When I was in year 10, about to do my School Certificate, I remember telling the younger years that they don't have the right to complain about their workload since I 'obviously' have so much more to do. Except it doesn't stop there.
In year 11, I tell the year 10 students they have no right to complain about their workload and the School Certificate since I have so much more, in year 12, I tell the year 11s the exact same thing, and now I'm in uni, telling the year 12 students they have no right to complain about the HSC since uni 'obviously' requires more work and discipline.
So where did my right to complain come from? As well as my right to tell others they don't have the right to complain? I would be in the workforce in a few years time, telling anyone in school they have no right to complain because 'real life' is obviously harder.
Except I hope it stops there.
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
A new educational approach.
Mathematics. Yes, the most dreaded subject when you were young and still dread to this day. Well, I like Maths, but maybe because I'm Asian and crazy like that.
I was pondering why people dislike Maths so much. I think it's because in education, we are not teaching students the abilities and skills needed to do the subject, but instead, the subject itself. For example, I see Drama and Performing Arts as a way of building confidence, being able to communicate more effectively with other people by the medium of speech. I see English as a way of building communication skills in writing, able to criticize and critically analyze information. I, therefore see Maths as a way of building logic and reasoning skills, able to think out processes. We shouldn't be teaching students that English is about essay writing, reading novels and then memorizing quotes to replicate in exam conditions. We, therefore, should not be applying the indication that Maths is about numbers, letters, formulas, graphs and all those other weird and wonderful, tacky things like calculus and binomials.
If we change the visual concept of Maths, and every other subject likewise, we would have a more effective education system, were students are learning about the processes, rather than the actual subject.
I was pondering why people dislike Maths so much. I think it's because in education, we are not teaching students the abilities and skills needed to do the subject, but instead, the subject itself. For example, I see Drama and Performing Arts as a way of building confidence, being able to communicate more effectively with other people by the medium of speech. I see English as a way of building communication skills in writing, able to criticize and critically analyze information. I, therefore see Maths as a way of building logic and reasoning skills, able to think out processes. We shouldn't be teaching students that English is about essay writing, reading novels and then memorizing quotes to replicate in exam conditions. We, therefore, should not be applying the indication that Maths is about numbers, letters, formulas, graphs and all those other weird and wonderful, tacky things like calculus and binomials.
If we change the visual concept of Maths, and every other subject likewise, we would have a more effective education system, were students are learning about the processes, rather than the actual subject.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
That paper is mine.
Only after starting my education degree have I realised how much effort, time and dedication is required to becoming a teacher and getting your hands on that degree. That certificate in the end. To say that I never really honestly appreciated the hard work my teachers went through before becoming a teacher and subsequently after becoming a teacher, is fair. All that time spend studying at university then coming out and applying everything they learned and spending all that time, energy and effort on us (students) is tough work. I have certainly felt it already, even in my first year.
This blog post is mainly to apologize to all the teachers I've had, especially substitute and casual teachers, for not respecting you at times and appreciating what you had to do prior to the lessons, before walking through that door. Thank you for all your support that you have given me and it certainly has shed a new light to the way I view teachers.
P.S. Education is really hard. Somebody help get my sanity back.
This blog post is mainly to apologize to all the teachers I've had, especially substitute and casual teachers, for not respecting you at times and appreciating what you had to do prior to the lessons, before walking through that door. Thank you for all your support that you have given me and it certainly has shed a new light to the way I view teachers.
P.S. Education is really hard. Somebody help get my sanity back.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Either get out or get out.
The NAPLAN test in Australia has been an issue of debate ever since it was introduced in 2008. The government uses them to gather information and publishing them into league tables.
The NAPLAN in my opinion does not accurately reflect schools' capabilities. During my immersion, the school I went to had students coming from poor countries and have not had any formal form of education. Therefore, the students would not be able to answer questions on literacy and numeracy, the areas targeted by the NAPLAN. It does not take into account the history of the child and the demographics of the schools.
The government is also forcing teachers to teach on the curriculum, ignoring equally important subjects like Drama, Music, Art and Sport. Each child needs a balance of cabbages and roses to function. When one outweighs the other, the child is left in a dark zone of ignorance. Ignorance is not bliss. Being ignorant is denying knowledge.
Let's have an education revolution that would actually work.
The NAPLAN in my opinion does not accurately reflect schools' capabilities. During my immersion, the school I went to had students coming from poor countries and have not had any formal form of education. Therefore, the students would not be able to answer questions on literacy and numeracy, the areas targeted by the NAPLAN. It does not take into account the history of the child and the demographics of the schools.
The government is also forcing teachers to teach on the curriculum, ignoring equally important subjects like Drama, Music, Art and Sport. Each child needs a balance of cabbages and roses to function. When one outweighs the other, the child is left in a dark zone of ignorance. Ignorance is not bliss. Being ignorant is denying knowledge.
Let's have an education revolution that would actually work.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Teaching the world to grow.
One thing I can't stand is people criticizing my choice to become a teacher. People constantly stigmatize me with their dogma on money, educating me on what I should do to make as money as possible. Choices of business investment, property investment, stocks, doctoring and so on. But I say, if you are not interested in any of those areas, how likely and how successful are you going to be to make money from it?
I want to become a teacher not because of the above average wages or the number of holidays you get. I want to be a teacher because of my philosophy on education. Only through education, can you teach, educate, inspire, motivate and aspire students to become better than the teacher is, to push the world further in technology and intellectual abilities, the reason why we are not in the stone age, or stigmatized by the religious dark ages.
Teachers propel students to be high achievers and make them see themselves for who they really are, only one of my aims. I want to make a difference in students, in the people of the future, who will lead the world when I retire. I want the people who will lead the world to be people better than I am, to be educated civilians where they will remember my name.
Teachers can and will make a difference in the world for the better. What difference in the world, or influence on people do investors have besides to make more money for themselves?
I want to become a teacher not because of the above average wages or the number of holidays you get. I want to be a teacher because of my philosophy on education. Only through education, can you teach, educate, inspire, motivate and aspire students to become better than the teacher is, to push the world further in technology and intellectual abilities, the reason why we are not in the stone age, or stigmatized by the religious dark ages.
Teachers propel students to be high achievers and make them see themselves for who they really are, only one of my aims. I want to make a difference in students, in the people of the future, who will lead the world when I retire. I want the people who will lead the world to be people better than I am, to be educated civilians where they will remember my name.
Teachers can and will make a difference in the world for the better. What difference in the world, or influence on people do investors have besides to make more money for themselves?
Saturday, October 31, 2009
The Undefined Problem.
It is a fact that women in society are given "tags" by society. You know who comes up with those tags? Males. Us males.
I am not claiming that all males tag females and give them horrible names, but it is very evident that they are not gaining the same reputable quality and status as males.
Take a case of reminding someone to do something constantly. When a male does it, it's called reminding, but being very annoying. In the case of a female, it's called nagging. Okay, if a male goes out on a night and scores women and gets laid, it's called having fun. Why can't a woman or girl also have fun without being called a whore or slut? I find this tagging a nuisance. We as a society are clearly setting up a barrier between women and their intentions. We are the ones not giving them the same status of equality.
A man who betrays is called a backstabber. Women who do the same is called a bitch, alongside backstabber. Now I see no need to label another person and give them another name based on gender. Women are human. They are in fact, better than men in many areas.
Name labeling and tagging of women I find remarkably insane and disturbing. I think as a society, we do not treat women with the respect, dignity and love that they deserve and need. If it wasn't without women, question how you are here and reading this. The root of the problem is males. Us males. We need to abolish our sense of the need to classify women differently simply based on gender. We need to understand that males are not the superior.
I call this the "Undefined Problem" because society, us, have not identified this or recognized this as a significant problem. Some have acknowledged the fact it is a problem, but this has not yet achieved its status as very significant and requires attention. This problem cannot be corrected by law due its inability for enforcement, but I believe that with the correct education, we can help women achieve equality of status as men, and not being classified as something worse for the same actions.
I am not claiming that all males tag females and give them horrible names, but it is very evident that they are not gaining the same reputable quality and status as males.
Take a case of reminding someone to do something constantly. When a male does it, it's called reminding, but being very annoying. In the case of a female, it's called nagging. Okay, if a male goes out on a night and scores women and gets laid, it's called having fun. Why can't a woman or girl also have fun without being called a whore or slut? I find this tagging a nuisance. We as a society are clearly setting up a barrier between women and their intentions. We are the ones not giving them the same status of equality.
A man who betrays is called a backstabber. Women who do the same is called a bitch, alongside backstabber. Now I see no need to label another person and give them another name based on gender. Women are human. They are in fact, better than men in many areas.
Name labeling and tagging of women I find remarkably insane and disturbing. I think as a society, we do not treat women with the respect, dignity and love that they deserve and need. If it wasn't without women, question how you are here and reading this. The root of the problem is males. Us males. We need to abolish our sense of the need to classify women differently simply based on gender. We need to understand that males are not the superior.
I call this the "Undefined Problem" because society, us, have not identified this or recognized this as a significant problem. Some have acknowledged the fact it is a problem, but this has not yet achieved its status as very significant and requires attention. This problem cannot be corrected by law due its inability for enforcement, but I believe that with the correct education, we can help women achieve equality of status as men, and not being classified as something worse for the same actions.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Abstract Education.
It puzzles me, it really does about why I have an education. I find myself questioning myself on the purpose of my education and consequently the purpose of education as an entire entity.
Why do I choose to go to school? Why do we all have to go to school when most of us dislike it, when there are school drop-outs? Why and when did the act of "jigging" school come into society? What was the purpose of that? What was it about the system of education that triggered people to "jig" school?
If school was interesting, fun, and entertaining, we wouldn't have people skipping classes to go down to the shops or go home. They would stay in school.
I believe that the current system of education provides no direction nor purpose to the amount of study we must go through.
I currently wish to be a secondary mathematics teacher. I wonder if I spent 13 years of my life at school to build up all the necessary knowledge and skills required to be a maths teacher. If so, then I didn't need science, didn't need to study history or geography. It seems a perfect waste of time and resource to be spending all that time on things that provide no useful outlet if I became a maths teacher. If not, then what is my direction in life? Why did I spend 13 years at school for?
The answer is to breed educated people in society. The more educated, literate and civilized people there are in society, the faster the world can expand and grow. We attempt to raise university professors and scientists and mechanics and mathematicians and physicists and chemists and lawyers and doctors and all those high paying jobs. From businessmen to congressmen. But this raises a problem. If all we are doing is attempting to raise educated people, the society will not function, unless some dramatic change could be implemented to account for the abolition of certain services, one in particular is the garbage system.
Most people I would assume just take out the trash once every week for the garbage truck to drive around and dump it elsewhere. If there were only educated people in educated professions, then the garbage system of society would collapse. So not only would you have to account for another method of towing away garbage, you also need to rethink what the education system is doing. I would agree that most people are not inclined to take their own garbage to the dump once a week. The stench is intolerable. Not only do you need people in educated professions, the people in other professions which do not require the same extent of education and degrees, are just as important.
This brings me back to my point about the purpose of education. Why is it implemented the way it is? And why is there a hierarchy of courses? It's universal. At the top are the Mathematics and Sciences, followed by English and the Social Sciences, with Information Technology next and lastly, we have the Arts, which includes dance, drama, visual arts, industrial arts and music. I think this is unfair. In society, we need cabbages AND roses. They are equally important. The cabbages will always exist in society because of natural human instincts and reactions, but we need to preserve the roses.
Because of the existence of a hierarchy, this i believe deters people from attending school. Not everyone is Albert Einstein. Not everyone is Gauss or Goldbach. Not everyone is William Shakespeare. Some people do not possess that "gene" or talent. There are only so many Rain Man's. The hierarchy system will put down a student's true abilities, it dampens their will or motivation to reveal to the world what talent they have. If you are not good at maths, so what? You may be a fantastic actor/actress or a prodigy in music, but the education system does not allow that growth to that extent. Maths is ALWAYS the dominant subject. You may argue as much as you wish, but it is true in all societies.
So if we change the education system so that it directs the student's wishes and goals in life, enhancing the abilities that the student DOES have, then school would be more fun and entertaining, rather than a strenuous place to cram and jam information into a brain. I think we should embellish the creativity in students by making the Arts more valuable to society, more roses. The cabbages will always take care of itself due to human instinct, the need to survive, but roses need to be embellished.
I don't have too much knowledge on any education system except Australia, so I will focus on Australia. I understand the scaling system is to encourage students to pick the harder subjects, otherwise, everyone will be going for easy subjects and achieving great results. But the scaling system has such as big disparity, a gap too wide that it creates inequality within the education system and school surroundings. Picking Maths means you're smart and intelligent, not picking it means you're not. This is the stereotypical psychology that almost everyone adopts. I think this is remarkably wrong. I think dance and drama are just as important as Maths and Chemistry. Scaling them down is undermining and restricting the growth of creativity within students. We need to create a system where Drama and Dance and Music is just as valued as Maths and English. To create equality, we first of all need to abolish the scaling system or make it more equal. As far as I'm concerned, 4 unit Maths scales the most, so much in fact that it makes subjects like Dance look dead.
I still have not found the purpose of me attending school. What would my purpose have been, my goal be if I did not attend school? A sport star? The next Bill Gates? Who would know. We need to restructure education to make it more entertaining, make subjects more equal, educate more people, decreasing drop-out rates and enhancing the overall utility of education. It needs to be enjoyable and supposed to direct the student for future needs.
Not only should we be teaching students how to write, read, speak, calculate and memorize large quantities of information, we must also learn social skills, skills that will help in the future, marketing skills, and life skills. I am very supportive of people studying Community and Family Studies. It actually teaches you skills that you CAN use everyday to support a family. I mean, Maths is not going to make a family more intimate, for functional. Maths cannot take care of a child, and it certainly does not help you through meetings. I believe that people who do drama are better at these things, as they are more relaxed about meeting people, more open, expressive and positive.
I think society is not always right. The education system needs to be greatly reformed to enhance and bring forth the natural talent that students have instead of stigmatizing them. That way, there will be more educated people, combining their specialties together to prod the society into a civilization of technology and opportunity supported by creativity.
Why do I choose to go to school? Why do we all have to go to school when most of us dislike it, when there are school drop-outs? Why and when did the act of "jigging" school come into society? What was the purpose of that? What was it about the system of education that triggered people to "jig" school?
If school was interesting, fun, and entertaining, we wouldn't have people skipping classes to go down to the shops or go home. They would stay in school.
I believe that the current system of education provides no direction nor purpose to the amount of study we must go through.
I currently wish to be a secondary mathematics teacher. I wonder if I spent 13 years of my life at school to build up all the necessary knowledge and skills required to be a maths teacher. If so, then I didn't need science, didn't need to study history or geography. It seems a perfect waste of time and resource to be spending all that time on things that provide no useful outlet if I became a maths teacher. If not, then what is my direction in life? Why did I spend 13 years at school for?
The answer is to breed educated people in society. The more educated, literate and civilized people there are in society, the faster the world can expand and grow. We attempt to raise university professors and scientists and mechanics and mathematicians and physicists and chemists and lawyers and doctors and all those high paying jobs. From businessmen to congressmen. But this raises a problem. If all we are doing is attempting to raise educated people, the society will not function, unless some dramatic change could be implemented to account for the abolition of certain services, one in particular is the garbage system.
Most people I would assume just take out the trash once every week for the garbage truck to drive around and dump it elsewhere. If there were only educated people in educated professions, then the garbage system of society would collapse. So not only would you have to account for another method of towing away garbage, you also need to rethink what the education system is doing. I would agree that most people are not inclined to take their own garbage to the dump once a week. The stench is intolerable. Not only do you need people in educated professions, the people in other professions which do not require the same extent of education and degrees, are just as important.
This brings me back to my point about the purpose of education. Why is it implemented the way it is? And why is there a hierarchy of courses? It's universal. At the top are the Mathematics and Sciences, followed by English and the Social Sciences, with Information Technology next and lastly, we have the Arts, which includes dance, drama, visual arts, industrial arts and music. I think this is unfair. In society, we need cabbages AND roses. They are equally important. The cabbages will always exist in society because of natural human instincts and reactions, but we need to preserve the roses.
Because of the existence of a hierarchy, this i believe deters people from attending school. Not everyone is Albert Einstein. Not everyone is Gauss or Goldbach. Not everyone is William Shakespeare. Some people do not possess that "gene" or talent. There are only so many Rain Man's. The hierarchy system will put down a student's true abilities, it dampens their will or motivation to reveal to the world what talent they have. If you are not good at maths, so what? You may be a fantastic actor/actress or a prodigy in music, but the education system does not allow that growth to that extent. Maths is ALWAYS the dominant subject. You may argue as much as you wish, but it is true in all societies.
So if we change the education system so that it directs the student's wishes and goals in life, enhancing the abilities that the student DOES have, then school would be more fun and entertaining, rather than a strenuous place to cram and jam information into a brain. I think we should embellish the creativity in students by making the Arts more valuable to society, more roses. The cabbages will always take care of itself due to human instinct, the need to survive, but roses need to be embellished.
I don't have too much knowledge on any education system except Australia, so I will focus on Australia. I understand the scaling system is to encourage students to pick the harder subjects, otherwise, everyone will be going for easy subjects and achieving great results. But the scaling system has such as big disparity, a gap too wide that it creates inequality within the education system and school surroundings. Picking Maths means you're smart and intelligent, not picking it means you're not. This is the stereotypical psychology that almost everyone adopts. I think this is remarkably wrong. I think dance and drama are just as important as Maths and Chemistry. Scaling them down is undermining and restricting the growth of creativity within students. We need to create a system where Drama and Dance and Music is just as valued as Maths and English. To create equality, we first of all need to abolish the scaling system or make it more equal. As far as I'm concerned, 4 unit Maths scales the most, so much in fact that it makes subjects like Dance look dead.
I still have not found the purpose of me attending school. What would my purpose have been, my goal be if I did not attend school? A sport star? The next Bill Gates? Who would know. We need to restructure education to make it more entertaining, make subjects more equal, educate more people, decreasing drop-out rates and enhancing the overall utility of education. It needs to be enjoyable and supposed to direct the student for future needs.
Not only should we be teaching students how to write, read, speak, calculate and memorize large quantities of information, we must also learn social skills, skills that will help in the future, marketing skills, and life skills. I am very supportive of people studying Community and Family Studies. It actually teaches you skills that you CAN use everyday to support a family. I mean, Maths is not going to make a family more intimate, for functional. Maths cannot take care of a child, and it certainly does not help you through meetings. I believe that people who do drama are better at these things, as they are more relaxed about meeting people, more open, expressive and positive.
I think society is not always right. The education system needs to be greatly reformed to enhance and bring forth the natural talent that students have instead of stigmatizing them. That way, there will be more educated people, combining their specialties together to prod the society into a civilization of technology and opportunity supported by creativity.
Monday, March 9, 2009
A page in time.
It sometimes interests me on how the Board of Studies comes up with the syllabus...over 100 pages long. Nice reading to do there.
Anyway, seems like finally, one of my poems has gained a fair bit of popularity amongst the people I have shown it to, which is really only two people. Have to keep on working on it.
As the exams draw closer, more preparation is needed as well as study so I have no idea why I'm blogging here, don't ask.
But it seems to me that sometimes, just sometimes, that the work you do in class really has no more than 50% influence on your life. I find the most useful subjects to take are English, Maths and Legal Studies. Maybe Economics as well as Community and Family Studies. But everything else I find to be pretty useless, unless your career revolves around that, then of course, that's an exception. In the context of everyday normal living, really, you don't need to know that an acid plus a base will make a neutral solution, and you certainly don't need to find the area under a curve.
Anyway, enjoy! (whatever you are enjoying)
Anyway, seems like finally, one of my poems has gained a fair bit of popularity amongst the people I have shown it to, which is really only two people. Have to keep on working on it.
As the exams draw closer, more preparation is needed as well as study so I have no idea why I'm blogging here, don't ask.
But it seems to me that sometimes, just sometimes, that the work you do in class really has no more than 50% influence on your life. I find the most useful subjects to take are English, Maths and Legal Studies. Maybe Economics as well as Community and Family Studies. But everything else I find to be pretty useless, unless your career revolves around that, then of course, that's an exception. In the context of everyday normal living, really, you don't need to know that an acid plus a base will make a neutral solution, and you certainly don't need to find the area under a curve.
Anyway, enjoy! (whatever you are enjoying)
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