This seems to be one of the undercurrents of this obnoxious article in the ST about this year’s top Normal (Academic) student. The headline is “Once-shy girl tops school, aces exam, masters Indian dance”, as though shyness had anything to do with her (not) acing exams or (not) mastering Indian dance. It’s quite possible that the insertion of “once-shy” is quite innocent, but that headline is juxatposed with sentences like the following:

• ‘I could see Li Ping blossoming from somebody who’s very quiet to someone full of confidence.’ [Li Ping’s vice-principal]
• ‘I’m interested in Science, but I did not dare to ask questions,’ she said.
• With the encouragement of friends, she overcame her shyness. From being 13th in class in Secondary 1, she rose to top her cohort by Secondary 3.

Shyness is not the same as lack of confidence, whatever the vice-principal might think. It is, I suppose, lack of social confidence, but social confidence is really not at issue in this article, which is celebrating the achievements of this girl on other rather different dimensions. Despite the lack of demonstrated relevance of overcoming shyness to Li Ping’s ’sucesss’, there is a strong, if implicit, suggestion is that her shyness was an impediment to her ’success’, which seems to be defined by her mastering Indian dance and acing her exams. There is some suggestion that there was a causal relation between her shyness and her late blossoming when they quote her saying that she was scared to ask questions, but she did not say, nor do we have any reason to believe, that her fear of asking questions was why she did not do well from the start. And, in any case, fear of asking questions may have nothing to do with shyness and everything to do with fear of authorities — many people are afraid to ask teachers questions but not afraid to ask peers questions, even if said peers are relative strangers. It could also well be because of a too-common attitude amongst students of that age that asking teachers questions is ‘uncool’.

Perhaps what’s more notable about the article is its explicit advocation of a certain ‘ideal student’ type. You can see the reporter struggling to squeeze something out of Li Ping’s prima facie unremarkable CCA record. No medals! No leadership positions! No shiny community service record! What a boring person. What can we say about her instead? She did Indian dance! She used to be shy! Perfect material for turning it into a late-blossomer-overcame-disability tale, no?

And, of course, it’s also promoting the ideal of a socially confident, outgoing person. Shy people are ‘tards. Nyeh nyeh nyeh.

Full article below the fold.
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