Chinese Independent High School

On the 16^th of November, the school of Education Nottingham went to our first school visitation to Hua Hin High School. It is Chinese independent School in Klang Valley that accommodates 2700 students.. The school is establish by teachers, parents and students. Therefore, this school is considered as a community school. The school has been offered to be apart of the government school but decline because they want to maintain their Mandarin medium.

First thing I saw when I entered the compound was the tall building of this school! It was like a skyscraper. The 9 building storeys school consists of all you need facilities. They have lab languages, science labs, a huge cafeteria, a complete facilitated library with movie rooms, escalator, a public hall, counseling centre, observatory, the biggest telescope in educational field and English Language Centre (ELC).

The school believes in instilling “Mulitple Intelligence” in their students. Therefore, the students are required to master 3 major languages of Mandarin (their mother tongue), English (globalized language), and Bahasa Malaysia (the national language). Therefore, to encourage the students to speak English. The school utilized a WHOLE FLOOR to make this language center. It was my first time to see this situation. The teachers in this programmes are supported by the British Council. This environment is very condusive to encourage students to learn ! Full packed facilities with multimedia and well-planned activities. There is also tea-time. That will be a great way for students to converse in English.

Other than that, the school has a Hin Hua Astronomy Centre. It has various information about the stars and professors of Astronomy. Other than that, on the highest floor there is a 16 inches MEADE telescope! It is the biggest telescope in the educational field! The student even mentioned that their telescope is similar to the ones in Langakawi. That to me, was very fascinating. An independent school that works very hard to complete their facilities. Nothing is stopping them !

The students in this school are very lucky. As a visitor, I was very excited about the facilities in the schoo, so the students must utilize them to the maximum. I am proud to see their strength to do good. We need more of these motivating environment. I am excited to go on other school visitations to be exposed to more school environments.


-Wily

under or low ?

Underachievement and low achievement, what does these words mean? Underachievement is where the student has the capability of passing but he/she is lacking on interest. While low achievement is a small amount of people achieving minimum skill to pass the subject; this situation usually occurs to boys other than girls.

Why are boys not passing examinations? Or achieving very low minimum grades in school compared to girls that are excelling? This is because of the type of learning styles that are not interesting enough for boys to cope in class. The subjects offered are more towards literacy, while boys are more capable in application subjects like mathematics. It is stated that this method is highly gendered because only girls can adapt and absorb to these kind of learning, boys have a lower attention span.

Other than that, the percentages of female teachers are very high in school until there’s a label of ‘feminism’ in school. It is assumed that female teachers are instilling feministic values during lessons. With the lack of male role model in their lives, these male students have less respect towards their female teachers. Although there are no concrete evidence, but it is clear that this field of studies are more favorable towards female, while males are driven to pursue science streams to become doctors or engineers.

     To overcome this gender issue, an international comparative test was held. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is done to collect and assess differences in academic performances. According to page 130 from the Education Textbook, the mean of boys and girls performances in 2001 is somehow similar according to states. This gives the perception that, although boys are not doing as well as girls but they are catching up because the gap of mean is very low.


-Wily

Experiences in visiting school...

I had visited Hin Hua High School at 16^th November 2011. This is the first time I went to another Chinese Independent School. Through my experiences in my secondary school, I felt that Hin Hua High School is much better than my secondary school. Actually, the syllabus of Chinese Independent School is almost the same but why I thought Hin Hua High School is much better than my secondary school is because of the organization of their school.

In their school, there are a lot of facilities prepared for their students. Students have opportunity to use all of the facilities in school. Other than that, compound of this school is not big enough, space of this school also do not accommodate too many students. So, they build high building to solve this problem and students have the place to practice their activities such as dragon dance, lion dance and martial art. I actually get shocked when they told me there is no field in their school. Before I visited this school, I thought all of the school must have a field but this school do not have but they still can perform well in non-academic field.

Additionally, I found the different between Hin Hua High School and my secondary school was the English Language Centre (ELC). In my secondary school, we just have English society for us to join but in Hin Hua High School, everyone have the opportunity to learn English language and they also provide an environment for students to speak in English. Through this, students are able to communicate with others by using English after they graduated. Besides that, English teacher in this school also need to attend classes before they teach in ELC, they want the teacher become more professional in this field and help students to master in this field.

This school has e-learning and my secondary school also has. Yet, I felt that this school would always use the sources they have. In my secondary school we have this source we called it moodle. Moodle is same as e-learning. We also can submit our work through moodle. The only thing was my secondary school teacher was different from Hin Hua High School teacher because they did not upload new information in moodle but Hin Hua High School teacher will always update the information and also give extra information to the students and prepare some exercises for students before their exam. Actually this is the effective way for students to learn and they also can prepare and do well in their exams.

All of these were my experiences after visiting this Chinese Independent School and it let me realized that different schools have different organization and it will influence how the schools work in a better way. Besides that, although my secondary school has a lot of facilities and compound but we did not have opportunity to use all of the school’s facilities. On the other hand, Hin Hua High School doing much better than my secondary school as they giving students opportunity to use all of the facilities. Anyhow, I’m really enjoyed when visiting this school and it let me realized that although schools’ syllabus was similar but the knowledge that students gained were different.

-Jelly-

Potatoes' experience during school visit

I had the privilege to visit one of the top Chinese private independent secondary school as part of our course and had gained much from the visit. The experience was an unusual one but an interesting one at that.

Despite having recently graduated students giving tours around the school and taking the time to answer our questions, somehow I can’t help but feel that it’s too perfect. Too good to be true and duh, of course the students have to say good things about the school! They mentioned how well equipped they are in terms of facilities, how the teachers encourage learner autonomy, how extensive the extra-curricular programmes are (pun non-intended), and how the school focuses on the Multiple Intelligence mode in terms of mastering the 3 main languages i.e. Bahasa, English and Mandarin.

There is however an acknowledgement that the school’s vision and missions are indeed impressive, being detailed and ambitious – placing the students’ welfare and need ahead. Most of their counterparts, i.e. public schools focus on becoming the top schools in their district, and raising academic scores. This school has shifted their priority and so achieving and obtaining a recognition of being one of the top secondary schools is a bonus.

It was all too perfect. Students accessing their eClass portal to do extra assessments and exercises for every single subject outside of classroom hours? Students open to learn and master 3 languages altogether despite being in a vernacular environment? Plus, I had forgotten to ask of the accessibility to all the facilities provided in the school – doesn’t mean that it’s used to the fullest if it’s there. Needless to say, from my personal point of view, it’s all too perfect.

Although it is admirable that some students aspire to achieve what the school intends to in their vision and mission, not all students feel the same way. I find the school very heavily influenced on Chinese culture i.e. it makes the school seemingly exclusive for people who are not from the Chinese community. In this environment, I find it hard to believe that the teachers would not portray any personal opinions about learning other languages especially English. What teachers feel and say in front of students can greatly affect the thinking of students.

I am most impressed that the school management takes another stand in developing the students’ academic and non-academic welfare. Providing teachers with many training courses, and putting monetary resources into infrastructural development to accommodate the increasing intake of the students and also the comfort of the staffs.

Also, I believe the school has made it clear to the students’ the benefits of participating extra-curriculum activities, which is very commendable. Regardless of the picture perfect image that was attempted to illustrate, the teachers seem to know very well the advantages to being exposed to more training courses, being reflective in their lessons as well as trying to be more student-centered in their lessons.

It’s a slow and step-by-step approach, but credits must be given to the teachers for trying to execute and the management for considering this as an important factor in an education institute. I hope that more public schools take on the role of Hin Hua Private Chinese Independent High School at Klang.

A caring teacher touches hearts

I found a video on how a teacher changes his/her students future. I realized that a teacher can change someone's lives to become the opposite to what they are in the past. This video is beautiful, I was touched. ENJOY ! :)
Impact of a Caring Teacher

-Wily

Debate 4!! Round 1*ding! ding!*

The issues of Implementing social cohesion in schools is supposed to fight against extremism but it ended up stigmatizing Asian and Muslim students. According to Preston,  white supremacy or interest of white people came before other like BME people. Schools are powerful tools used to shape up the future country leaders and citizens .

Personally, I have never faced this kind of problem as I do not stay where there are many Caucasian people but from an Asian country. However, I do realise that we look up to the Caucasians in many aspects from lifestyle to technology. I think this might make unaware of our own country's good points but focus on how we can be like the whites.

I do not believe that we should conform to the white people's way of doing things but do things especially regarding racism as my country is a multi-racial country. What I do believe in is that, we should all strive to promote harmony between races.

In real life application, I can safely say that I really have no intention of leaving my country for another  currently and i hope it will be so for the rest of my life.

-Ally-

You can make a change if you think you can!!!!

In response to Debate four about ‘Do schools contribute to social and community cohesion?’, I would say that the answer is yes to community cohesion but it depends on whether schools work towards social cohesion or not.

John Preston mentioned that schools have become the most overburdened institutions of the welfare state because the educators are playing so many roles to educate students even outside of the curriculum. Teachers will have to be responsible for the welfare being of the students as well. I hereby strongly agree to this because teachers are the ones who have more time with students besides family members. During the age of having the ability to learn and understand, the teaching of teachers could strongly impact students’ beliefs. For example, there are many foreign workers working in many countries, if the teachers teach students to be more careful of foreign workers and should stay away from them because they are uneducated, dirty and may create crimes; these students would always have this kind of perception which created community cohesion. Thus, fear, disrespect, anger and other negative emotions would arise from the students if they see a foreign worker. This would even create a stronger community cohesion which is bad for the students and also the foreign workers in that country. Due to this community cohesion, the foreign workers may feel inferior, angry and dissatisfied because they were labelled as bad and problematic people in others’ countries. Who has started to convey these kinds of messages to the public and schools? Could they not be the one who always want to secure the security of the country? These messages are being published in the media about foreign workers fighting with the citizens, foreign snatchers, house broken in by foreigners and etc. Is this how the citizen including the students is to be educated? Could harmony be achieved when there is fear, anger, disrespect of others and disgrace? I would say that there is overgeneralising and bullying of the minority.

In school, we could also see this kind of bullies and overgeneralisation in terms of nationality, race, gender, age and student’s background. There are schools with mixed cultural classroom but only the majority were given equality. Why have these been happening? Shouldn’t there be equality in education? Nietszche’s posits that ‘the ear is an unspoken key to the future of education’ which leads to the questioning of who is listening, to whose policies, and for whose benefit. Most of the cases are to the people behind who has the power and want to control the majority while ignoring the rights of the minority. Namita Chakrabarty stated that happening in schools is however happening to someone through culture. In order to change the above, Royle stated ‘Death, then, is strangely at the heart of life, of writing and of teaching’ (2003, p.51), which means there is a need of death to the historical catalysts and that is the symbol for change. It is to urge for equality and without it the death of social cohesion. I fully agree with the theory of Brecht. I agree with it because it was written as ‘…. Serving the purpose of leading its audience to a juster understanding of the society in which it lived, and so learning in what ways that society was capable of change’ (1972,p.82), whereby I do believed that there is no use to negate the problems from everyone but should let everyone know what the problems are and come out with a set of rules or solutions which is agreed to everyone to achieved harmony, social cohesion. It is due to lack of understanding of others culture, beliefs and their individual perception that one would feel that they are more superior to others. Teachers should highlights more about the strengths of others instead of just letting the students know little of others. Teachers should plan their lesson and manage their classroom well in order to build collaboration, trust and respect among the students. Could teachers do that? Yes, I believe so, as to say again what Royles have mentioned. The teachers should throw away the history of haunting teaching and must be brave, dynamic and pessimistic enough to learn and change to face and solve current classroom problems in order to change the cultural capital of the students. Therefore, the pedagogical used for teaching and the knowledge to be imparted to the students are really important.

- Eagle -

3 Ch33rs 2 T3ach3r$

I came across this link and it had completely made my entire week!


Three Cheers to Teachers

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did :)


-potatoes-

YOUnique

This is my view about the Debate 4 from the topic “DO SCHOOLS CONTRIBUTE TO SOCIAL AND COMMUNITY COHESION?”

From the 8^th edition of Oxford Advanced Dictionary social carries the meaning of connecting activities in which people meet each other for pleasure. On the other hand, cohesion is the act or state of keeping together. Social cohesion means the activities in which people meet each other for pleasure of keeping together. Social cohesion brings positive impact of keeping a group of people close to each other but too close could bring negative impact to multicultural and multiracial world to fall apart. It is believed that schools carry the responsibility to form particular community and social cohesion.

To my understanding from this debate that schools have developed students who criticises their peers and labelling them. “More recently, teachers and pupil in schools have been instructed to monitor (implicitly) Asian and Muslim students (as shown in the ‘Extremism toolkit’ recently issued to schools; DCSF,2008)”. It is unfair to label someone just because of their race or religion although they are somewhat “extremist”. But anger arose from fear. To my point of view, these rules can never abolish social cohesion through labels but it could happen with a helping hand. Help other religions and race to understand and expose them to other people. Show them that the world is harmless and we are all the same.

"Equality cannot be attained without destroying the current regime of cohesion" as stated by John Preston. Therefore, believe that educational equity needs to be allowed all over the world and everybody has to accept other people, respect, understand and contribute in the vast racial or religion community. In this country, the different races respect each other. Celebrate every occasions together, eat together and are neighbours but they do not want to understand each others’ cultural and religion. All the underlying issues are kept shut and sugar coated with goodness. Now that is the problem, not trying to understand each other. That is the reason of anger and debates going on against each other. Now this value of understanding, has to be instilled in school !

The challenges of post-modernisation are indeed, social cohesion. Especially in education, why ? because there is no consideration of various people in the same educational system. In school, we need to break the regimes and mix them up towards different troops of people from different backgrounds. As schools “indeed in classical writings on education, schooling emphasised as being centrally important in promoting the sorts of citizenship which would encourage conservative forms of social integration (Rousseau, 1991).

The government, policy-makers, ministry of education and all else that is involved needs to create a curriculum is schools that caters to every culture & regions needs. Cater to full equity so that everyone can experience the same educational system, can experience multicultural friends and is able to accept and understand each other. We can produce generations with ample amount of knowledge and morality to understand others, not like now where everyone has issues with each other.

Make the world a better place ! And it starts at SCHOOL !

-Wily-

Older siblings have higher IQs..

http://www.livescience.com/1651-study-older-siblings-higher-iqs.html



I read about this from Yahoo and would like to share with all of you here.

- Eagle -

Is there a need to be worried?

This is a response to Debate 4 Do Schools Contribute to Social and Community Cohesion? by John Preston and Namita Chakrabarty.


After reading what Preston and Chakrabarty has to say about social and community cohesion, I learned that social cohesion and community cohesion operate at different levels of aggregation and emerge from quite different historical context (Preston, 2010). And simply getting schools to educate young people towards that is like any other things we have learned so far, not easy. But then again, it is not impossible, especially if some schools are able to produce social cohesion - but these school have comprehensive systems of private schools and have low levels of school segregation.


To start of, I think humans in general have a tendency to have issues with these 5 groups of people. The C.R.A.S.H. The class, the race, the age, the sex/gender, and the handicapped/disabled. My question is quite simple, why? Why must we have issues with these groups of people? My point is, if we have no problems with them, would it be safe to say that social and community cohesion will not be problems that are needed to addressed in the first place? What more, be addressed by schools through education!


I do not have issues with the C.R.A.S.H. but I certainly have my 2 cents toward policy-makers/governments, politicians "the big boys/big brother". BUT! Putting that aside, as an aspiring teacher who wants to make a difference, I understand that I have to fully grasp the concept of the national curriculum, the syllabus, in order to address issues which the government conveniently pushes to schools to address; AND as teachers we are to make sure the school produces students who performs well academically, in their physical education, in their attitudes and encourage them to constantly ask questions to develop the ability to think critically. (Seems like a lot doesn't it?)


I presume once we carefully embed each and every one of the things or concepts we wish to impart to students in the curriculum, be it as our personal objective or the government's objective, it will be all happy-fluffy-bunny living! But, come to think of it, if I have to do ALL of that, it seems to me that in the end of the day, we can only do so much in education and the rest is not in our control.


Like what Preston said, the purposes of schools are responsible for far more than education. Which I personally, feel that it is always about increasing the grades of students year after year. Nothing more, nothing less.


I think that if all schools are able to adopt the system of other successful non-hierarchical organisations (Chakrabarty, 2010), as a result, high functioning schools can foster safe learning environment by developing respect, where it is due, in the positive relationships between staff, between staff and students, and between students. In acknowledging difference and simultaneously fostering equality, these schools develop coherence of policy and workable cohesion in the school community (ibid).


However, personally I think this can only be achieved, or at least in this country, when our government, policy-makers, politicians, and teachers understand the need for this to exist as an integral part of the curriculum and national goal so that we do not have so many issues with almost everyone.


I look forward for a clear indicator/s for my classmates and I to learn how to incorporate ALL things education in our lessons which seems to be allocated insufficient time although on the other hand it is only logical for teachers to educate young people since they spend half or more than half of their days in school.


Currently feeling a little disheartened and lost.
-potatoes-

Time fixed!!

The time has been changed to the local time.

- Eagle -

Get ready and go!!

Responding to our discussion from our tutorial lesson on the October 27^th, I would hereby answer question 2 and 3 as below: -

As from the article, we could clearly see that students from the “video game generation” want to be the leader,  recognised, take control; are perseverance, patience, responsible, motivated, individualised, and independent, risk takers, inquisitive; and like challenges, the feeling of not being discriminated, like various ways of problem solving and can be able to collaborate with others. Therefore, it is vital for teachers to know the characteristics of the students in this “video game generation” before planning their lessons. The conventional ways of teaching methods may not have any impact on these kinds of learners.

I would use methods that will engage all the students to interact in class. The learning theory of “Stimulus-Response’ and the Constructivism theory support that active participants understand better and have longer memory if they have experienced something which is related or relevance to them. I prefer paired learning, group learning, investigations and rote learning. I also would use Eraut (2000) theory to teach. I would not tell them what we are going to learn at the very beginning of the class.

For example, in order to teach singular and plural nouns, firstly, I will give them a few examples. I will show them a few pictures using power points. I choose power point because it can be organised the way I like and I can also attach pictures, audio clips and video clips on it.  This will caters the needs of different kinds of learners as mentioned by Goswami (2004). This will stimulates their sensory perception as stated by (Wood 1998).

Secondly, I will split them into pair or group and give them some time to come out with more singular nouns and write each noun on different pieces of papers. Some students can exchange ideas from what they know and some students could also learn new vocabulary. This activity will also include the characteristics of self-regulation learning. It includes the skill they have - forming information; will – affect towards learning; and self-regulation such as time management and concentration.  I will observe and guide every pair or group of students. This was what Vygotsky and Bruner called scaffold learning. Students learn from peers and teacher.

Thirdly, I will ask them to stick the papers with magnets onto any empty places on the whiteboard but not in order and facing the board. I will then explain to them the rules of changing singular nouns to plural nouns. I will place papers with ‘s’,'es’,'en’,'ee’, ‘ ves’ and ‘ies’ on a few tables at the front. Students will adapt the knowledge by listening and understanding the tasks they are going to do.

Forthly, this is the time for them to compete and use their skill and new information to match the papers from the board with the papers on the table with a time limit. The group which has the most words matched will be the winner and will be rewarded.  I will split them into bigger group with mixed level of competent students. Two members from each group will have to go to the front and the others will assist them in matching the words from the ground. This is where collaboration and challenges take place. The process of stimulus and accommodation will also take place.

Finally, at the end the class, I will assign them homework to look up for more singular and plural nouns for the next lesson. Different games will be given in the next lesson. Spelling will be given in order to let them remember the words.

In the game above, it is clear that learning through school learning will help a student to learn better because of the exposure and collaboration with students with different cultural capital. Learners without concern of any ages could learn and remember better with the early years learning theory which serves their needs. It shows that learning which triggers a few senses would be effective.

-          Eagle -



Game on !

The answers for questions 2 and three in “Evolution in the classroom : What Teachers need to know about the Video Game Generation”.

 If my students are the video game generation, I would use a more computer based learning activities. I will bring them to the computer lab and learn English trough educational computer games. There are many educational computer games in the market nowadays that provides adventurous problem-solving methods. But before that, I will explain to them clearly upon the instruction of the game, the objective of playing the game and the reinforcement they will gain at the end of the class. The games would be played individually and they are in control because from the article, I can conclude that the gamer generations want to be in command of their ‘journey’ and learning is definitely a journey they could be in control of. They too prefer rewards, and at the end of every game, there are rewards so that they not only gain knowledge, but they will also gain self-satisfaction. Other than that, I will provide these students with concrete examples such as videos or experiments so that they can trigger their senses of sight, hearing, and touch to make learning easier for them.

The learning theory of this teaching approaches that I could conclude is the Skinners “Stimulus-Response” theory because it involves triggering senses in learning. Just like the gamers generation, they want to be given a trigger to work on the problem, they will work on how to solve the problem which then lead them to an award after each task. After many trials, they learn unintentionally on the subject or values taught. The knowledge then would not have applied if the students have no skills or intelligence in different scopes. Therefore, Howard Gardner’s “Multiple intelligence” could also be implemented because different people have different abilities and intelligence and the theory shows that everyone has their own intelligence. 


-wily-

Learning through these......

This is a respond to question 2 & 3 of tutorial discussion.

If I know that my students are of the “video game generation”, I would try to motivate them through games. What I mention here is not only about the real video games that we used to play by using computer, games that I actually referring over here is kind like activities. I want them to be more interactive. Besides games, I would like to let them experience it themselves through physical activities. I noticed that some of the student they don't really understand what they doing and what the studying and even why they need to study. However, not every student find reading books is interested, they actually think that what they doing is actually dull. Therefore, I would asking them question or separate them into groups, let them discuss and answer it after my lecture.

Besides,they will actually learn many from group discussion because different people have different view and they came from different background. Then, they will learn how to build up leadership,teamwork and also how to communicate with others. According to the article “Gamers are always competing.Competition is the motivating factor.Competition does not eclipse collaboration.” thus I will put them into groups and let them to challenge with their friends and also to advance their teamwork spirit. I believe that that is the way I trying to teach them. I will say that after every lecture, conclusion is needed. They have to report after discussion, this will helps me to know how much and how in-depth they actually understand for every topic.

I believe that I'm using the Vygotsky's theory because I found that I try to teach them base on social interaction. I let them try to understand it by doing experiment and also discussion with their friends then only I explain or giving them opinion on it. I will also help them when they get confuse on something. This theory also engage in collaborative learning. I believe that by doing these method I trying to teach them, they will learn it and wouldn't feel bored during the class.

-Jelly-

N00b teacers L2p 2 becom3 3133ts

Viva la Tetris!

OK! Getting on with the serious stuff.
Answering question 2 and 3 of tutorial discussion....

         If i knew that my student come from the video game generation, then I would try to make my classes more interactive. I would like to use reciprocal teaching strategy as it would allow my students to take charge of the class with my guidance as a facilitator, this would hopefully motivate them to participate  in class as they will have a sense of responsibility and belonging. Together with that I would pair this with Pavlov's reward system used to condition and reinforce students to keep up the good work.
         However, I believe that I have to modify these theories a bit to fit better to my students. For example, I would reward the student with candy,praise or score points when they have answered a question correctly. To make it more challenging for the students, I would try to use a game-like scoring system to encourage and challenge my students. I could also place them in groups to encourage teamwork and to make things fair I would randomly call up students to answer questions, in the event that they could not answer it I would give them hints or clues.
          I would use Howard Gardners theory of multiple intelligence theory, as I believe that all students are smart although not in the same areas. Discovering what are their weakness and helping them develop it. using creative and interesting ways of teaching a subject but still keeping to the basics of giving them a concrete example of what they are learning. Also, relating the information learned with real life situations. Methods such as role plays and simulations are good but  i would also like to bring the students out of the classroom to really experience real life  situations. By doing this the students will be able to relate and understand the objectives of the lesson and plan the right way to approach their goals.


By the way, do you find computer jargon annoying? Because I most certainly do

-Ally-

A star overnight?

Responding to chapter seven about views of intelligence, it could be argued that culture and education strongly affect a person's intelligent. Francis Galton (1822 – 1911) argued that intelligence is inherited; Raymond B. Cattell (1905 – 1998) & John Horn (1928 – 2006) stated that intelligence develops by learning and Luria (1976) claimed that intelligence influence by a person's culture.

Obviously we could see that intelligence is not something which we can easily measure. I strongly agree with the few theories above except heredity. I have met families whereby their parents or parent were not swift in thinking and interacting but their children were born to be very active and clever since young. There are also parents who are genius but their children were not born that way. Therefore, it could be argued that a person's intelligence could probably inherited but not definite.

In order to assess someone with IQ test, there are many factors that we should look into. The background and the culture of a person are very important. For example, a child who is always alone and play with a few toys would not be as intelligent with another child who is always with his family and have abundance of toys and electronic products to play with. If the test is to examine the IQ of both children based on toys and electronic products, the second child will definitely has higher IQ than the first child.   

The Eastern and the Western countries have different kinds of culture. If we are to put people from East and West together and test their IQ, what kinds of question should we create? Based on Eastern or Western or even Asian? For example, if we are to test the children with chopsticks, the Chinese will be having the highest intelligence and the Western will be the lowest. If the question asks about spoons and forks, the intelligence level will be opposite. We could clearly see that cultural effects intelligence.

Finally, I believe that it is through learning and a person's experiences that intelligences will be developed. I don't think that a person will adapt in learning something automatically after he/she has saw someone doing something. For example, everyone can draw a circle. Have we ever taught that how long one has taken to learn how to draw that circle? How many eggs or bubbles have they drawn in order to get to draw a circle? If a child has learn and practices to draw circles for a month but another has just learned  for two days, could it be fair that we test them on drawing circles and measure their intelligence?

Therefore, I would like to conclude that even though intelligence could be inherited, however, it depends on the scope of learning, culture and how much a person is exposed to others and situations. People' intelligence should not be measured if these kind of circumstances are not being taking into consideration.

- Eagle -

Nothing but the truth

 

For few days in class, I have thought about what the differences between Intelligent and talent are, intelligent and intellect are and why IQ test is needed in education. It could be argued that how many per cent Intelligent Quotient test influents our life.

Many people say that none and do not believe the result of the IQ test since they have their own skills, which means people have their own talent individually therefore they could say that we are intelligent in our own skills – multiple intelligences. According to the theory of multiple intelligences (written by Howard Gardner; 2007), there are eight kinds of intelligences; however, it does not mean IQ. It is more like talents.

“Intelligent” can be used for human and animals. It also has several synonyms; clever, bright, and brilliant and more. For example, if someone says, “My dog John is intelligent.” he means that his dog is clever. It does not mean that his dog is skilful or his dog has a lot of knowledge. But if I say that he is an intelligent man. It means something different – he is a clever man or he is skilful and has wisdom through his experiences. However, the word “intellect” cannot be used for animals since they do not have knowledge as human. At this point, you will be curious of what I am talking about now. Yes, I am talking about the Intelligent Quotient (IQ) test. The IQ test is just to figure out who are the slow learners and the fast learners or enough clever to study, thus do not upset by the result of the IQ test although your result was below 80. It does not include your “intellect” or your multiple intelligences.

Therefore, people were wondering whether the test is necessary for us or not. Many people believe that it isn’t necessary for us. Then, why the IQ test has been doing so for. In my studies, I figure out that from the very beginning, when teacher taught students, they needed kind of IQ test to distinguish between slow learners and fast learners because students’ number had been rapidly increased, after that there appeared different abilities of students studying in a class. It is quite reasonable because when teachers teach students, they should consider the students’ level and also to use different teaching method to teach them. Kinds of these tests have become so-called Intelligent Quotient test. However, it is not a perfect theory - how can we measure human’s abilities of the brain by just number?  Therefore, other theories appeared to complement; multiple intelligences and Structure of Intellect: SOI (Guilford)

Finally, I want to ask you. Are you a student? Are your children students now?

If your answer is “yes, I am or yes, they are”, which means you and they are intelligent.

Shortly, say that you and they are clever enough to study. However, although IQ test does not involve human’s life, some people, and some countries have practiced it. Additionally, human would be checked D.N.A test to know their intelligences someday. After happen, I do not want to imagine that.

-Too2second-

Discriminate hate, spread the love !

I would like to present my point of view about social classes and educational development of students. Firstly, from chapter “Education and Social Class” it has occurred to me that there are unfair situations between Middle Class and Working Class society.  The Education Act of 1944 to 1988 have made a curriculum whereby the “11 plus” examination is the way to determine the type of school an individual will enter. And the Grammar school at the time was a great school to be in (Floud, Halsey and Martin,1966). I was definitely shocked how the Working Class society that scored similar to the Middle Class society but they were not chosen to enroll into the particular school because of their social classification.

That is what we call discrimination ! In the modern days of 2011, could you imagine this situation happening again ? Believe in or not, it does ! As an example, there was an educational organization for students that seemed very effective. As a normal, knowledge thirsty student everyone signed up for it. But the organization picks the student to enter their programme based on an entry exam. After the announcement of the intake of students, it is discovered that only the students that scored well in their current exam were enrolled because they are “clever students” or because these students “have potential” to excel in their studies. But what about the other students that scored less ? Don’t they have potential ? What proof is there to classify them as not clever students ?

The problem now from my point of view is that, the society passes the wrong values to other generations. They are reproducing generations that are only “academically successful”. That is where cultural reproduction comes in the picture. Can you see  that students who are academically clever are always the ones given the chance to pursue their studies or given funding for research but the others are neglected without giving a chance for them to explore their other abilities. Yes, they might not be good in science or maths. But they might be excellent in language or arts. For that situation, the academically clever student thinks that they are better than the others. Because of the Cultural Capital we insulate in them. By praising them, they might be better at one thing only.

You see, in this world people has to be given Equity. Equity is giving different mediums to different people so that they are given the same chance in life as other people. When equity is given, equality will be achieved. When different people are given the different chance to explore themselves in different areas. They can be “as successful” as Scientist or Doctors. As long as they are happy doing their job. Wouldn’t the world be a happy place if everyone is equal ? Everyone receive their part of the help ? Wouldn’t the world be a happy place if everyone feels fairness ? No discrimination ! Just happiness, given equity and equality is achieved !

Happy Equity ! Without no boundaries.

-Wily-

Mr & Mrs Intelligent

Based on chapter 7, The Intelligent Quotient (IQ) test is a test to “measure” the amount of Intelligence of a person by logical thinking tests. But how far or how true is that ? What is the meaning of intelligence ? Even after 100 years, the word has no specific definition  (Győri & Fülöp, 2010). So fair to call a person who scored better academically as “An Intelligent person” ? I reckon not, because intelligence has many factors or scopes. Social intelligence ? speech intelligence ? academic intelligence ? Spatial intelligence ? Naturalistic intelligence ? and the list goes on.

If you call a person who has a higher education degrees, masters, PhD as intelligent then hat about the people who did not have the chance to pursue their studies ? Let me put it this way, to my personal experience is that the “Academically intelligent” beings are mostly intelligent on papers. Yes, they’ll take time to practice and make their thoeoritical education as practical but the working peoples who use their knowledge practically knows much more ! Their intelligence are for real life situations. For survival skills. Like our grandmothers, they can wipe up a meal ! So exquisite, better than the hotel chefs without “formal Chef school education”

Different people have different capability and we all know it. And if we look at the scope of “Theory of Multiple Intelligence” by Howard Gardner (1983), we are all intelligent in different scope ! And as discussed that intelligence depends on many factors like cultural issues that different country comprises different values of education and if you can’t score well in another countries’ exam. Fret not, you’re not “not intelligent”, you’re just not use to their cultural issues.

The home environment that contributes to intelligence is the fact of family sculpture. How parents and other family members injects education and general knowledge to their child. How they develop their children’s logistic thinking. The parents pay a very high contribution in their child’s IQ because they are the earliest input the child has before formal education. But as the child’s age increases and they started getting formal education, the genetic background can be mediator between family’s intellectual influences (Mackintosh, 1998) but IQ also decreases without education (Mackintosh, 1998).

What I can grasp from the lesson of intelligence that it can be influenced by environment but intelligence is a something very broad and subjective. It has no specific meaning to the term, and it is not fair to label somebody as “intelligent” just because they know more in one scope because human beings have their special abilities and their own capability to think. And what I can conclude that, whatever figure that is shown in the IQ test does not give a significant meaning to anyone’s lives.

-Wily-

The fountain of youth has grown rather old.

How about the fountain of intelligence?

Based on chapter 7 of our text book, I have gained ... intelligence!

But what exactly is intelligence?Well... according to the text book:

"Unfortunately, during the last 100 years nobody has been able to build a comprehensive,scientifically coherent construct of intelligence."(Győri & Fülöp, 2010)

Great!..So we don't know what intelligence is exactly but somehow we hear people say

"Oh, you're so intelligent!"

I really wish I could ask people how would they define intelligence but I can't so I shall try to wrap my head around this. Here goes!!--->


I figured that intelligence is viewed very differently by different people because of background. I have gathered that Intelligence comes by genetics and is affected by environment and it is always increasing according to James Flynn. Factors such as family, education, gender, ethnicity and culture all affect intelligence which encompasses cognitive development.


From my own personal experience, relating to how gender affects our scoring, I find it true as most of my male friends are much better than my female friends at subjects such as physics. However,God is fair to everyone, I find that my female friends have a much better command of English compared to the males. Unfortunately or fortunately this situation does not necessarily mean that all boys are better at physics than girls and all girls have a better command of English compared to boys.


During the Learners and Learning module, if I were to relate that cognitive development is overall intelligence then, I can see how some of the factors stated in the first paragraph would affect the overall intelligence development. I understand how culture affect the overall intelligence development but I do not get how ethnic group differences could affect it. I don't think that overall intelligence development has anything to do with being a different race. I would classify it under culture and genetics more than ethnicity.


Knowing different views of intelligence has *as cliche as this sounds* given me a broader view on how intelligence is perceived by others as well as made me think of why and how factors such as family, culture and environment could actually affect cognitive development. Relating these new information to my own self, I understand better now why I did better at certain subjects in school and why there are certain concepts which I just can't grasp.


~Signing off to go on a quest for the Fountain of Wisdom!~


-Ally-

"Mean-memorising-machines"

After reading both chapters on Intelligence and How do Students Learn, I must say, that it is still not easy to explain and measure the concept of intelligence. As for the learning styles of students and the framework which schools and learning theories provide, it really still is constantly changing, evolving and there really isn't a one-size-fits-all concept for teachers to complement learning. Oh how abstract the things we learn and attempt to comprehend!


Personally, I think one of the greatest and accidental achievements that the Malaysian government did and is still doing, is creating mean-memorising-machines. Receiving was all there is. Or mostly is. Regurgitating was what that lead to good grades and hence "producing" intelligent/smart students because s/he was able to answer the question "correctly".


What stroked me the most while reading about Jean Piaget's contribution to cognitive development is that "What kind of education do you want our children to have? How would you want your children to learn? Do you want them to learn things they are already known and [re]present them to the society to be perceived as knowledgeable?...or we want them to learn how to be creative and innovative and challenge what already exist, to question and discover?" Powerful stuff.


I think that the curriculum has be designed for meaningful purposes and clear objectives. Unfortunately, most of the time when it comes to the delivery, it seemed to be "teaching" for the sake of it. Just "learn" it, and answer it "this way" in your exam to score. And often enough, students follow and they score. And are perceived as being smart. I think that the testing system is fine, because you have to know whether the students have been listening, but to only accept one answer and no other perspective makes the curriculum very (very) rigid. How do you know that they understood? How do you know that they are really learning? They could have memorised the answer or the explanation for all you know! Learning does not take place here. Nor does teaching. That's why pedagogy knowledge is essential for teachers to represent what they know.


Perhaps I'm being too sceptical. But this is what my experience has led me to believe. I do hope that there is another side to this coin - isn't it for everything else? I'm willing to learn and embrace the other side, but don't expect me to just accept it~ I'll be questioning, trying to make sense of it and putting my trust that it will turn out different in the future for education to make an impact that we are all indeed intelligent - all in our own ways, and we all learn, till thy kingdom come by stepping out of the box for a moment, ponder on it, question and learn - be it by experience or by what other people say. Only then, I believe, is true learning.


-potatoes-