Students don’t graduate because…

January 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment

… because they’ve lost hope.

They’ve lost hope that:

  • they can fulfill degree requirements (some subjects are tough!)
  • they can actually graduate
  • (more importantly) they can graduate in a shorter time so they pay less tuition fees
  • they can get a good job with that degree

And so they give up. They’ve lost hope. They don’t believe anymore.

A degree can still be useful. But the current educational and economic outlook doesn’t exactly inspire a lot of confidence in the immediate use of a degree.

Educational institutes mostly teach students towards knowledge that’s known. I mean, your professor won’t set a question that he can’t answer, right? The world we now live in rewards those who solve the unknown, possibly even seeking questions that weren’t ever asked.

Teachers need to start teaching students to face the unknowable. They need to instill hope in the next generation.

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Nobody hires a dodo hunter

November 26, 2011 By

My mom has a Vietnamese colleague with a law degree. Apparently, it’s more lucrative to sell cookware in Singapore than practise law in Vietnam. White collar jobs, welcome to 2011.

There’s an article on the Wall Street Journal, “China to Cancel College Majors That Don’t Pay“. China is tackling the problem of jobless graduates in her country. This is the start of the nightmare of something I wrote over a year ago on education:

They [the universities] might go create more graduates who make higher salaries. What might those be? Those academic fields where the economy pays well for, for example, medicine, law, accountancy, banking, biotechnology and computer science. The arts and philosophy majors are doomed, I tell ya. The education syllabus might well be skewed towards commercially profitable disciplines.

China is at least thinking about it.

A nation-wide purge of university majors that don’t pay means you’re essentially specialising. Individually, a university might use that as a hook, such as offering excellent biotechnology classes taught by world-renown people in those fields. Nationally, it will be a disaster.

How do you determine which majors don’t pay? The implicit assumption is you know which majors don’t pay now and in the future. The implicit assumption is that you know what’s going to happen next. You don’t.

When radio was invented, people thought nobody would pay for advertising, since it’s a broadcast medium to nobody in particular (anyone can listen in).

When the telephone was invented, people thought face-to-face communications would die. We still value face-to-face communications now. Never mind the teenage girl who texts 563 messages a day (though I’m sure she still wants to meet up with her friends. Those messages are probably “Meet where?”, “K” (the short form of OK), and “lol”).

When the television was invented, people thought it’s ugly. Black and white? Who’d watch?

When the Internet was invented, nobody thought it’d be a commercially viable medium. Look at all the online stores now.

When music could be digitised, people started sharing MP3s. Music labels sued their customers. They lost money. Apple iTunes is doing fine though.

When Amazon was started, it was to be an online bookstore. The major bookstores didn’t think it will work. They’re now in financial trouble.

It takes an average of 4 years to graduate with a degree. A lot can happen in 4 years. By the time you graduate with a PhD in ornithology specialising in dodos, nobody is hiring a dodo hunter. The job is no longer relevant…

… but it doesn’t mean you’re irrelevant. Adapt your skills. Become an exotic bird care specialist.

Let’s say China purges all non-manufacturing related majors. That means most of her graduates know only manufacturing related stuff. If the economy suddenly rewards creativity-based knowledge work, China will be struggling to move. Remember, it takes 4 years to churn out graduates. You’ll be 4 years behind.

Hmm? China’s too big? The dinosaurs thought they’d live forever too. A meteor wiped them out. Doesn’t matter how big you are. A big enough meteor will still wipe you out. You may quote me. Hey, let me help you:

Doesn’t matter how big you are. A big enough meteor will still wipe you out.
- Vincent

A university shouldn’t model against Amazon. You should not offer long-tail majors. You can’t afford to. The proliferation of majors is probably to attract as many students as possible.

Nobody hires a dodo hunter.

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American hare, Asian tortoise

November 12, 2011 By

I’ve been meaning to get a drink from the cafe within the library for a while. It’s exam period, and all the seats were taken. But I finally got a chance to sit. I got myself a “Peach Dream”, a smoothie with peach flavour I think.

I quickly sat down at one of the tables that a lady graciously shared with me. Her friend soon returned with their drinks. I was just happily sipping my smoothie, watching a man on his laptop, one girl slumped on the table with her books, and listening to a mother reading a book to her daughter.

The two ladies at my table began talking.

“Did you know her son got 58 out of 60?”
“Really?”
“Her son is already so clever. But he’s still getting tuition.”
“But he’s so clever! He might get 50 even without tuition.”
“We don’t know if it’s because he has tuition, that’s why he got 58.”

That was a primary school science test. Hey I’m not eavesdropping. I just happen to overhear their overshared conversation.

Believing you can improve by putting in effort

There’s this study conducted dividing people on their perception on learning and intelligence. One group believed that intelligence is fixed, therefore if they don’t know something, they’re doomed to never learn how to do it properly. The other group believed that intelligence is malleable. If they put effort into learning, eventually they’ll get the hang of it.

The first group didn’t care what the answer was, only whether they’re correct or not. They didn’t care to learn how the answer came about. The second group cared more about why an answer was so.

When the 2 groups were tested again, the researchers found that the second group improved significantly. The first group didn’t do any better or worse.

I’m going to generalise here. Asians typically believe that if you put effort into something, you can improve. Be it maths, science, English, Chinese, whatever. That’s why here in Singapore, parents hire tuition teachers for their children, even if their children have phenomenal grades in school. (Also see PISA).

I didn’t have any tuition teachers after primary four (age 10). Not because I’m smart, but because my dad couldn’t afford it. Good thing I turned out alright…

Another general trait of Asians is that we save. Money that is. We’re brought up with the concept of saving money for a rainy day.

The hare and the tortoise

I read this book by former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called Beyond the Crash. He brought up some concepts I’ve learnt about the global economy and politics.

America and Europe lead the world in terms of consumption. It’s worked so far because they also produced as much (as in exports). Their production brought in enough money for them to consume. They’ve raced ahead and amassed much wealth.

Like the hare, they’ve grown comfortable and stopped (more or less).

Globalisation allowed the other countries to come to the fore. The BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China), Indonesia, Philippines.

American (and European?) jobs flowed to other countries. First the Baby Boomer generation is slowly retiring, leaving a mass number of jobs for the smaller group of Generation X-ers who cannot fill them. Then globalisation killed those jobs, and the current Generation X-ers and Y-ers can’t find jobs.

The subprime housing situation created more turmoil. The recent bank crisis instilled fear and distrust. University tuition fees go up as people sought to get a Master’s degree in the tight job market. (Just for info, I’ve read there’s an “education bubble” going on).

America just averted a $14 trillion debt ceiling problem. Greece has a financial problem. Europe faces a sovereign debt problem. Their aging population doesn’t have enough people to take care of them, financially speaking (where do you think taxes go to?).

And the tortoises started to catch up.

Education

I’ve read an economist praising the education system of Singapore. I must admit, I was surprised. Then he (can’t remember whom or what book I was reading. Sorry…) pointed out that in America, teachers with average graduating scores are dumped to “second-rate” schools without training. In Singapore, the Ministry of Education chooses the best teachers, and provide them with training. I think it was 2 out of 10 applicants who get in. The Singapore government takes education very seriously.

Barack Obama has stated he’s taking America’s education seriously. As far as the future is concerned, I believe maths and science to be crucial. We’re going to need engineers, mathematicians, doctors, physicists, chemists, biologists and more to tackle the health care of our aging population, creating a sustainable Earth, and understand and make use of any future technologies.

Global commerce

Here’s something you should know. To get money, you have to sell something in exchange. I don’t care if it’s an apple, an iPad, television shows, movies, your body, real estate, knowledge (information). Even if it’s just a 250 by 250 pixel ad on your web page. You have to sell something.

America and Europe produced enough for domestic and international consumption. As a result, they grew. Then globalisation came. Their production dropped (because that production went to other countries as jobs). You produce less, but your consumption rate remain. You should see the problem, right? Then their domestic consumption even increased (think rampant credit card use).

Here’s the catch. China (seems to be the biggest blamee, though there are others) is exporting more stuff, and America (and Europe?) is buying. China buys up raw materials from other countries, manufactures products, and sells them.

What you should realise is that China has a small domestic consumption (remember Asians extol saving as a virtue, so we buy and consume less). Contrast that with China’s growing export business, you should see how China is growing in strength. But this depends on other countries buying their stuff *cough America cough*. China’s growth comes mainly from exports and China’s biggest worry is that people stop buying their exports.

The rebalancing

There was a time when the outsourcing/offshoring thing was a craze. Do you know how supply and demand works? As jobs went to India, China and Philippines because it’s cheaper, those jobs started becoming more expensive as the workers wanted better pay. It might still be cheaper to outsource/offshore, but it doesn’t always make a big financial impact to the bottom line.

You know this oil thing we need? It’s getting more expensive as it becomes scarcer. We need to find alternative energy solutions soon. See education above. Where are the people we need to solve this problem? (They aren’t motivated enough to learn, and they’re watching cat videos on YouTube).

You know what more expensive energy means? Transportation is going to get costlier. Getting a product to be manufactured in China, then assembled in Mexico, then shipped to America is going to be financially inadvisable.

You know what that means? Jobs are going to start flowing back (to wherever they came from).

You know what? There are millions of jobless young people who are willing to do those jobs.

But you need to be willing to train them. Specialisation cannot be your focus. Remember, these people just graduated from school. You won’t find a person who fits the job of a managerial post with an emphasis on information technology.

Get that graduate (who has a bundle of joyful energy) with the MBA. Train him/her on your business with information technology.

Get that programmer who did a bunch of software projects. Teach him/her about your special accounting software business.

Export more bits than atoms

I read that a Singapore minister (can’t remember who. You should know by now I have a terrible memory for these things…) who said that Singapore’s economic concern should still be to focus on manufacturing. I believe he’s referring to material goods.

I’m going to ask you a question. With the climate concern now, and that our landfills are starting to fill with our waste at a rate that’s slightly alarming, and that raw materials are getting costlier to shovel around, should you still export physical goods?

That’s still going to be a viable business. I mean, I still see people queuing up to buy the latest iPhone 4S, and texting on their perfectly working iPhone 4 (I still use an iPhone 3G, which Apple doesn’t even support anymore).

Remember the outsourcing/offshoring thing? There were 2 kinds of jobs: the physical creation of a product, and the intangible stuff. China does manufacturing. India does call centres.

As people become more aware of what they buy and consume, I see people having less material goods. The modern cell phone allows you to play games, organise your calendar, keep todo lists, take photos, capture videos, record audios, browse the Internet and make phone calls.

Even if that’s not the case, there’s a physical limit to how much you can export (and thus sell and thus make money). So sell your skills and knowledge. Teach people stuff. Offer something that’s not so easily replaceable by another person in another country.

Africa poised as untapped and trapped consumer base

Africa is like the poster child for a country in poverty. She has a large population but most of her people are struggling with where the next meal is coming from.

As China and India got more of their people out of poverty (due to globalisation in part), their people started buying stuff.

India is an interesting case. As her economy improved, so did her domestic consumption. In a sense, India is more “stable” than China in terms of growth.

The point is that Africa has a large population who most probably cannot and will not buy your products and services. They’re too busy dealing with AIDS, malaria and hunger. Not only that, it represents a huge number of people who cannot contribute to the world.

A human mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Finishing line

That was a lot to write.

So in case you skipped the whole shebang above, here’s the moral: Consume less (with more intelligence), raise education, and help other people.

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University degrees and debt

August 15, 2011 By

Make the time and money you spend while studying in university count. The value of a degree doesn’t fluctuate much, year to year. But if you take just one year longer to obtain that degree, it means you’ve wasted one year of your life and another few thousands of dollars in tuition fees. Which means it takes that much longer for you to repay the tuition fee loan (if you took out one).

University/college tips from Bryarly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKL72gzQ58s

University/college tips from Emily
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qG3Df1QC48

Business or degree

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Degrees as general intelligence shortcut

July 5, 2011 By

Today I went to the library. Never mind the reason. Suffice to say, I decided the best use of my morning was to go to the library.

While I was browsing the shelves, I found this book Spent, by Geoffrey Miller. He’s an evolutionary psychologist, and it happens that his writing is a little… dry at times. Whole blocks of text with few bolds, italics and headings to break the flow.

Degrees and sexual evolution

I persevered and managed to skim through some of the chapters. Basically, his premise of modern consumerism and marketing is affected by sexual evolution. You buy stuff to show you’re a better mate. You buy expensive (but deemed as socially coveted) goods to show off. You buy stuff that’s seemingly a waste to show you can waste resources.

He also pointed out the 2 extremes: the people supporting consumerism (despite the credit card debts and other financial disasters), and the people opposing pure consumerism. He also said both are dangerous, which I agree.

Anyway, he said something about education. I’m paraphrasing here, but he said university degrees are used as a shortcut to determine a person’s general intelligence. He also used the term IQ as well.

He said the people who scoff at the idea of using IQ to determine a person’s intelligence are usually already clever, and hang around people of their intelligence level. “Anyone with average intelligence can understand string theory!”, ignoring the fact that they’re surrounded by janitors and other school staff.

Schools require stringent tests to determine if you’re intelligent enough to attend at their establishment. The most prominent of these tests is the SAT. But the idea of an IQ test to determine intelligence threatens these schools. Because anyone can easily take a short IQ test to determine their intelligence.

If it’s easy to obtain, it’s harder to use it as a screen or charge for it. Thus, the academia typically scoff at the usefulness of an IQ test, ignoring the SAT they used for admission.

If it’s easy to fake, or is almost indistinguishable from the original, then the original loses value. The example used here is cubic zirconia, directly competing with diamonds.

Our ancestors might have developed humour, creativity and kindness to compete for quality mates. Those are alternative traits to body musculature, body symmetry and other physical properties. In time, those “inferior” traits won. There are women who prefer a guy with humour, creativity and kindness to other human beings.

Social status (or showing off)

What I’m getting at (and what I believe Geoffrey was suggesting), is that a degree is a social status object, just like any other social status object. Having a degree shows other people that you had the time and money to pursue a degree, and the discipline to actually fulfill the requirements to get a degree. It’s a shortcut. Having a degree doesn’t necessarily mean you’re intelligent because there are some graduates who are frightfully stupid.

I will admit right here that I’ve never actually applied anything I learned for my degree in my jobs. Maybe that I learnt C and Unix shell scripts and commands.

My only regret is that I didn’t try to do more during my university days. Maybe learning about how businesses actually work. Did you know an employee typically costs a company 3 times his salary to employ him? This means an employee has to do work that generate a revenue amount 3 times his own salary just to justify his existence in company payroll. Where does the money go? The lights, the cleaning, the pantry, the security, the stationery. How can a company survive then? Because there are sales people that generate revenue amounts equal to 10 times their salary. That’s why sales people can be highly paid.

What was I talking about? Oh yes, degrees.

To increase the value of the original, you can increase the precision of getting the original and/or decrease the credibility of the competition. For example, the judgement of diamond quality and the emphasis that cubic zirconia rings aren’t rare (thus not as “valuable”).

The crux of the matter is that educational institutes are afraid their degrees will lose value. Just read the backgrounds of those who fervently support the obtaining of degrees, and those with a “meh” attitude towards degrees. Are they academics? Do they hold a job? Are they entrepreneurs? Are they open to new ideas? Are they ambivalent? Do they propose alternatives?

I suggest you get a degree if you can. But start a business while you’re there. A degree is still a valuable social status object. But don’t kill yourself trying to get one.

Consider what you want out of your life. I would hate to think you would waste 4 years of your life and tons of money to just scrape by and get a degree. Do something useful while you’re there! Make it more than just a piece of paper!

Did you know that because cubic zirconia is cheap to produce, the processes can be refined to the point where they’re less flawed than diamonds? Imagine, “fake” diamonds that are “purer” than real diamonds!

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Start business or get a degree?

July 3, 2011 By

Ok, I’m biased in this. I would suggest you start a business. But I would come off as fake, since I do have a university degree.

In these tough economic times, the value of a university (or college) degree is highly debated. Some people say you don’t need a degree (here and here). And there are also articles and studies saying a degree is (still) the best investment you can make (for example, here and here). [For the latter article, I would add that you be careful of the word "average" being thrown around. Because you read my blog, I would suggest that you're more than just average.]

DISCLAIMER: The Singapore education system might be different from the system you have in your country. I can’t even tell you if the Singapore system as of writing now is the same as what I went through.

Should I buy the steel sword now or later?

In the role-playing video games I’ve played when I was younger, I would arrive in a town and I’d be immediately broke. I’d go buy the best armour and weapons money can buy. Inevitably, the game designers made it such that it’s highly unlikely you would have enough money to buy every single piece of best armour and weapons for your character(s).

Now you have a decision to make.

“I don’t have enough money. Should I buy that bronze sword now so I can continue with the adventure? Or just tough it out until I reach the next town, where I can buy the steel sword for just a little bit more money?”

That degree you’re thinking of getting is that adamantium sword. And it’s available for purchase about, oh, 8 towns later. You better tough it out…

A degree is traditionally considered the be-all-end-all. Once you have it, you’re set for life. It’ll open doors for you in the corporate world. People judge you (highly?) based on a piece of paper that you have. Job recruiters screen you based on the type of degree you have, looking for computer science degree graduates even though someone with a bachelor of science (majoring in applied mathematics and computational science) is just as qualified *cough*.

There is always another sword better than whatever you have (even adamantium). It doesn’t happen in games because they’re finite. But in real life, there’s always something better you can have. Maybe a professional certificate in something. Certifications by Microsoft, Oracle or any company/organisation that’s respected.

Don’t waste your freedom

Through my primary school, secondary school and junior college days, I had to wake up early and be at school by 7:30am. School ends sometime in the afternoon, where I might have extra curricular activities.

When I was drafted into the military, I was told when I had to wake up. I was told when and what to do in my waking hours. And I was told when to go to bed.

When I started at a job, I had to be in the office at 8:30am. I could only go for lunch between 12 noon and 2pm, and only for 1 hour. I could only go home after 6pm.

I only had freedom of time when I was in the university (and now, when I’m working for myself). When I was in university, I typically took about 20 credits per semester (about 5 classes), which was about 20+ hours of lectures and tutorial work. The class timings were still fixed, but for the first time in my educational life, I had some degree (no pun intended) of freedom. I could choose which tutorial classes I wanted to attend. I could plan my time each week and even each day.

So if you’re looking for advice, I suggest this: Go to university/college and get your degree if you can (keeping the cost of time and money in mind). But start a business while you’re there.

Don’t give me that cranberry about not having enough time. Even if you stretch it, lectures and tutorials only consume up to 30 hours per week of your time. You still have 10 hours more per week than if you’re working full time! Make use of that.

Don’t drink (alcohol). Don’t do drugs. Don’t party (too much). Don’t smoke.

I get that this period of time might be liberating to you, but it’s also the time where your self-discipline is most tested. I’m not saying you can’t have fun. But if you can’t hold yourself accountable now, your future work at a job is going to suck cannonballs.

You have a huge university debt the moment you start. Don’t wait 4 years before struggling to find a job that pays enough that you can repay that.

If the statistics are true, most small businesses fail within 5 years. You have 4 years in university. Start failing then.

You can either start your own business and have some control over your future. Or you can work at a company where the company controls your future.

If you’re reading this, I assume you’re either a mathematician, a scientist or a programmer. Start a business. Get a degree. You’ll probably do fine either way. Even better, start a business while you’re getting your degree.

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Singularity Magazine May 2011

May 1, 2011 By

Singularity Magazine May 2011

In this May issue of Singularity, we have interviews with molecular-genetics-researcher-turned-author Beverly Akerman (who wrote The Meaning of Children) and 9 year old go-kart-racing Ricky Springer.

I also covered an event by professor Joe Winston on “Beauty, Education and the Well-being of Children”.

Download the May 2011 issue.

In exciting magazine news, we also have a Facebook page! Share your comments, put up links, start discussions!

Behind the scenes

The fairies I hired to help me were starting to get very fond of the cat rides, which was an important part of my contract with them. My cat, if you remember, helps me with getting rid of junk email with her tele-mechano-kinesis powers. My cat had also gotten a little tired of giving rides. She took to hiding…

Cat hiding

This, is going to be a problem…

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Good grades no longer enough?

April 5, 2011 By

Here’s a quote from an article of The Seattle Times:

Valedictorians with straight-A’s were denied admission, while out-of-state students with lower grades were accepted.

The reason?

The decision is based squarely on economics: Nonresident students in effect subsidize the education of Washington residents, providing a much-needed boost in revenue at a time the UW could see its funding cut by $200 million over the next biennium.

It’s not ideal. Revenue, budgets and other financial concerns affect the direction of education.

I wrote an article on the merits of a debtless university education. However minute or major, money has an impact on how educational institutes are run. Perhaps it’s the focus of the university’s educational efforts (maybe putting more money into “money-making” departments such as business, medical and legal). Perhaps it’s the decision to take in more students who pay more in tuition fees. And lower the number of student intake with perfectly good grades but don’t pay as much in tuition fees.

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On cultivating self-resilience

February 10, 2011 By

There was this Wall Street Journal article about Chinese parenting that made some waves. And I’m telling you not all Chinese are like that. I can say that because I’m Chinese, and I didn’t get straight A’s, and my dad didn’t force me to study, and I turn out ok. My dad did wallop me, but not because I got a B. More on that later.

One point I want to highlight in the article:

Western parents are concerned about their children’s psyches. Chinese parents aren’t. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.

[Emphasis mine]

When I was young, my dad used to call me lazy.

“The weather is hot. Remember to drink more water.” said my dad.
“I’ll do it later.” I said.
“Don’t be lazy.”

“Clean up your room.” said my dad.
“Rrrrgghh” I said.
“Don’t be lazy.”

I don’t remember being told to do homework. I just do it on my own. So being told “lazy” must be about other stuff. It hurt being called lazy, since I wasn’t really lazy. As time went on, I realised my dad didn’t really think I was lazy. It was just an expression to say I should be doing stuff that should be done.

Best yourself. (Straight A’s optional)

I think I told you before about my English tuition score. When I was young, I scored a 76 out of 100 in an English test. It’s not exceptional, but I scored the highest in the class. I went home happy and told my dad. He just said “Why so low?”

Now that might be seen as a classic “Chinese Straight A” syndrome, but I don’t see it that way. The lesson I learnt wasn’t to triumph over everyone else, but to triumph over myself.

I was 10 at that time.

And it’s not like my dad will jump for joy if I get straight A’s you know…

[Skip to 1:50 mark if you're impatient]

Not bad. Now I don’t have to kill you.

On excessive meaningless praise

Disclaimer: The following isn’t a racist comment. It’s just an observation.

So a while ago, my aunt told me something about American game shows. In particular, “Jeopardy”. The contestants, when asked to tell the audience something about themselves, would say what they do for a living and their hobbies maybe, and then:

“I have a lovely wife and 2 beautiful daughters.”

My aunt found that funny, because we Chinese would hesitate to say that our wives are lovely and our daughters are beautiful. At least not on national television. The statement just doesn’t come naturally to us. And my aunt is in a position to say that, because she has 4 beautiful daughters.

I give you another quote from the article:

The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable—even legally actionable—to Westerners. Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, “Hey fatty—lose some weight.” By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue, talking in terms of “health” and never ever mentioning the f-word, and their kids still end up in therapy for eating disorders and negative self-image. (I also once heard a Western father toast his adult daughter by calling her “beautiful and incredibly competent.” She later told me that made her feel like garbage.)

I repeat:

Western parents are concerned about their children’s psyches. Chinese parents aren’t. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.

Those adjectives (“lovely” and “beautiful”), is it for the benefit of the father, the mother, the audience, or the daughters? Think about that.

Tell the truth. It hurts, but we have to assume that our children can take it. If they can’t, well, they’re going to suffer more when they grow up.

I was caned

I was caned for being irresponsible

I’ve been caned by my father before. Not for getting B’s, but for irresponsibility.

At a young age, I was given a lot of freedom. My friends had curfews, such as being home by 7pm. I didn’t. Well, not exactly. As long as it’s not too late (the unspoken limit was midnight), I was ok.

The only thing I needed to do was tell my father where I was. There was this one time where I went to my friend’s place to play computer games, and I stayed a little too long. I think it was maybe 8pm when I got home.

My father was furious. I didn’t tell him where I was. I didn’t tell him if I would be back for dinner. I didn’t tell him anything. So he walloped me.

“Go get the cane.”
*sniff sniff*
“GO GET THE CANE!”
*whimper rush to get cane* “I won’t do it again!”
*hooot piack!*

Yeah, my dad made me get the instrument of my punishment. That’s how he rolled. But after he caned me, he would get ointment and apply on the areas where he caned me. He didn’t punish me for the sake of punishment. It was because I was irresponsible, and made him worry.

That said, he did cane me when I failed my Chinese spelling once. What, a Chinese failing Chinese spelling tests? It didn’t happen often.

On cultivating self-resilience

Build self-resilience

From what I’ve read, Western parents (mostly American) are too lax with disciplining their children. Or they go overboard and beat children without showing the children what it was they did and why they were beaten. I know it’s illegal to beat anyone, even if they’re your children. Just don’t go the other extreme and not discipline them at all.

That said, Chinese parents can be too strict. I should know, because I’ve heard that some Singaporean Chinese children don’t really have a life outside of school, tuition classes and extracurricular activities (that their parents had painstakingly chosen for them).

I didn’t have tuition classes after I was 11 years old. Mainly because my father couldn’t afford it. I grew up learning to be responsible and be self-reliant. After school, I went home by myself. I bought lunch and dinner by myself. I did my homework without being told. I chose the secondary school (high school) I went to, mainly because my father couldn’t read English and he didn’t know which school was good and so he couldn’t care less. I chose the junior college I went to because my father couldn’t read English and he didn’t know which school was good and so he couldn’t care less. I chose the topics I studied in university because my father couldn’t read English AND BECAUSE IT’S MY LIFE.

He let me choose the path I want to walk. Because he taught me to be responsible. To be self-reliant. To be self-resilient.

Ultimately, the children of our future needs to be able to weather the vicissitudes of life. Too lax a discipline, and at the first crack of pressure, a person might turn to drugs to escape. Too strict a discipline, and at the first crack of pressure, a person might go all out and let loose the pent up frustration.

The balance is to be resilient enough.

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PISA 2009 results analysis (or how I was almost on national television)

January 12, 2011 By

Recently, someone from a current affairs television show emailed me. Basically, it’s the start of the new year, and thus the start of the school year. There was the release of the PISA 2009 results and Shanghai topped the list. I wrote a short article, that Singapore was ranked 5th and stated some of my comments.

That person apparently did some research and found me through that article. She probably searched for “pisa results singapore” and my blog came up on the first page of Google results. Go, do a search on those terms. When you find my blog article (titled “Singapore ranked high in PISA 2009 survey”), click on it. Increase my search rankings. Thanks. *smile*

So apparently, I’m the only (Singapore) blogger (I prefer “web publisher”, but I digress) who gave a whoot’s attention about Singapore ranking 5th, in some test with a name that evokes images of an Italian flat bread with stuffings on top. Thus was I contacted to see if I was willing to appear on their TV show to talk about that. After getting over the excitement and fear of appearing on national TV (it took about half an hour to calm my nerves), I read up on my article to remember what the heck I wrote, and glanced through the PISA results again.

Taking a deep breath, I called her to say yes, I’d like to appear on the show. She asked me some questions.

“Do you know our show?”
“No. I don’t really watch television.” (An alarm bell rang violently somewhere in my brain then. It took a second before I realised that I shouldn’t have said that.)

“Do you think we should emulate Shanghai?”
“No. We should be doing our own thing.”

She sent me the topics to be discussed on the show, so I could prepare my responses. Then I did lots of research. You see, it’s been more than a decade since I had contact with academia, let alone with secondary schools (PISA test results are based on 15 year olds). My dad was worried I’d have nothing to say on the show. I asked my friends about the current Singapore education system. I even asked my cousins (who are in secondary school) to let me look at their maths and science textbooks. I read the PISA 2009 results again, thoroughly this time. I prepared my responses to the proposed discussion topics. I worked late into the night. I felt prepared.

The next day, she called me up. Apparently, the topic was changed due to a piece of news: The Singapore football team was disbanded.

“Uhm, I’m sorry. If we do an educational piece, we’ll call you again.”
“Ok.”

“So. Are you a football fan by any chance?”
“No.”
“Well, I had to ask…”

As my friend put it, “Ahhh, such is TV.”

And that’s how I almost appeared on national television. I was both disappointed and relieved at the same time. Then I thought, since I did all that research, I might as well tell you about it. So here’s my short analysis of the PISA 2009 results. Some information first:

  • PISA 2009 results mean the tests were conducted in 2009. The results were announced on 7 Dec 2010.
  • Students are between 15 years 3 months and 16 years 2 months old
  • The sample size from each country must be at least 5000, unless the country does not physically have that many eligible students.
  • Shanghai and Singapore are partner countries, and not OECD countries. I don’t know the significance, but Singapore was included in an OECD whitelist in 2009. Apparently, it’s something to do with transparency of financial and tax information.

I’m responding generally to the topics I was supposed to discuss.

Opinions and thoughts about Shanghai’s and Singapore’s performance

I’m happy for Shanghai. I’m also happy for us. I mean, we’re 5th! Besides, your greatest competitor is yourself, not other people.

I remember something that happened when I was about 9 years old (I think). I had tuition classes in English and maths (hard to believe, what with my impeccable linguistic skills. I know, right? *smile*). There was this English test, and I scored 76 marks out of 100. Yes, I still remember that score. Not too great, but I scored the highest in the class.

I went home and told my dad about it, bursting with pride at being the best in class. His response was “How come so low?” in Chinese. Talk about deflating your morale. From that incident, I learnt that the toughest benchmark you can set your target on, is yourself. Keep improving yourself. Being better than other people will take care of itself.

How did Shanghai do it? Can Singapore do it too?

I don’t know. But this might shed some light. Instead, I want to highlight something in the PISA summary report.

According to the report, out of the countries Finland, Japan, Turkey, Canada and Portugal and the partner country Singapore (emphasis mine), 39% to 48% disadvantaged students are resilient.

Resilient students come from the bottom quarter of the distribution of socio-economic background in their country and score in the top quarter among students from all countries with similar socio-economic background

Compare that with 76% of Shanghai’s disadvantaged students being resilient.

Our near obsession with tuition and shielding our children from outside stress so they can just focus on studying might be a problem. I heard a story about a father not scolding his daughter for fear of distracting her from her exams the next day. She’s a university student. What’s going to happen to her when she steps out of school? Life doesn’t throw stress at you one at a time.

Competition between Shanghai and Singapore

I don’t even know if we’re competing, at least directly. I don’t know what Shanghai is striving for. But what is Singapore striving for? To be an educational, commercial and research hub in South East Asia? Or to beat Shanghai because they won in a study that only focussed on reading, maths and science?

If we want to beat a country at something, we should know what we would get after winning.

Emulating Shanghai

If we (Singapore) truly want to win, to innovate, to lead, then we should lead. Emulating Shanghai just means we’re following them. We might catch up, but we’ll never truly overtake them.

Hey, our primary maths system is adopted by other countries. Israel took up our maths system (in 2002), and per capita, they are one of the richest in the world. Clearly we’re doing something right.

Merits of the Singapore education system

I’ve not been involved in academia for years, so I can’t comment on that. If anything, we should use more real world examples (which PISA does).

For example, a sample maths question in PISA showed 3 clocks, Greenwich 12 midnight, Berlin 1am, Sydney 10am. Then the student was asked

If it’s 7pm in Sydney, what’s the time in Berlin?

That’s immediately applicable in real life. I haven’t seen maths questions in a long time, so the following is something dredged from my memory.

Suppose John spent $X buying some marbles. Red marbles cost R cents, and blue marbles cost B cents. If John bought twice as many red marbles as blue marbles, how many blue marbles did he buy?

Putting aside the obvious reaction of “Why the heck do I want to answer that?”, there are some problems. If I knew John had twice as many red marbles as blue marbles, that meant I already counted them. How else would I know there were twice as many red marbles?

And if I really want to know how many blue marbles John bought, I would just ask him. Let’s say somehow his answer was posed in riddle form. Instead of being a normal person and just tell me he bought 5 blue marbles, John gave me a mathematical riddle to solve. The number of blue marbles had better be critically important…

I could also just ask the store keeper how many blue marbles John bought from him. I doubt the store keeper would also give me his answer in the form of a riddle. But if he did, this world just became more interesting and more exasperating at the same time.

So the student answering that kind of question had to overcome his “Why the heck do I want to answer that?” response before working on the question.

Last thoughts

From the report,

In countries where 15-year-olds are divided into more tracks based on their abilities, overall performance is not enhanced, and the younger the age at which selection for such tracks first occurs, the greater the differences in student performance, by socio-economic background, by age 15, without improved overall performance.

My understanding on that quote is that specialisation has no enhanced overall performance. There’s also this:

Successful school systems – those that perform above average and show below-average socio-economic inequalities – provide all students, regardless of their socio-economic backgrounds, with similar opportunities to learn.

Schools shouldn’t differentiate between rich and poor students.

And finally, as I wrote before:

Skill honing at an early stage assumes that whatever a student is good at has already manifested itself. It’s a reasonable assumption. It’s only dangerous if the skill specialisation is to the exclusion of all else (or even “many” else). It gets worse if the student don’t like his “special” ability, and also has aptitude in another area that he likes. But the student is already shuffled into Box A for the first skill.

Be careful of streaming.

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