Classicle Club

FYI!

next general paper open class happening soon! $38 for non-members, free for our current students: sign up here https://classicle.club/open-classes *our current students will receive a code to register for free during your class reminders this week

next general paper open class happening this friday! $38 for non-members, free for our current students! 🏋️ sign up here https://classicle.club/open-classes

i think singapore is one of the most elegantly designed societies in the world, but we all feel like it just doesn’t have room for enough kinds of children; you can be good at other things inside it but so subtly and unofficially it doesn’t matter; how can an eighteen-year-old’s entire future turn so quickly on just one essay they write at the end of two years’ worth of intense examination preparation? you don’t grow thinkers in an education system like this.

i’m increasingly convinced that singapore’s education system is one of the most beautiful machines ever built, but only for a small fraction of the children who go through it.

essay questions we'll be covering in the next kopi intensive! “In an age of information overload, the media has made it harder rather than easier for people to understand the world.” Discuss. “The benefits of immigration to a country outweigh the problems it creates.” Discuss. “Economic growth should never come at the expense of social equality.” Discuss.

on chinese privilege in singapore: https://substack.com/@brookiedokie/note/p-212615344?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=2sc52u

next general paper open class happening soon! $38 for non-members, free for our current students! 🏋️ sign up here https://classicle.club/open-classes *our current students will receive a code to register for free during your class reminders this week

why did singapore used to be called the gate to the far east? singapore's names are long and extensive: temasek means something like sea town. singapura is borrowed sanskrit. everything after that is a bearing taken from a foreign capital: the gate of the far east, far from london; syonan-to, the light of the south, south of tokyo; a little red dot, which is just the size of the pin you use when the place itself is too small to draw. relevant gp essay questions • Does geography still determine a country's prospects in today's world? • 'The past is not dead; it is not even past.' Discuss. • To what extent can small countries wield substantial influence in the world

do you agree that every layer of this city sits on a demolished layer, and the further down you dig the more you find that there is no original singapore under the malls, only earlier malls? relevant gp essay questions: • To what extent has your society successfully preserved its heritage? • Should economic development ever take priority over the preservation of heritage? • Is nostalgia more of a hindrance than a help to society? Assess the view that efforts to preserve the past are largely superficial. • “The past survives only when it can be made profitable.” Discuss.

which mall do you miss most in singapore?

interested in learning more with us? https://classicle.club/2026-intake

do you ever feel vaguely ashamed when eating instant noodles? we’re all supposed know that instant noodles are bad for you, in the way that everything pleasant is bad for you, and we eat them anyway, guiltily, at midnight, when no one is watching. swipe to read about our favourite dried noodle bricks (sealed in a foil packet with a smaller packet inside it), a food so bound up with poverty and adolescence that to admit you still eat it as an adult feels like a minor confession!

hiii singapore junior college students 👋 we have something special just for you next friday, sign up here https://classicle.club/open-classes ⛓️‍💥🗞️ $38 for non-members, free for our current students! if you're one of our students, you should've received details on how to register for free during your weekly class reminder 💌️️️️️️

relevant gp essay questions: • To what extent are consumers responsible for their own spending habits? • Has work become too important in modern society? • Technology has made workers freer. Discuss.

did you know that in 1886, workers won a legal limit on how many hours an employer could extract from them in a day? but these shorter hours also solved the problem companies faced, of who was going to buy everything the factories were producing. remember, you're both the worker and the consumer, so the eight-hour day gives you income to spend, enough time to spend it, while exhausting you enough to buy more and more things.

what are you most nostalgic for in singapore? singapore the mudflat to metropolis in a single generation, a swamp coaxed into skyscrapers by sheer administrative will. & it turns out almost everything our developmental state could want can be engineered! but no budget can buy history; the slow settling of a culture over centuries, the sediment left behind, all of it comes from having taken a long time. that's the one condition an instant nation cannot meet

relevant gp essay questions: • To what extent has globalisation eroded local cultures? • Assess the view that heritage is manufactured rather than discovered. • Examine the view that economic growth always comes at a social cost.

everyone wants a $3 plate of chicken rice but nobody wants to be the one making it!! our love for singapore’s most beloved institution is sooo visceral, and that’s why we’re probing at the mechanism behind its decline in fact! lee kuan yew believed that once singapore built factories, there would be no new hawkers. from 1973 onward, empty hawker stalls were re-let only to people who qualified under a hardship scheme, which required the applicant to be over forty, to have dependants, and to have no other means of making a living. almost no new hawker licences were issued for approximately seventeen years. the government was winding the trade down, waiting for the existing generation to age out.