Expert raises doubts over 'growth mindset' phenomenon

Posted to Facebook on 18/1/2020 at 10:13 AM
Comme nting on :Expert raises doubts over 'growth mindset' phenomenon"
https://www.theage.com.au/education/schools-will-dump-it-expert-raises-doubts-over-growth-mindset-phenomenon-20190913-p52r5d.html

Many years ago, a senior staff (in position) at Box Hill TAFE told me that I was not just a teacher, but an educator. There is a big difference between a teacher and an educator.

A teacher is one who knows the content, and presents the information to the students, while an educator makes relationship more important than content, and is proficient in all kinds of strategies including differentiation, meaningful and authentic assessments, etc.

While Edward De Bono promulgated Lateral Thinking, I like to go one dimension further and call myself a Spherical Thinker. Lateral Thinking implies 2-dimensional thinking, while Spherical Thinking goes far beyond the present accepted theories and arguments by the experts, and look into space, time dimensions, and abstract concepts. A Spherical Thinker is more open-minded, and listens to the views of the skeptics.

To be a Spherical Thinker, one acquires knowledge from as many sources as possible, in whatever form the knowledge is delivered. The knowledge is multi-discipline, spanning from ordinary sciences to cosmology, from supply and demand curve of economy to real life poverty, from Genghis Khan extending his empire border to European side of Russia to business partnering in globalisation.

Thank you for reading.

Expert raises doubts over 'growth mindset' phenomenon

Your stubborn child might just turn out to be more successful and wealthier, but lonely

Posted to Facebook on 18/1/2020 at 9:18 AM
Commenting on "Your Stubborn Child Might Just Turn Out To Be More Successful And Wealthier, Says Study"
https://understandingcompassion.com/articles/your-stubborn-child-might-just-turn-out-to-be-more-successful-and-wealthier-says-study/

Your household may not have boundaries, but the society at large has.

You may pamper them when young, but others can’t tolerate theIr behaviour when they become adults.

They may turn out to be successful and wealthy, but they may be very lonely too.

Many psychologists may not live the day to witness what stubborn children turn out to be when they grow old and live in aged care homes. These turn out to be the biggest pain to the carers.

Even when they become demented, they may not eat and spit out the food if they do not like it, and behave just as stubborn children as they once were.

Many children become as successful as any stubborn children when they turn adulthood. Obviously, the term success must be defined in a broader sense. A stubborn person may be a success in one field but regarded as complete failure in many aspects.

A child suffering from Asperger's Syndrome may be regarded as stubborn, but many of them turn out to be someone with totally unacceptable behaviour in a social environment. These may have IQ well over 140 or 180.

The real world does not pamper anyone, and therefore stubborn children that receive unacceptable level of attention may not survive easily when merge with the real people.

It is important to realise that motivation comes from within. No one can motivate another person if the recipient is a stubborn mule.

Thank you.

Your stubborn child might just turn out to be more successful and wealthier

My Story - What did my nephews learn by watching Superman II with me?

Posted to Facebook 9/1/2020 at 10:37 AM
My Story - What did my nephews learn by watching Superman II with me?

My wife and I hosted a dinner for in-laws of the same generation, my nephews and grandnephew.

My nephews are no longer young boys; three finished their university last year, and one will be in Monash this year.

More than a decade ago, two nephews live close-by, and they came with their parents to our house often. Although we do not have children, my love for children is no less than many parents. No matter how busy I was, I would stop doing whatever I was doing, and spent time with any young child coming to visit me.

I had watched Superman II with these two nephews at least 10 times. It was their favorite. Do they still remember the time I spent with them? I bet ya, they do, although not in entirety.

It was the same video tape, same story, but every time they walked away with different understanding and new knowledge. The following is what they learnt, but the list is not exhaustive:

1. Location of Niagara Falls of Canada (geography)
2. Reason for water falling downwards (gravity in science)
3. Explosion of planet Krypton (chemistry)
4. Clark Kent as a report (role of reporter) secret identity as Superman
5. Superman flies to rescue the child fallen off the barrier (speed - maths and flight - science)
6. Superman takes Lois Lane to his Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic (geography, formation of ice geology)
7. Superman flies alongside a Jumbo jet (air flow, and speed of sound, physics)
8. Superman files to Eiffel Tower (History of the Tower, general knowledge about the weight and height of tower, construction material used) in Paris, France (geography)
9. Criminals try to destroy the Tower (law and order)
10. Criminals force the President of the United States (role of a President) to surrender on behalf of the entire planet (explain what a planet is) during an international television broadcast

All three of us enjoyed the movie, and as many people put it, it was our bonding time. I believe many adults would have walked away if their children asked to watch the same movie again and again.

Thank you for reading.

A Lesson on Earthquake for a 5 Years Old

Posted to Facebook on 9/1/2020 at 5:14 AM
A Lesson on Earthquake for a 5 Years Old

A Lesson on Earthquake for a 5 Years Old

My grandnephew came with his grandpa and grandma from Sydney to stay with us in Melbourne for a few days. He is just over 5 years old, very intelligent and inquisitive. He likes to see and feed my gold fish in the pond.

On the day he arrived, he observed the crack in our kitchen ceiling, and was very persistent to find out why it was there.

Grandaunt (my wife) told him that there was an earthquake (earth tremor) in Melbourne sometime ago that caused the crack. Grandaunt also showed him another crack in the laundry. However, grandaunt could not satisfy his curiosity nor explained in simple terms what earthquake is.

That's how I was assigned the task to explain what earthquake is and the trail of disasters could leave behind after an earthquake.

I Chromecast some YouTube videos about earthquake from my iPad to the television.

To explain earthquake, he needs to understand the some basic terms such as world, Earth, globe, and country. He has a globe at home, and he can name some countries, including Australia, China, and India.

Then I proceed to explain that he lives on planet Earth, and the hard surface of the Earth is known as crust.

I ask him to look out of different windows and describe what he sees on the surface. I highlight that the surface is made out of different patches of things and plants.

He can imagine each patch is kown as a plate. Since the plates are not glued together, the joints that can be seen are known as faults.

Unlike different sections of the plants which can grow into another without causing trouble, the Earth plates can move and crash into other plates. When a crash happens, and it creates an Earthquake.

The severity (how disastrous) of the earthquake depends how hard the plates crash with one another. I showed my grandnephew the pressure pushes up parts of the crust causing a lot of damage including the collapse of houses, loss of power, destruction of roads, death of humans and animals.

The people on the streets have to hold on to something, some cars and buses stopped in the street and appeared to be dancing sideway, things in supermarket shelves are thrown everywhere onto the floor, things and paper in an office or home slide off the table and fall onto the ground.

When there is no electricity, it is dangerous to move around at night, and hospital cannot help others to get well.

Although the lesson is on Earthquake, I take the opportunity to show some video clips on recent bushfires. I make sure he understand not to play with fire, and not to allow his friends to play with it, too.

Should he notice a fire starts to burn something abnormally, he has to inform an adult nearby, or call 000, asks for fire engine, and clearly states his home address, or the address where the fire is.

I resume my lesson on earthquake. I explain that if an earthquake happens in an an ocean, it can create big waves. These waves are known as Tsunami. it can be as high as a ten-storey building, and moves towards the shore, damaging houses, flooding the streets, people and cars floating on top, bringing down power line and no electricity. Even ambulance cannot drive around to rescue people.

By now, he has enough for the day. There will be a revision on the spelling of some of terms used. He likes to have a lesson on volcanoes and mountains.

Why not use my step-by-step material and teach your 5 years old or young students?

Thank you for reading.

Texas students will have to learn cursive again starting this fall

Posted to Facebook on 31/12/2020 at 9:16 AM
Texas students will have to learn cursive again starting this fall
https://www.11alive.com/article/news/education/texas-students-will-have-to-learn-cursive-again-starting-this-fall/269-b243d43a-403b-46eb-b8e4-7bb7b1249a69

Many primary school students can't write the normal style properly - with the correct proportion within two parallel lines.

I make this statement not without evidence - I volunteer in Prep, Year 4 and Year 5 one day every week in 2019.

It is not a matter of learning, but doing it properly from the start! Furthermore, it is important to arouse the interest of the students to learn, because they can't see the value of using cursive writing. No computer, tablet and mobile "write" cursively.

Unfortunately, many teachers have very horrible hand-writing!

In my opinion, cursive writing should be promoted and taught as part of art subject.

PS I was a professional cake decorator, used to "write" stylistically on top of cake surfaces by squeezing icing through a writing tube.

Thank you for reading.

Texas students will have to learn cursive again starting this fall

'Chill Greta, Chill!': Trump mocks Greta Thunberg a day after she is named Time's Person

Posted to Facebook on 13/12/2020 at 4:02 AM
Posted to The Age (13/12/2019) on 13/12/2019 (Not published by the newspaper)
Commenting on "'Chill Greta, Chill!': Trump mocks Greta Thunberg a day after she is named Time's Person"
https://www.theage.com.au/world/north-america/chill-greta-chill-trump-mocks-greta-thunberg-a-day-after-she-is-named-time-s-person-of-the-year-20191213-p53jkm.html

Please explain, Greta. Why did heat wave happen around the world in 1896, including NSW temperature reaching 49 degrees Celsius? Was it a climate change phenomenon caused by carbon emission from coal power stations and burning fossil fuel more than 200 years ago?

Does Greta Thunberg realise many renewable energy generators are difficult to maintain and may even cause further climate change in the long run? To maintain its efficiency, a solar panel surface especially at the dusty outback, needs to be cleaned with clean water, which is a waste of precious resource no matter where.

Wind turbines in large number are more than likely to disrupt normal air flow, thus creating a different kind of climate change, possibly leading to more frequent occurrence of twisters and cyclones.

Greta, many things are easier said than done!

Thank you for reading.

Trump mocks Greta Thunberg a day after she is named Time's Person

Governments, business 'misleading' on climate, teen activist Greta Thunberg said

Posted to Facebook on 12/12/2019 at 2:03 PM
Posted to The Age (11/12/2019) on 12/12/2019 (Not published by newspaper) Commenting on "Governments, business 'misleading' on climate, teen activist Greta Thunberg said"
https://www.theage.com.au/world/europe/governments-business-misleading-on-climate-teen-activist-greta-thunberg-said-20191211-p53j5i.html

I shall keep my comment brief, as I am writing an article debunking what many climate scientists and speakers have been claiming that the climate change will cause mass extinction.

Back in 25 January 1896, NSW experienced 10 days of heat wave, with maximum temperature reaching 49 degrees celcius, killing 437 people. In August 1896, North America experienced the same, and 1,500 were killed. Even we add up all the people killed by heat wave, it was nothing compared with the number killed by manmade wars. Resilient human beings survived, otherwise I won't be writing this comment.

What happened after 1896? Mother Earth temperature dropped back, and fluctuated as normal.

Emission control is not the panacea to solve the climate problem. If one searches information about fluctuating weather via Google or similar, one will find there were many recorded history on heat wave.

Was carbon dioxide the culprit, and should be left in the ground? If so, we the human beings should be all buried 6-foot under and leave this planet to anaerobic organisms or anaerobes that do not require oxygen for growth. Human beings consume oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide.

Although the adage says, "prevention is better than cure", I would argue that prevention is just a bandaide approach, while cure puts the end to the problem.

Have scientists, NOT climate scientists, been tackling how to remove existing excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and from any emission in power production?

Vaccine is good for prevention, but we need drugs or medication that boast the immune system and white blood cells to kill the bacteria and germs.

The recent volcanic eruption in White Island releases a lot heat, toxic gases and dust that can distort the atmospheric conditions. This is the effect of one small volcano. What if we take into consideration of all the spectacular volcanic eruptions around the world?

Mother Earth and climatic disruption by the influence forced upon us by other terrestial bodies in the universe cannot be ignored, and the buck should stop there.

Thank you for reading.

Governments, business 'misleading' on climate, teen activist Greta Thunberg said