Common sense should be a subject

In this meritocracy society (pertaining to Singapore), during my study era (about 30 years back), we were taught to be academically driven for the subjects taught. Though my parents didn't enforce the top scores, we were self-driven from the peer pressure and school teachers. I guess the teachers' intention were for our own good cos the next institution that we were going to enrol in depends a lot on how we fared (our results). 

Starting from as young as Primary 3, scoring well 'move' us to Gifted Exchange Program (GEP). We need to go through a series of IQ questions on Maths and English, etc. Then we try for PSLE, then GCE 'O' Level (if our grades made it for Secondary School). Even in secondary school enrolment, there are SAP schools, IP schools, IB-schools, etc. Likewise, we move on to GCE 'A' Level or Diploma or NITEC, etc. 

Every stage in our life, we need to be assessed academically. We need to fight for those exams that decide our fate. 

I saw a lot of my classmates putting in a lot of effort in studying for exams. They double the effort when it was 'project' time. They gave their all for every lessons, projects and exams. But the results might not be what they envisioned. 

Perhaps I was lazy by nature (from my blog). I always weighed the effort required. e.g. If a project was only 10% of my year-end scoring, that's minimal effort needed. It shouldn't be more than 3 to 4 meetings in team project work to complete. Common sense tells me that if I gotten 80 marks for this project work and other group scored at 95 marks, the only difference is 1.5 marks. 

Some might argue that it is our mentality towards work or study that is important. I agree to disagree. Human nature or capitalism shaped us rather. We all have priorities in life, study, work, money, family, etc. We are so pre-occupied by the explosion of data coming from all sources of our daily life. Use that logic or common sense to our advantage, we don't just work hard but we need to reason for a simple fact "How will it impact me?", "What's the best way to resolve it?", "What's the purpose of the project?", "How can we make it better?" and not "Ok, I need to complete this project fast".

Common sense process thinking should be a subject by itself in all phases of school life. The child needs to learn about priorities, time management, logic thinking, empathy, responsibilities and ethnics. A lot might argue that social science is already teaching them. Up to you to decide. 

Common sense is a superpower. I am glad I am blessed with it. It could be my mentality that school work was not my way of life. My free time since young revolved in learning new things, observing how people behave or talk, how certain processes are being implemented, how games are designed and played, how to beat that game, how a retail customer might feel when he/she is visiting a retail shop, what makes them want to buy? , etc. 

There are so many things to learn in this world. Academic can bring you a lot of $$$ (maybe). But common sense will bring you abundance of happiness, me-time, family bonding, better way of working, putting yourself into 'shoes' and even eliminate that unnecessary tasks. 

I see a lot of the students being academically driven but they don't show respect for the elders or understand how things works, they do not have the thought process on why things are done in such a way or how to make it better. Or do we really need to do that task in the first place?

Common sense is not developed by night. Use that time of yours to think about your life goals and planned how to achieve it. If a deviation appear, be prepared on to handle it. Take into consideration future impact, at personal level and how our decisions will impact the people around you and even at society. 

If you need to learn about it, I can share more, ping me.