Enabling Positive Attitudes and Experiences in Singapore

The following sections are included:

• Dedication
• About the Editor
• About the Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• Contents

I want to share with you some grounded experiences of my work as a Member of Parliament for the last 14 years or so. I also want to share from the perspective of an academic because I still see myself as one…

I am sure Maliki's talk resonated with many of us. I was particularly struck by two things he said about community building. The first was the caution on mass activities. In many of my previous talks, I have highlighted the problems of relying on mass activities to engage people and build social capital. Mass activities are not unimportant, and you do need a critical mass of people to get things going. But when you miss the purpose of the activities and are caught up in the numbers game, you end up with a critical mess instead, spelt “M-E-S-S”. So I think it is important to review what we do in current efforts to build communities. The second thing that struck me was Maliki's idea of micro communities as an approach to translate the potential positivity among the people into actual practice. His example of Project 4650 provides an interesting demonstration that it can occur and how to make it happen…

Note from publisher: This paper consists of Panel Discussion 1 - Panelists: Mohamad Maliki Bin Osman, Gerard Ee - Moderator: David Chan

When David first asked me to speak at this conference, he suggested that I talk about The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund which I am the Chairman and talk about how the act of giving to the Fund and the act of receiving money from the community benefits both the givers and recipients of the Fund. I was not sure that there was much to say about this particular charity project which has been around for 14 years now and I think many people know about it and what it did. So I thought I should speak about larger issues. It is an occupational hazard of writers and journalists — we tend to write about the larger issues and we are always thinking of the next big issue to write about…

When David invited me to speak at this conference on social service leaders and positivity, I responded positively and accepted the invitation almost immediately because I thought it was an important area to address…

Note from publisher: This paper consists of Panel Discussion 2 - Panelists: Han Fook Kwang, Sim Gim Guan - Moderator: Ang Bee Lian

When David asked me to speak on something about positivity at this conference, I decided, since I am a doctor, to focus on positivity and overcoming “under happiness” in healthcare and to keep it localised to Singapore…

Last year, I taught a course at SMU (Singapore Management University) called “Education and Society” which discusses the philosophy and politics of education, Singapore education policies and issues such as meritocracy and elitism. In the first class session, I wanted to hear from all the students so I asked each of them to answer this question: “What was your school experience like?” So each of them told me their answer and I noted their score from 0 to 10 to represent their experiences. About half of them had negative experiences and the other half was neutral, with a few positive ones especially at the primary school level. I wonder what it would be like if I were to ask you this same question…

Note from publisher: This paper consists of Panel Discussion 3 - Panelists: Jeremy Lim, Lim Lai Cheng - Moderator: Christopher Gee

Note from publisher: This paper consists of Closing Panel Discussion: Enabling Positive Attitudes and Experiences in Singapore - Panelists: David Chan, Cheong Koon Hean, Mildred Tan, Arun Mahizhnan - Moderator: Tommy Koh