A gal wrote in in response to a Today’s article on GEP… Well proves that GEP is fulfilling its purpose of producing ace students like this… they are the chosen ones who would lead this nation…

A second look at the gift Nightmare for students, parents Ideal learning and social environment

Letter from Michelle Qiu

YOUR report gives the impression that GEP students are mentally unprepared for the curriculum and that students do not like being in the GEP. Having just graduated from the GEP after three years, I beg to differ. I may not be the best student in my GEP centre, but I did not find the curriculum pressure-packed, and looking at the fun the students have, I doubt the others did either. Sure, we get our share of homework and projects, but nobody said life was a bed of roses. The study noted that in Primary 6, we were “stereotyped and subjected to heckling and verbal abuse”. Yes, we do get such things from mainstream Pri 6 students, but it’s nothing we can’t handle. You see, GEPers (as we call ourselves) are more mature than most mainstreamers, the result of being in the GEP. The mainstreamers think we are snobbish — when they stereotype us, they are being immature. When we prove ourselves able to handle the “bad press”, we grow more mature. Being in a specialised class lets us interact with people like us. I had to keep changing schools every year before I entered the GEP and I didn’t have many good friends because I found my classmates to be immature. But when I entered the GEP, I was impressed with my classmates and now we can’t bear to part ways. Unless someone is transferred out of the GEP, or changes schools, we have the same 52 or so classmates throughout the three years. This forces us to become good friends. We were all mainstream students before the GEP. Most of us found it boring in mainstream classes, as we knew most of the curriculum and it was easy to get good grades. But when faced with someone at our own level, we step up our efforts to compete. Sure, there are a few who can’t cope, but they withdraw in the first or second year. My school saw only two withdrawals out of 52 people. At most, it is only in rare cases that “the club turns into a nightmare”, as your report put it. The GEP broadens our experience. Nobody minds if a girl mingles with a bunch of boys, or if she is interested in DotA, Final Fantasy VII or PS2 games. We accept each other. Would we be able to do that in the mainstream, where everyone follows the trends or the person who is the “coolest”, and everybody starts gossiping if anyone talks to someone of the opposite sex? Nobody except us, the GEPers, could know how much fun we have being in the GEP.

Time to buy tickets to leave singapore..since i’m normal..not gifted..cannot lah…