Too late to regret

Wow. And now we have a father of three who writes to the press about his regrets for having children. He says of his kids that when he and his spouse "chose to have more than two children... [they, i.e., Mr and Mrs] were young and reckless". Interesting word, "reckless", suggesting making significant decisions without factoring in the costs.

Read: Dollars and sense

But as much as I am a penny-pinching miser when it comes to thinking about raising kids, I have to tell Mr Law that since he already has kids he does not have the time or the luxury to regret his decision. Now his "decision" has become a Responsibility that he can not run away from. His problem has moved to a different scale altogether. Although he wails over how current population boosting policies have "hoodwinked" him into thinking he can continue to depend on government handouts forever, the reality is that they are his kids and not the government's.

You can't have your cake and eat it. More dependents sharing your slice of economic pie means taking a crimp in your lifestyle aspirations. The more dependents, the smaller a slice everyone gets. It's mathematics.

Ok, I may sound callous and heartless and indifferent to Mr Law's plight. I would be more sympathetic if he had asked for help with employment, or something practical; but to ask for a major public housing policy change? Based on factoring his own difficulties? Overnight? Hello, let's deal with what we CAN control rather than wring hands over things that we can't.

The bottom-line of Mr Lam's argument is that he wants mo' money; and who doesn't want that? But all I'm saying is, you can't expect to get any more than you already have. Singapore is trying to operate on a budget based on what it can earn balanced against what is needs to spend on in the coming year. Mr Law should try to be more realistic and do likewise.

Whatever happened to "proactive and resourceful"?

One week ago, I thought the movement to save the Houses was quite touching. A gallant, last-ditch tilt at a windmill is still an effort and a symbol to remember and get behind...

But what we got instead was a sad display of roll-over-and-die.

Kids, in a fight for your lives, you have to show in a practical way how your existence is worth preserving. Appeals on moral grounds aren't going to stop the swing of the executioner's axe. Neither is pleading for mercy, for another chance if you haven't already got a bargaining chip to place on the table. Doe eyes and tears may avail you a hanky and a pat on the shoulder, but that's all. If you have no idea what to do to save your own neck, don't expect the guillotine to advise you on that account.

And now, we bid farewell to Gus, Nix, D'gon and Griff. You had so much potential, but we only used you for sport. Those of us who dreamed you into existence will regret your passing.

No human eyeballs

I believe I am quite accommodating with animals. My house, for one, is a zoo; and today I had to be peer pressured into taking on the staff project of clearing invasive water snails from a local canal over the project to remove invasive tree species from a local secondary forest. Yes, I know both projects will involve killing living things, but snails are a step up from plants. I happen to be more biased towards self-animated lifeforms, that's me. Oh, well, escargot steamed in garlic and butter is nice, too.

But I wouldn't go so far as to anthropomorphize animals. Dressing Q-tip and Pebbles up in cute t-shirts for photos is one thing, but DogTV? A "24/7 digital TV channel with programing scientifically developed to provide the right company for dogs when left alone" (quoted from website) is irrational, to say the least.

I can't even begin to think of a business model that would support such an enterprise. No human eyeballs means no ad revenue, period. The dog, smart as it may be, isn't likely to pick up the phone and dial for a nifty chew-toy. Besides, it's only a lucky few dogs who can randomly punch the numbers on a phone keypad and ring up a valid credit card number.

Financing will have to be done by subscription only. But how many dog owners could be gullible enough to pay US$4.99 a month, to keep the TV on all day for Poochie?

Anyway, I was curious as to what Q-tip would make of DogTV. I recorded a sample video from the website and set it to play on loop. I put Q-tip on the couch, effectively immobilizing her 'cos she won't jump down. While she was stuck there, I hid behind a room divider where I could keep an eye on my poor, unstimulated, captive canine. Did she get hooked to the goggle box in her state of aloneness? Not a chance. Eyeballs everywhere except the TV, even at max volume. Nope. No sale from this household.

In effect, $5 and a significant jump in power bills a month only soothes a salaried dog owner's conscience. The dog couldn't care less, and will probably appreciate peace and quiet more.

'Koping' and hoping

Since I'm big about collaborative learning and the importance of the sharing of resources, I applaud Back To School for its attempt to aggregate good lesson plans contributed by our local teachers. This effort intends to build up a repository of classroom materials and activities that 'busy' teachers can reach into and pull out to use when pressed for time.

I just can't help thinking, though, that this effort doesn't really solve the problem of teachers being too busy to properly plan their own lessons. A plug-and-play modular approach may be dandy for mechanical systems, but dealing with a bunch of 40 screaming human beings held in confinement might need just a bit more than 'koping' somebody else's ideas and hoping for the best.

Besides, we know it's a bad situation and hence should be looking for much bigger fixes than slapping a band-aid on a hemorrhaging wound.

Yes, I know... I should be more appreciative of well-intended help; but somehow I'm not sure this is a step in the right direction.

Caffeine fix

I've never had a coffee maker in all my life. This one showed up as an awesome V-day gift from June. It's a Krups-Nescafe Dolce Gusto, reasonably priced and available from some of the more upmarket supermarkets in the neighbourhood. The unit comes in brighter colours than what you see here, but June chose a sober titanium to give the coffee dispensed some dignity.

What makes this an easy impulse buy is how simple it is to operate. There's a wide range of different coffee blends to choose from, as you can see from the sample box (above). The correct proportions for each blend are already measured out in those handy capsules which you stick into the machine. In seconds either a steaming or chilled(!) stream of java comes out to fill a mugful of perky goodness.

Of course, there is still a slight learning curve to deal with. This here is my maiden cuppa what's supposed to be cappuccino. It's practically turned out pure espresso O_o In order to make the proper blend, you have to estimate how much coffee to fill your mug and stop the machine right there. Switch the coffee capsule for a milk capsule then restart the machine to fill up the rest of the mug. Different blends require you to watch your mug carefully in order to stop-reload-restart at optimum levels as prescribed by the handy proportions guide printed on every box of capsule refills. 

Oh, yes, refill boxes come from the supermarkets too. At my rate of caffeine consumption, I should get through maybe a box a week. Some cynics are going to scoff at how they're ripping us off having to buy refills, but really each mug of coffee costs about as much as a kopitiam kopi. Not too bad for a machine-brew.

Minor inconveniences are the quick rinsing of the nozzle with every capsule change, and a little wiping down of dispensing splash; but nothing to get excited about. Also, it'll take a while for the eyes to see mugs in fractions, but it should come with practice.

Now I shall reinstate a nighttime ritual I thought I had lost forever: a coffee before bedtime. Mmm...

You've come a long way, baby (but not very)

Kids were discussing Schumpeter's "Womenomics", the key question being whether women have to adopt male traits in order to successfully compete in today's workplace, or can they rely on their own 'feminine' traits without having to grow a pair of ba**s in order to get ahead at work?

In localizing the question, the kids had to look at successful women in S'pore and decide if they were successful because they were essentially 'one of the guys', or if they were successful and could still look and behave like women in their workplaces.

I admit it was a very shallow pool of candidates to scrutinize as case studies, but eventually we concluded that it was still essentially a man's world out there. Man-traits still rule the corporate world in S'pore. From our ridiculously small sample of successful women, we noted common traits such as hyper-competitiveness, bull-headedness, and a high propensity for risk-taking; all of which Schumpeter identifies as characteristics of men in the workplace. To be fair, S'pore men aren't really known to be risk-taking either, so there you are!

We also examined S'porean attitudes towards women in leadership roles. The most telling case study was in comparing two prominent candidates in the recent General Elections: Nicole and TPL. Why they are the basis of a good case study is because they stood directly opposite each other in the elections. Voting for one meant the ouster of the other...

And now I deviate from class discussion to extrapolate implications on my own:

Disregarding the actual outcome of the election -- which was subject to its own quirks -- in terms of the popular vote, it can almost be undisputed who was the preferred candidate. But if you look at how they presented themselves in public, one was clearly more masculine in comparison to the other. It seems to the electorate that between the two, the more Alpha-male one (the one who emphatically told us what to do) easily gathered our support, while we excoriated the other for being such a woman: in behaviour, demeanor, and personal taste.

To test our gender bias, swap the candidates and their parties. See what I mean? It wouldn't matter which party either stood for. If "Bluto" stood with the incumbents, we would still have given her our resounding support. If "Olive" stood for oppo, she would still have been flayed alive, thus prompting instant replacement with someone exuding more testosterone. Oppo is very sensitive to what's popular.

By this thought experiment, our popular choice appears not to be as politically driven as it is prejudiced by gender. Schumpeter would not be surprised.

And by now a whole bunch of people is going to tell me how in so many ways my conclusion is wrong. 3... 2... 1... Go!

Edit 01:
One thing I'm definitely wrong about is assuming that Schumpeter was the author of the article. The name "Schumpeter" refers to a column in The Economist written by anonymous contributors. So, author, unstated.

God's preferred dress code

I sympathize with the lady who got kicked off church premises due to wearing 'inappropriate' attire: a samfoo with accompanying 3/4 pants. The horror! The scandal!

People have got the idea of dress-code in church all messed up. They think dressing to the nines and covering every square-inch of skin is reverent and worshipful. They couldn't be more wrong. For just trying to wear a fig leaf over their sensitive bits our Apocryphal ancestors, Adam and Eve, got themselves unceremoniously dumped out of the Garden of Eden.

Wanna really worship God, I say do it in the buff. Else, back off with the holier-than-thou attitude.

Mascot picket line

The closest thing we have to a students' protest. The kids are hoping to save their beloved House system from imminent closure. Like the sweet kids they are, their argument of this banner display takes the 'don't kill us; we're cute!' approach.

Apart from raising the banners, the kids also activated everyone on their social networks with this 'viral' meme (cringeworthy copy, but the intention is crystal clear) calling for everyone to wear their House tees today. To the J2s' credit, the majority did... which is odd because in the past it was like pulling teeth to raise representatives for their respective houses in sporting events and contests of skill. Guess it's another case of  you-don't-miss-it-till-it's-gone.

Today's subdued little protest does show something of a school spirit within the student body. Today's student voice may not have been a yawp but a squeak. Still, at least they took a stand on something they believed in and made us believe that they believed. Call me a softie but I am sincerely moved. :'(

Oh, the Humanities!

Can it be true? Is the industry really taking a step away from assembly-line QC checks that used to be done on pen-and-paper? For a society banking on acing exams as the prime achievement of our education policy, this looks like quite a bold step -- to quit the familiar and start a new assessment mode from scratch.

Guess the Bosses are serious about developing self-directedness, and collaborative learning in our students to prepare them for 'life' instead of just exams. It's exactly what our last three days of training had been all about. I am cautiously excited.

Today's surprise announcement also answers a question that's been bugging me through this week's Infocomm Tech training: with all the technology we're expected to train the kids to use, when it comes to the pen-and-paper final assessment, won't the kids be handicapped if they haven't got their networked systems to play with and work together on?

Also, there will be trust issues. Parents, institutes of higher learning and the employment market would need assurances that the graduating kids are still competitive with their peers from elsewhere. We, as trainers and assessors would want a rubric that is fair and empowering, and not demoralizing like the previous exam-based curriculum eventually became.

Believe me, it'll get worse before it gets better. I've been pretty hard on the alternative assessment we call 'Project Work' (which we also unofficially call by more colourful aliases), and I take any opportunity I can to deride the way it is being implemented. In reality, I still believe that it's a step in the right direction. But as we muddle our way through uncharted waters, we're bound to hit rough seas (and probably lose not a few men overboard) before we finally get the hang of it. Until then, it's going to be a long, harrowing ride while we pull through this transition phase.

It'll be that way for lower sec Humanities too. Why experiment with the Humanities in the lower secondary grades? Because, pragmatically speaking, they aren't high-stakes subjects. Nobody in our science/math-mad society is going to complain too much if we mess with exams there. And, who knows? An investigative, project-based approach might be the best way to make these hugely underrated subjects relevant and stimulating to a new batch of young learners.

Benefits of S'pore-US education partnership

I hope that with our employer's new understanding to collaborate with the US on education, we'll get to see more student projects being less hypothetical and 'safe', and more daring and tangible, like this 14 year-old's Marshmallow Projectile Cannon (above) which the PotUS himself couldn't resist taking a pot shot from. How soon can we get this kid over to supervise a project team?

Short circuits in the e-classroom

First day of Infocomm Tech in Education course. Thought I'd be excited about all the new stuff I'd be getting my hands on (free, public domain web-based productivity and info-sharing tools, btw, not commercial samples or taxpayer purchased software suites), but for today's sampling I'm completely underwhelmed.

Not that the tools aren't fun to use and useful to play with in the classroom, but I'm approaching this whole thing with a lot more caution now. Just because there is a tool doesn't necessarily mean there is a use for it.

Most of the apps we tried out were rather like chat boards that collated the audience's typed comments 'live' while a talk or lesson was going on, cork board backgrounds for students to 'pin' comments and reflections on and see others' at the same time, collaborative graphic organizers that assist group knowledge construction, and many activities primarily guided by Google Forms, which will definitely save money Xeroxing worksheets, while aggregating all responses into a handy document, again for all to see.

The apps were all colourful and relatively easy-to-use, but I'm not convinced that they offer my students the opportunity to explore ideas in depth like they need to. Many of these apps will only accept short off-the-cuff shoutouts, so expression is terse, abrupt and may encourage L337speak as the lingua franca of classroom chat *growls

Besides, when I picture my kids trying to sit through a lesson using these tools, I foresee a very long day ahead. You'd think, like I once did, that the kids would be eating out of my hand if they got some 'computer time'. But, oddly enough, unlike their predecessors of, say the '03 batch, my current kids are comparative Luddites. I can only guess that they qualified for JC by studying from textBOOKS and working through assessment BOOKS. Hence, they still trust in BOOKS, and pen-and-paper exercises. Electronic media -- including the Internet -- are merely channels from which they absorb entertainment (not information and certainly not knowledge), and they have not yet discovered that creating is as rewarding (if not moreso) as downloading; funny cat videos notwithstanding.

So, my problem for today is quite unique for someone tasked with what I have been tasked. My biggest obstacle to creating ICT-based lessons is not staff buy-in, not infrastructure support, not skills or training deficiencies, but in convincing my students that they stand to learn more from the networked computer than from their scrolls and quills. In that, I wonder, between us who really is the smarter?

With great power

Superhero overload at the movies? Tired of storylines in which ordinary people gaining extraordinary abilities suddenly feel obliged to save the world? Reality check: chances are, if I was to somehow inexplicably gain powers beyond mortal ken, I'd probably use them to screw around and entertain myself all day long. Wearing tights and a cape is really entertaining other people at my own expense, anyway.

So when three high school buddies develop powers when exploring an unnatural phenomenon together, let's just say great power + juvenile irresponsibility = tragedy + citywide collateral damage. Throw in a video camera the kids use to record all their superpowered shenanegans and you have "Chronicle", a story of human falliability and hyper hubris.

I was a bit worried about how a 90 minute movie shot on a handheld cam would turn out. Fortunately, apart from some abrupt pans and jump cuts to suggest amateur shooting and editing, the shots remained stable. No Blair Witch syndrome here. The shots from the main handheld cam were montaged together with footage from other cameras: news and security cams, mostly, so there is a closeness and intimacy to the characters which emphasizes the 'reality' of what we're watching.

My first movie of the year, and though it anticipates a whole new crop of  men in tights movies yet to come this summer, this one reminds us that maybe the 'Superhuman Registration Act' might not be such a bad idea after all.

And if you're wondering why I'm still watching movies after my call to boycott Hollywood, I bought my tix with complementary vouchers. So there.

More sacred cows

Hi Gary
You have very specific sacred cows you wish to see slain: the recruitment of high-calibre statespeople to justify high ministerial salaries; the continuing dominance of the old man (a very sacred cow, indeed) in our local political scene; the Confucian style(?) perpetuation of public dependance on the government; and the withholding of our CPF as State capital for our national reserves.

I guess you want to hear my thoughts on these specific issues, which I am happy to oblige. I believe in sharing ideas, but I'm not in this discussion to rehash old debates. My interest is in writing as a craft, taking this opportunity you are presenting me with to weave stories, not perpetuate ideologies. Having said that, let's address your concerns:

1) High ministerial salaries: when they first decided to pay themselves huge amounts of money, I did not feel any poorer. When they reduced their payscales after the recent round of reviews, I did not feel any richer. I work for what I have earned and I can sleep soundly at night. I don't worry about whether they can do the same.

2) The old man did talk to us like children. Why did we listen to him as if we were children? Because, I suppose, we respected him for what he and his party did before. He tried to talk to us like children again, this past election. We didn't listen, did we? Who's standing in the corner now?

3) Confucius' analogy was that the emperor was the father of the kingdom. Unfortunately, that idea stayed with us, Chinese. We don't understand that democracy knocked this political concept out of the ballpark. In the emperor's day, the responsibility for the entire kingdom rested on his shoulders because he had the mandate of heaven. He decided everything for his subjects, who were free from the responsibility of taking care of themselves. Democracy took the mandate of heaven from the sole decision-maker and replaced it with the mandate of the people, and hence the responsibility of looking out for ourselves and each other fell squarely on our, the people's, shoulders. We have an unfortunate hybrid system now. But if we still depend on an elected Government for the sun and the rain to grow our crops, don't be surprised if all we get is fertilizer.

We must concede that the government has delivered the goods in all the big things. That's not what rankles our electorate. Where it's screwing up, and what we rail at it about, is its poor handling of domestic issues. Foreign workers arriving in droves, rising housing and living costs, breakdown of social mores and graces... do we really need policy from on-high to settle these household and neighbourhood affairs, or can't we just take some initiative and fix them ourselves? If we don't identify and take action on the things we can act on, then some dumb policy is going to drop from the sky because someone has to make some kind of decision before things get out of hand.

We're not disallowed from growing up. We have remarkably free media that allow us to air political dissent and satire (and a lot of embarrassingly childish prattle) openly, to a potentially massive audience, even though what we say can be easily traced back to us. Ironically, it's the American government that is proposing SOPA and PIPA and shutting down Megaupload. We are no longer a 'police state' either. In fact, we complain more now that our boys in blue would neither step in and solve our personal and domestic disputes for us, nor work to punish those we feel have slighted us somehow. Looks to me like we are the ones not willing to grow up.

4) CPF: my CPF is tied up in the monthly installments I have to pay for my HDB flat. Why does it cost so much? Well, it would have been cheaper if earlier generations of homeowners had been grateful for cheap housing, but instead they saw it as a way to make a quick buck. Who's the real estate genius who invented COV? Here's the official value of my flat: V. Here's what I have to pay to own my flat: CO + V. Instant and cumulative inflation with every resale. Now if I have to sell my flat at V (extreme cooling measures), I'll go bankrupt. As long as I want a roof over my head, I'm never going to see my CPF, let alone get it back. Whose fault is that?

Oh, btw, before I mislead you any further, I'm not -- as you have apparently assumed -- a woman. ;)

Sacred cows and OB markers

This is in response to Gary's stimulating comment in my previous entry. I have to create a new entry 'cos long-winded me wrote too much (as usual) and the comment box refused to accept it. So here goes:

Hi Gary
Sacred cows are figments of our imagination.They exist in both our minds and in the minds of our policy-makers. Slaughtering sacred cows is extremely difficult because although their time has come no one dares to wield the knife. Everyone is afraid of ghosts, of consequences. And since they've served us so well before, we're going to keep on preserving them because once they're gone, what would suffice to replace them?

The way forward is for everyone to realise that the term 'sacred cow' only describes a method that once resulted in success, hence the mistaken belief that it will continue to bring us success no matter what. Whoever told us to slaughter our sacred cows recognised that new times require new methods, but I believe we were just as guilty of holding on to them too tightly to want to see them go. The paper chase, the rat race, the 5'C's, the materialism and petty jealousies, they're all our own creation. They arose out of the opportunities that once gave us skilled jobs and commensurate prosperity, and the belief that we deserved what we earned because we worked hard for it. Nothing wrong there, but it made us selfish -- equating poverty with laziness or cannot-make-it-ness or otherwise not-one-of-us-ness. Meritocratic policy may have been the starting point, but our mindsets turned it into the monster that it is today.

So is it with our so-called 'OB' markers. What do we really have to do to be guilty of crossing an OB marker? You'd have to be a clear threat to civil society before anybody starts taking notice of you. Anyone who threatens not the leadership itself but society's trust in the legally elected leadership, or attempts to fragment our society to gain support for their cause can expect action to be taken against them. But for us normal, ordinary citizens who lead normal workaday lives, what could we possibly do so wrong that could result in detention or exile?

The electon 'threats'? The cajoling? They're just rhetoric, empty words from a parent to a rebellious child throwing a tantrum. We have to get away from this relationship as quickly as possible because it's toxic to both of us.

If our society is going to grow up, we have to stop defining our relationship with our Government as parent-child. While we persist with this view, it doesn't matter who makes up the ruling party. PAP or Opposition, we're simply replacing one parent for another, and we'll be just as dissatisfied and disillusioned with the outcome either way. As long as we expect the Government to do everything for us (which basically means let the good times roll) and not take responsibility for ourselves, for our own situations, in our own circumstances, and bloody well HELP one another in times of need, we're setting expectations that NO government could ever fulfil.

It is heartening to see that we are indeed growing up. We've reached our rebellious teenage years where we chafe at Authority and think that our almighty Parent is suppressing us and curtailing our pocket-money and personal freedoms. Believe me, the government wants us to grow up as quickly as possible and be less of a dependent (i.e., pest) and more of a working partner. The government's current drive is active citizenry, where we finally come out of our individual, darkened little bedrooms (with signs on the door that say "Private: Keep Out") and recognise that we have family huddling around the living room. That's our community. Whomever they are, how many there are, it is our job to look after one another, and not entirely the Government's.

So what do we need a government for? As far as possible, it provides the necessary but normally unprofitable public works for us to enjoy, maintains the integrity of our sovereignity within the global community, ensures that we can define a common identity for ourselves, upholds justice and public trust within our borders, maintains peace among our peoples, that sort of thing. These are the really big things that we can't do on our own, but we work with our elected representatives to bring about.

Governments deal with generalities, not specifics. Micromanagement is what a government is worst at. The faster we learn to wipe our butts for oursleves, the faster the government can get it's nose out of our business and get back to doing its real job, leaving us to lead our lives the way we want... together.

Driven the wrong way

Lack of drive in Singaporean students a worry

I'm not sure I agree that Singapore students lack 'drive'. Singaporean students are notorious 'muggers', burning the midnight oil with their study texts, tutorial sheets and homework assignments. So, no, Singapore students are driven enough. The problem is that in our society, everyone -- adults and school kids alike -- is negatively motivated.

What I mean is, we do what we do for the wrong reasons. We work to avoid negative consequences, rather than for positive feedback. Our society is motivated by fear and punishment, and the fear of punishment. Have you noticed that you work harder at classes taught by teachers you fear most? The ones with the loudest voices, sharpest tongues and most creative punishments are high on your priority list; while the ones who encourage you and try to understand your problems and issues, well, their tasks can be postponed to another day. 'cos they understand.

It's also true of the adult world. Our society is full of warnings that threaten fines for social infringements, our citizens call for summary dismissal when they perceive our civil servants and ministers have let them down somehow (flooding, train delays, and escaped terrorists come to mind), and our workforce keeps its nose to the grindstone fearing the next economic downturn resulting in another round of retrenchments. But when things go well, our citizenry thinks it is their due; hence no word of thanks, no gratitude expressed.

With this kind of attitude, who wants to work any harder? Who would risk his ricebowl trying anything new, that may or may not be an improvement over the old ways that have worked well enough before? Why step out of our comfort zones and face being ridiculed or pilloried when mistakes -- and there will be mistakes -- occur?

Our society believes in getting it right the first time, and since it was already done right once by someone else, let's just keep doing the same thing over and over again, 'cause then we can't go wrong. Yes, I'm looking at you with a baleful eye, so-called "Best Practices".

It would be well and good if Singapore somehow froze in a time capsule at about the period when Mr Goh Chok Tong once confidently declared "more good years", but it hasn't. We've moved on and our society, as has the globe around us, changed and keeps on changing. Singaporeans fear change because we once had it so good. And now, despite all our hard work, all the promises, we feel that doing things the way we used to do them will bring the good old days back.

Those days are well past us now. We need Singaporeans to recognize that we live in a new world. The old promises no longer hold true and we must look for new promises grounded in our new reality. We need to find the courage to sail the winds of change once again, and we need to rebuild a strong core of skilled sailors brave enough to tough out uncharted seas ahead. With that in mind, change must begin in our schools...

Your turn: how should schools change, and how will these changes be constructive in developing a local core workforce that is ready for tomorrow? Today.

The heretic

I shall horrify everyone in my profession by posting a link to an article that begins:

"Taking notes during class? Topic-focused study? A consistent learning environment? All are exactly opposite of the best strategies for learning."

Go on, brand me a heretic, but I stand by the quotation... especially with regard to the subject of GP. Yup, Everything You Thought You Knew About Learning Is Wrong.

Personal experience failing through high school reinforces my belief that our cherished methods of 'mugging' do not work, or maybe they don't work for everybody. It's not about being naturally lazy, but focused studying narrows the mind and compartmentalizes the learning.

I won't speak for other subjects, but for GP, there are clearly identifiable long-term lifeskill goals beyond the Cambridge exam at the end of the year. While Sundem gives the example of learning for tennis, it applies to GP as well.

Some colleagues of mine demand that the kids capture every word they speak as if every class was a dictation exercise. We all know teachers like that. In GP, the kids are learning to deal with myriad views in a multiciplicity of layers but taking notes of what-teacher-says confines the note-taker to one point of view as if only Teacher is spewing gospel truth. The note-taking mind is not the questioning mind, and kids need to question everything.

I don't agree with topic-based study either. Although I'm not coaching tennis, I do see that ultimately the kids are engaged in a singular activity with rules and boundaries that define it clearly: they are writers. They may be sitting for an exam, but it's an exam that examines written expression primarily, and only supported by loosely defined topical content.

As a tennis player practices a combination of serves, volleys, backhand smashes and the like, writers are also engaged in bringing many skills to bear on their writing task. The demands of such a complex task need lots of practice in a holistic work environment that engages all skills simultaneously. They have to access a milieu of information given as new material, process it together with their prior knowledge, choose a course of action, and systematically show how their minds have worked through the problem to arrive at the conclusion they are trying to convince us of. Their only means of communicating with us: writing -- hence they have to be trained as writers.

That means the kids, when faced with 12 essay question choices should be able to select any one and respond with confidence. Preparing for 'favourite' question topics and pre-selecting for the kids what topics they can and cannot write on puts them at a severe morale disadvantage even before they arrive at their exam venue. Instead of having open, questioning minds, they enter the exam hall with a narrow range of topics they are confident of and question only their own ability to rise to the challenge.

How are the kids supposed to gain content knowledge, then? It's not by setting topical limits on what is expected to 'come out' this year based on 'past year' trends. You'll have equivalent success reading tea leaves and a crystal ball. You have to set them loose where they can access information on current affairs at random, the way we adults read the newspapers. We don't absorb information topically in real life, so we shouldn't expect the kids to do so either.

The kids learn by making connections. Often their own connections may be wrong, but that is where we come in to guide them. A random selection of news articles invariably trace back to common themes, reinforced through discussion either in oral form within large or small groups or in written essays, shared blog entries, forum postings and wikis, among many other methods of communication available to us today. However, any suggestion of a GP 'textbook' will be an anathema to the subject. Kids, being kids, will take such a tome as the only thing they need to read, and cut themselves off from where the real learning is... in the wild.

If we want to ground the kids on a baseline, we should be grounding them with values, not topics. The test is ultimately about making decisions and standing by them. Regardless of topic, we expect the kids to make judgments based on upright principles based on common human decency. When kids have a handle on their personal yardsticks to tell right from wrong, and what is constructive from destructive; when kids can see what constitutes the 'greater good'; when kids can defend their positions from solid moral beliefs; then we will have done our jobs as GP tutors.

He shoots... he scores!

The kids don't understand the concept of a balanced argument. To them, it's a black and white world. Argue for one position, then flip over and argue for the other position, then arbitrarily pick their favourite position to conclude.

Kids, argumentative writing obeys the rules of soccer. Your team's goal is at the other end of the field. You score points when you score at that end. You lose points and enrage your supporters when you score goals at the end you are defending. There is no half-time switch over (in case any smart alec should raise that observation).

Always approach your argument with a single-minded purpose. Your audience needs to see the clash, the conflict and the eventual victory. True balance is in respecting the rules of engagement, and not in attacking both goalposts on the pitch.

Chasing happiness

Working on a Application Question exercise with the kids. That is, take two articles discussing a similar area of concern, extract relevant points from both from which to spin off a short essay in 20-25 minutes. It's a sort of hand-held practice for Term Paper research and writing. A US high-schooler should ace this test, no problem.

The two stimulus readings are abridged versions of the following:
Foley, Michael. "The Age of Absurdity". Chapter 1.
Cohen, Roger. "The Happynomics of life".

The question the kids had to respond to reads:
[Using the above two readings, blah, blah...] How much emphasis does your society place on the pursuit of happiness? Do you think this is beneficial?

[And, no, I didn't come up with the question, or select the articles either].

Often, the kids' responses show a huge misconception about the nature of the exercise. Without even looking at the question they simply tear into the two articles, looking for one to agree with and one to refute, using examples drawn from the kids' own local experiences.

But unless the question specifically asks for agreement with one author or another, there is no necessity for the kids to do so. And the exercise is meant for the kids to draw points from the articles to support their own observations of their local society expressed in an essay, not the other way around.

For a teaching guide, I came up with my own response to the question. I over-wrote (as usual) but under time pressure, the same as the kids would face under exam conditions. Caution: There is no standard author citation system, but the kids aren't expected to adhere to any due to time constraints -- a brief name-drop does the trick. I'm not entirely happy with it 'cos it turned into more of a rant than I intended; lots of loose ends too and an extremely forced conclusion due to timing-out. But it'll do to show the kids what they can do with focus and more importantly, an approach to the question with clear intent.

Guess what, kids? It's model essay time!

Intruder alert!

Gaaahhh! A creepy face at my window!

Dumb birdbrain is quite insistent on getting past the window pane and INTO MY ROOM!

Momo, the watchcat, scares off the intruder.

WANTED

for attempted housebreaking

Jimmy McPigeon

Reward: 1 pigeon pie

Lost in space

Let's see our PW committee approve this project: Canadian teens send Legonaut 15 miles into atmosphere. It's a conflict, isn't it? Elevation vs gravity. It's a risk, isn't it? OMG, so many risks involved, least of which is losing the investment of $400 worth of equipment if things didn't go as planned.

But all they'd ask is, "what's the point?" Fine. Let's go reinvent another hypothetical "Amazing Race", then.