Shaolin: philosophy that packs a punch

As I was watching Shaolin, I couldn't help thinking of the villagers constantly running back and forth towards one tragedy or another. Their lives are seriously wretched, consuming all the mantou buns the Shaolin temple can provide them from an ever-dwindling rice store, yet not really contributing anything useful in return. Every time the villagers raise a lament (which is quite often) the monks risk life and limb to make them happy again (which isn't for long).

That Shaolin stars Andy Lau, Nicholas Tse and Jackie Chan, but I'm thinking more about the plights of the nameless extras makes this movie quite extraordinary. Lau, Tse and Chan do play very strong and compelling characters, however as this movie is an ensemble piece, they and their supporting cast play very integral roles and no one star pulls attention away from another -- not even Tse with his whimsical pseudo-European military garb and manga-inspired hairdo.

If not for the villagers, there would be no point to the wars fought over them, no opportunity for the monks to display compassion and heroism towards their fellow human beings. The Generals fight each other for the power to exploit the seemingly inexhaustible human resource before them, the monks are bound to protect the flock and feed its insatiable hunger gathered outside its gates.

Lau's character, General Huo, experiences both sides. His reversal of fortunes brings him down from a warlord with everything to an outcast with a price on his head. But this reduction to zero is also the beginning of his redemption as a person when he learns to stop thinking of himself and instead start placing others's needs before his own -- even if they are the unending needs of the hopeless, hapless and practically useless villagers.

There is also wisdom in discerning what can be helped and what can not. Times may call for first aid, others for last rites, and sometimes no action at all can help a situation. Fortunately for the cinema audience there are lots of opportunities where kung fu fighting is the order of the day for the monks to show off their close-up hand-to-hand skills against gun wielding enemies.

But kicks, punches and chops cannot save the day. Though destruction and sacrifice are inevitable and constant, they are also a necessary starting point for reconstruction and transformation. The other constant is the people and their continued suffering but, as Huo learns, compassion and charity are the key to transcending the common mass, thus finding peace.

So much philosophy resonating ideas from Eastern religion, Socratic thought and the Sith-Jedi conflict neatly packaged in great cinematography; each shot lovingly, occasionally indulgently crafted, rich with an emotionally powerful aesthetic. My first movie viewing of 2011 was quite a mind-blowing experience. Hope it's a sign of more movie greatness to come.

A study of study

When we talk about 'learning', do we mean the ability to recall prior input on demand or do we mean the ability to recall prior input that is contextually appropriate to the need at the time of the recall? Either way, the ability to recall is what's important, whether on an academic test or in a real problem-solving situation. So there is no doubt that retrieving information from our memories is a skill worth honing. But which method trains our memories to function best?

A recent study of studying practices looked at techniques of rote memorization (ancient and boring), concept mapping (modern, colourful and hip) and 'retrieval practice', a.k.a., essay writing (generally thought to be painful and boring) and concluded that essay writing yielded the best results in terms of recall and logical application of the retrieved material compared to the other two. However, the essay-writing method didn't give its practitioners as much confidence in what they had learned compared to the practitioners of rote or mapping techniques who reported that they felt they had learned more, even though their test results fell behind the essayists.

Proves Socrates right, doesn't it? "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing".

I believe why essay writing works best is because the writer is actively connecting prior knowledge with new incoming knowledge through logical processes, aided by the application of language -- the glue that binds thoughts together. Learning by rote or mapping only requires a retrieval system comprehensible by the person memorizing the material. It may work for him or her, but no one else is likely to make sense of it, not immediately anyway. Whereas essays are written to share thought with an audience, and the need to communicate coherently with another person means that filing, referencing, retrieving information has to be done by a system that offers common access to everyone. Hence sharing the knowledge adds a second layer of learning to the learning process. How's that for reinforcement?

The challenge for GP is convincing our kids that essay writing is actually a shared learning experience and not simply a selfish process aimed at amassing a paltry handful of individual success scores. And maybe it's also an encouragement for me to keep posting here when so often these days I succumb to writer's block. But that's probably another story for another day.

Back to normal

We're beginning to wonder if we'd overreacted to Q-tip's malady of a couple of weeks ago. It was good to learn early that our dog was facing potential health problems due to ageing, and that we've started giving her preventive medications as a result. But it's even better to see that she's back to her normal behaviour, and back to looking almost-cute again.

Looks like we can start taking her out again! And here are some places that she will be welcome at. Click here.

Chilli reception

Entertaining foreign visitors is always a good excuse to pig out on local specialities, c.f., chilli crab. 'Foreign visitors' usually means friends of June's dropping in from all corners of the world for one reason or another. Funny, I always thought I was the more internationally cosmopolitan one.

Child-proof

Mankies = Married, no kids. That's us and a rising number of our compatriots who will not contribute to the gene pool, barring 'accident'. If you have to question why, just look at the people who ARE parents to see what parenting is like these days. Such people are absolute saints, taking pains to patiently wait in line all night to register their bawling newborn on a waiting list to enroll in a 'good' kindergarten.

People like me can only gape in disbelief at such melodramatic displays of parental self-sacrifice for their offspring. But if that is what it takes to be a parent these days, it is painfully apparent that I am patently not fit to be a parent; and neither are my more rational fellow Mankies. Good luck with that, people who are parents!

Stick it in your ear!

I could have passed Chinese Oral had I the technology to do so. Now we have Google Translate. Trans-late? Yeah, by a few decades in my timeline.

Psycho mom, successful kids?

Here's another article about motivation, except this time it's about the extreme extrinsic motivation that apparently underpins Asian academic success. No doubt this method can bring an amazing level of success, but what worries me is that the range of activities considered success-worthy is terribly restrictive; and that parental approval is conditional to success within this limited field.

Whether the philosophy tends towards applying intrinsic or extrinsic motivation, the objective is the same: to kick-start the success-self-esteem cycle. The former seeks to build self-esteem which drives success, the latter mandates success to build self-esteem. Don't we just love our kids?

Studies in Chaos -- 1st grade

I believe there is a certain level of chaos in education. However, this first grade school experiment -- in going to the extremes with intrinsic motivation while eschewing extrinsic motivation -- takes a lot more guts to attempt than I have. (Ha! I don't even have the guts to teach first graders under normal circumstances, anyway)!

Overdue reconciliation

Haven't seen Yee in a while, but because a lot of misunderstanding was developing between his private teaching methods and ours, which seems to be confusing our mutual kids, my bosses and I gladly accepted his invitation to a sharing he was conducting about how he runs his after-school programme.

Based on the feedback (intentional or otherwise) from our students, we were worried that all he was teaching were exam-smart study shortcuts that helped kids achieve high grades, but shortchanged them on actual learning. We're glad to know after today's session that the methods he uses make sense, and are geared towards teaching GP as a lifeskill and not just as a gradeable subject taken by desperate kids willing to pay any amount to score a pass in an important national exam.

Why the problems have arisen is mainly because our kids go and seek help only at the tail-end of his programme. Having missed out on all the foundational work and practice from earlier in the year, they have little frame of reference to grasp what the less tardy kids are learning. Grasping at straws, they return to us confused, with enough little knowledge to be dangerous.

What I've learned today satisfies me that Yee and I are on very a similar path in the way we break down our teaching of paper 1 and 2 skills. We are both highly sensitive to contextual shifts and share a strong belief in the moral (or at least socially responsible) basis of decision-making that must be communicated as key to our subject mastery.

Above all, we both are acutely aware that GP is the one subject at JC that actually helps children grow into thinking, mature, responsible, learning adults with the necessary skills for surviving the huge intellectual leap required of them when they reach their next port-of-call, the Uni. And even if they don't make it there immediately, the same skills will carry them through life anyway.

Since we're on the same side, perhaps we could streamline our classroom jargon so that the kids know we are essentially teaching the same things, and not get confused by differences in our vocabulary. That way, we could complement rather than work against one another. It's in both our interests, after all, to have our kids do well and grow up equally well.

The carrot is the stick

In the matter of using grades as incentives for students to work, Psychology Today provides some insight. While grades do encourage good students to work harder, they discourage students that do not make the grade who then see no further point working. Also, "working" does not necessarily mean "learning". We know of lots of short-cuts and poor study methods or techniques that can help students "score" but are not particularly helpful for long-term learning and lifeskill development.

A lot of my kids observe that what they learn in school has no application in their future lives. That's true because though they can achieve their As and Bs, they have no further utility for what they've learned. Mere stepping stones, that's all they are, not connecting that what they are about to learn next may well necessitate what they've learned before as a foundational prerequisite. So every time they have to learn something new, it's always from scratch. Painful, and ultimately pointless.

Grades are most useful as feedback; an indicator of what went right and what went wrong in order to adjust the student's path on the learning curve. When we grade students' submissions, our comments in the margins (more constructive and less vitriolic, preferably) are of more value than the digits we assign at the top of their papers. Grades are not meant to compare one student against another. Turn school into a win-lose proposition, and everybody loses.

Back on her feet

It's good to see Q-tip walking normally again. A couple of weeks ago, she developed a limp which deteriorated such that she could barely support her own weight on all four paws. But she's been responding well to her treatments and has regained almost full mobility and her appetite. While she can walk just fine, she is having difficulty with two particularly dog-specific activities: scratching behind her ear with her hind foot and shaking herself dry after a bath.

We will be maintaining her diet of Hill's Prescription Diet l/d while keeping her topped up with ursofalk (for liver support) and SAM-e (for arthritic pain and liver health). She's learned to lap up her daily dose of Ultimate Joint Care from a spoon, though sometimes we use it as a pretend "gravy" to complement her dinner. Now to taper off her dosage of prednisolone (a painkilling steroid) and hope that she hasn't grown dependent on it.

The influence of disfluence

I learned a new word: "disfluency". Applied to classroom teaching, it means that the lesson is not structured in such a way that facilitates the easy absorption of content by the student. It's quite the opposite of what we're encouraged to do, which is to make the learning as smooth and painless as possible because we think that the kids learn better when learning is easy.

But new studies at Princeton suggest that disfluent lessons are actually more effective forms of delivery for "long-term learning and retention". The simple reason is probably that in order to learn, the brain must actively engage (i.e., work) to make the necessary connections in order to come to a useful understanding of the presented material. If everything's nicely handed over on a silver platter there's little work for the student's brain to do. Usually, the one who learns most from such a lesson is the teacher who's connected all the dots already then presented the finished picture. Where's the fun in that?

So, maybe we should stop beating ourselves up over lessons that didn't go according to plan. The harder the kids have to work for meaning, the better they'll appreciate it. Hopefully, they'll remember you and come visit you in your retirement home when that "ah-ha!" moment finally arrives.

Touchy subject

Maybe people in S'pore are stressed out because we don't touch each other in a healthy way? We get amazing reports of rather over-exuberant S'poreans who go overboard to the point of unwholesome physical contact: see Exhibit A and Exhibit B (just in today's papers, mind you); and frown on those who engage in more or less normal PDA, some reported in a more sensational way than others (perennial kaypohness from Stomp). Worst of all, few of us have much regard for the well-being of the non-human animals living among us.

Norine Dworkin-McDaniel (whose name sounds like a Ferelden Dwarf's) writing for CNN tells us that touching is a healthy way to de-stress and boost our immune systems. I agree, though I reserve the right to keep random strangers at least at arm's length. But for some reason, I do not have this reservation for random non-human animals. Needless to say, my own pets are slowly growing bald due to endless stroking behind the ears, under the chin and over the back. See how chirpy and smiley I am? D:

Dances with bunnies

If ever there was a happy ending to animal abandonment, chemical weapons, PoW atrocity and WWII, somehow I'm not surprised that it can be found in Japan. See "Bunnies frolic on Japan's old chem weapons site" (Wired), plus vid.

Big fish, small fish

While Swift wrote "Gulliver's Travels" to comment on the society of his day, the movie starring Jack Black tends to focus more on the character of Gulliver himself.

Black's Gulliver has everything he could possibly want, being the king of his own empire of... one. He has his own apartment in trendy Manhattan, his own steaming cup of Java every morning, and has risen through the ranks in his publishing company to be the Head of the mail room. The biggest fish in the tiniest pond is Man Mountain Gulliver.

True, success is not easy to attain and we want to maintain that sense of accomplishment as long as we can. But holding on to small successes could mean sacrificing bigger dreams. Gulliver hopes for a much grander abode and pines for his crush of five years, but the cliff-side mansion is beyond his salary to afford and he can only  admire his crush from afar, believing that there is an impassable barrier between his station in life and hers.

Gulliver's successes as the literal giant in Lilliput are likewise impressive, rising to the rank and commensurate privileges of General of the Lilliputian army in record time by leveraging on his one advantage, his size. Oh, and another advantage: shameless plagiarism. So Lilliput is really a parallel of his life in the real world.

But his inadvertent trip to Brobdingnag, the land of giants, opens his eyes to the truth of his insignificance and powerlessness as a person. By being contented with easy successes, he simply crumbles under a real challenge and loses everything -- autonomy, dignity, identity -- everything.

Human life is nothing but a series of challenges. When we're at the top of our game, when we seem invincible, when we can manage any problem that comes along with a dismissive wave of a hand, what we have is not the enjoyment of our success but the settling in of stagnation, ennui and stasis. We're always looking for the next big thing to overcome, even if it means risking our stability and current state of equanimity.

Athletes savour their success but leave their trophies on the shelf to risk failure by testing themselves again in the new season. Career people seek promotion and greater responsibilities, though the work becomes more difficult and there's always the chance that they'll be stretched beyond their abilities. The risk of failure is what drives us on to the next stage of growth. Being fixated on a past success is like admiring a trophy without moving on. That's why they call it "atrophy".

Gulliver, of course, learns this life-lesson, bouncing back from his setback with a help from his little friends. As far as OUR little friends go, the PM says, despite doing well so far they "must continue trying to do better". Some people will see this as putting more pressure on our students. The reality is that although seeking out new challenges to overcome may be a risky proposition to our fragile egos, it's the only way to grow.

A visitation

Aunt "Victoria" is back from the UK for a family visit. Her favourite nephew and niece-in-law are treating her to dinner at PS Cafe, Dempsey Hill.

On the menu tonight... fish chowder, packed with lots of veggie stuff including corn kernels, and chunks of potato and sweet potato. One tureen is practically a light meal in itself, and here we've ordered one each.

And my main, NZ lamb with sweet potato mash, charred asparagus, red peppers, on a bed of spinach, in red wine sauce. Our order-taker assured me that the mutton "smell" would be appropriately dealt with in the kitchen. Dear girl, don't you know? The smell is the best part!

The time is now about two hours to midnight. So, see you again next year! :)

Gifts of love

It was nice of the Sisters at Gift of Love to invite all their volunteers for a year-end thanksgiving mass and dinner. There were a lot of us gathered in one small compound (meaning their dining hall and driveway), but I suppose there must be a sizable number of us in order for each team to provide one meal a month to the aged residents there. That is, not counting breakfast, 60 meals per month based on a 30-day month average.

As always with the Sisters, the evening was a simple, no fuss event. Mass involved carol singing and communion from which I accepted the Celebrant's exhortation that "God loves you," in place of the host, since I'm not a baptized Catholic.

And for once, it was the Sisters who fed the volunteers. There were two stations of high-carb, high-protein, low veg dishes (I noticed) catered from Elsie's Kitchen. I wasn't in the mood for deep conversation with my fellow volunteers over dinner, and fortunately they didn't offer any, apart from a couple of seasonal complimentary greetings.

We ate while the residents slept. And among the beds, June went about distributing small Christmas gifts to each zoned-out elderly sleepy-head. We managed to scrape together a little something for the old folks, after all.

It's a plan, anyway

Casey is, of course, concerned with the results from Q-tip's scan. But neither he nor we are anxious to get anything extreme like a biopsy done on her while she can't even walk or stand properly. We'll be proceeding with her pain-relief treatment while simultaneously putting her on a diet and course of supplements designed to strengthen her liver.

At least Q-tip is getting more used to taking her meds, and she's not struggling so much now. She seems to be showing some improvement this evening. Her tail is finally up and wagging a bit. That's an encouraging sign.

Scanned

On Casey's referral, we took Q-tip to the Mt Pleasant Animal Hospital for her ultrasound scan. Yes, the kind pregnant women undergo to look at their unborn babies. Q-tip hates to be on her back, but we had to hold her in place anyway while the tech applied the gel and manipulated the scope around her (newly shaved) belly area.

The pictures from the scan were quite incomprehensible to us, so the tech pointed out the "masses" in the liver and the sedimentation in the kidneys, not uncommon in older dogs. However, the nature of the masses was still unclear. Only a biopsy could tell us for sure if they were benign or... otherwise.

Scan results have gone to Casey. Let's see what he can tell us.

Wobbly-legged dog

Dr Casey saw Q-tip at last. Poor girl is tottering even more, her back hunched and every step seems to take quite an effort. Even the bathroom door curb is giving her pause as she gingerly steps over it, occasionally stumbling as her hind legs fail to find traction on the other side.

Casey's review of the x-rays confirm Dr Koh's diagnoses, though he is especially worried about the state of Q-tip's liver and kidneys. He recommends us to take her for an ultrasound scan for a better picture of her internal workings. In the meantime, he's given her a steroid shot for the arthritic pain that is probably causing the weakness in her legs.