Saturday, April 28, 2007 @12:13 am
The something smart I said in the warm-up session didn't seem so smart on air afterall! sigh.
let me tell you about it.
This morning, I attended this live radio show. It was this radio show that goes from campus to campus to hold forums on various topics that goes on air live.
Station: 93.8
Topic: How relevant are the courses offered in Junior Colleges today?
We had a very interesting and panel of highly esteemed people; we were really a priviledged lot to have that kind of panel.
1) Mrs Wee (from vjc, okay, not that impressive la)
2) Prof. Kirpal Singh (Prof. @ SMU)
3) Ms. Ho Peng (Director of CDPP @ MOE [very impressive])
4) Dr. Tony Buzan (creator of Mindmaps)
5) Ms. Vanessa Fernadez (the only reason why she was on the panel was cause she's been through both JC and polytechnic curriculum)
So, before we went on air, we had this warm-up session. And as with any other typical Singaporean crowd, everyone keeps their mouth tightly shut in the beginning of such sessions. And of course, the result of such things is that someone gets arrowed to say something. As luck would have it, the producer passed the microphone to this girl who couldn't be less eloquent. She was saying such nonsense, and everyone was thinking in their heads "omg...what is she saying?! this is soo embarrassing!" So, after she finished talking, the host asked if anyone would like to say anything else. So I decided to be the heroine and save the day! I raised my hand, took the mic and said something really smart compared to what the girl had said. It was more of a 'damage-control-smart' kinda smart.
Soon after that, we went on air. So, having been kaypo and being the only one who said anything that could be considered smart, I was asked to repeat what I had just said on air. The only problem was, there wasn't any prelude to what I was going to say! So it was just my opinion of students having to take a contrasting subject out of no where!
On hindsight, I could have added a bit about how although I appreciate having to take a contrasting subject, I am aware that many people are actually having difficulties coping with it, and maybe even throw in a question about whether students can have a choice about it, rather than having it being a mandate.
But whats done, done, I can only learn from it.
As for the rest of the forum, 2 things especially stuck with me:
1) Prof. Kirpal Singh said that in an entrance interview, if a candidate was asked how he would make subjects taught less dry, and the candidate answered "just make it more wet", he would immediately take the student.
(this was in response to a question about the relevance of KI)
But to me, I feel that such an answer doesn't show that a candidate is creative or thoughtful. Rather, it shows that he is 'lame'. Maybe it won't be so bad if a candidate further elaborates on how he plans to 'wet' the subjects, but just by saying "make it more wet" itself, I don't think it garners an immediate placement. It's actually quite retarded.
2) Dr. Tony Buzan said that daydreaming is good. In fact, we should daydream all the time. But what differentiates the geniuses from the others, is whether or not they make their daydreams come through.
Another interesting thing that Dr. Buzan said:
Leonardo da Vinci once said that we should study the art of science and the science of art.
This having been said, we would all agree that everything is linked.
And if we were interested in a certain subject, because everything is linked, it would imply that we were INTERESTED in EVERYTHING.
So people, everytime you think that something is boring, start psychoing yourself with that.
I thought Ms. Ho Peng did a very good job of explaining the decisions of her department. She kinda emits an aura of authority about her too. A woman in a very high up place. Haha. Which more or less applies in a literal sense too.
Many of the questions my fellowschool mates asked, were, I thought wasted questions.
Some issues were pretty superficial, which could have been simply brought up with teachers or someone else. With such a distinguished panel, we could have given more time to better thought out questions and queries.
When time was finally up, I thought of a smart question.
There had been so much talk about JC cirriculum preparing students for jobs, exposing students to different sectors of industries. But many subjects are very broad based, and only certain topics have been picked to be in the cirriculum. Are we structuring the cirriculum based on Singapore's needs (exposing students to the side of a subject that is more relevant to Singapore [eg. molecular biology instead of human organs]) or really trying to let a student have a feel about what a particular subject has to offer and to really expose him to the options out in the world.
Alright, I shall end here with the above for you to sleep on :D
you know you love me