Tuesday, November 29, 2011 @11:41 am
href="http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1168117/1/.html
1) Targetted at pre-schoolers because they can absorb the most
-they will learn, but with diminished use in the subsequent schooling years, they will lose it all
--> try to instill passion in the language, so they will hold onto it even as they are not required to use it so much
-also, if it becomes too difficult, parents will complain
--> screw the parents, but you won't so, teach the parents together (like how you do for models in maths? haha)
2) Discipline of SAP schools
-there's almost absolutely no difference today, kids are just as carefree
-->Post pre-school
3) Teach certain subjects in mother tongue perhaps (e.g. health ed, moral ed etc.)
Otherwise, it'd just be a waste of $100m when the kids forget everything.
Monday, November 28, 2011 @1:37 am
This post has recently been shared by some friends on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2611370894344&set=a.1250784560536.2038240.1557165764&type=3&theater
It is a little bit of a Washington Post article done some years ago:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html
A world renowned classical musician playing at a metro station during peak hour. People wonder why such beauty is not recognised and appreciated.
Many blame it on 'the modern world'.
While there may be some merit in that people actually have places to go and things to do, they could surely have afforded a minute or a half.
I think there is a much simpler answer- people just don't know how to appreciate classical music.
The children all strained to see where the music was coming from. The adults who stopped 'knew' classical music or played the violin themselves. The children will grow up conditioned to popular culture, like all the rest of the adults who walked by without even a glance. The initial beauty the children recognised will be later treated as something incomprehensible and unfashionable. If you ask them to watch an opera, they'd probably rather die (apologies for the hyperbole).
It is not that people cannot appreciate good music. There have been many epic 21st century pieces that are just as musically brilliant and invoke just as passionate emotions as the music of the centuries past.
E.g. The theme song of Pirates of the Carribean / Phantom of the Opera etc.
The genius and beauty of these pieces are undeniable, and they are widely appreciated. Musically (technically), they are not so much different from the 'old' pieces. What I think the difference is, it that they have been immortalised by the films, and have been 'made cool'.
Will my friends who shared the article actually stop to notice the 'beautiful things in life' more? In order for them to do that, they will have to first be educated about what 'beautiful things' are. Or perhaps, even more fundamentally, they have to first be less pre-occupied about appearing 'cool'.
One might then argue that beauty is subjective. Yes, it is very much in the eye of the beholder- that is true for the fringe stuff. But I believe there are certain 'objective beauties' that are as obvious to everyone as the moral value that 'murder is wrong'.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 @5:54 pm
legal theory ah legal theory...
you were supposed to make me question my assumptions and beliefs
i thought i knew what you were talking about
i prepared and i pondered
in the end, it's still a demoralising exam done
when i know it was as unsatisfactory an answer as i could have written
when then grades come
i'll know exactly why
bleh
@2:29 am
People's reactions to the news of constitutional education being introduced in school is popping up on facebook.
A good number of them have been very cynical, and mostly concerned about the students learning about the constitution on the government's terms.
Don't teach: accused of playing on ignorance
Teach: accused on brainwashing
Many people need to stop being cynical for the sake of it/because they think it's cool.