans (which in terms of their so-called objectives are often documents of heady ambition) - students will acquire a love of reading; students will become life-long learners. Yeah, right. How about: most of the students will find getting through the text reasonably painless and be able to cope, I hope admirably, with whatever the examiners dream up and a few will survive the day with their genuine interest in books and the life of the mind intact. With luck, nobody will actually fall asleep.