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Thursday, December 31, 2009
Where do you sit in class?
Where in the class room do you usually sit? Among us teachers, it is believed that the better students generally sit closer to the front. But is that true? I decided to test that hypothesis.
At the beginning of the semester, I took a photograph of the students in their seats in the lecture hall. At the end of the semester, after I have finished grading, I plot a graph of the overall performance of the students (vertical axis) against the distance between their seats and the lecturer (horizontal exis). Indeed, there is a noticeable negative correlation there. The closer they are to the lecturer, the better their perfomance tends to be.
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Wednesday, December 30, 2009
LXB
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Molting gecko food
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G decided to reward it by freeing it, instead of letting the geckos eat it. I guess being thrown out of the window was better than being eaten alive.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Two Seniors in 東頭邨
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How do we account for the way our lives play out? Is it due to how hard I work? How smart I am? How good a person I am? What family I was born into? Is it by merit? By luck?
Is here a purpose behind it? Of course there is. But do we know what it is?
Friday, December 25, 2009
Hong Chi - Hands on hands
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What we can do is not much. But I believe more kindness is always better than less.
Hong Chi Christmas Party
On Christmas Eve, a team of us from the department went to Hong Chi PineHill Special School again - to organize a Christmas Party for the kids there. It has become a tradition of our department by now - this is our 4th such party, I believe.
The tradition originated in 1993 or 94, when my wife took our family to visit the school at Christmas, and fell in love with the severely-handicapped pre-school kids. My family has been visiting them evey year since then. When our department got more involved in service learning, we started bringing our students to organize these Christmas Parties for them.
Ths year we have 20+ volunteers of staff and students, and there is a similar number of kids from the school. Actually the school has a lot more kids. Because their health is generally poorer, and the H1N1 is a real threat to them, the school could only allow the bigger and healthier kids to participate.
We talked to them, played with them, and had a lot of fun. Some of the kids also performed a magic show for us. The kids seemed genuinely happy. About half of them were in wheel chairs. Many could not talk. But we could see the joy in their faces.
Some of the kids we have met before recognized us. There is one boy that I first met in the pre-school section years ago. His is one of the milder cases, but he has a lot of health problems - his tongue and lips are blue most of the time. He is now in his teens and I make a point to talk to him everytime I go there.
For some of our team, it is an eye opener. To see how some people in our community are living - and suffering. It is gratifying to be able to help - even in a very small way. And it helps to make our Christmas more meaningful. Christmas is about love, after all. I can see many of our team are touched, because they keep coming back.
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Some of the kids we have met before recognized us. There is one boy that I first met in the pre-school section years ago. His is one of the milder cases, but he has a lot of health problems - his tongue and lips are blue most of the time. He is now in his teens and I make a point to talk to him everytime I go there.
For some of our team, it is an eye opener. To see how some people in our community are living - and suffering. It is gratifying to be able to help - even in a very small way. And it helps to make our Christmas more meaningful. Christmas is about love, after all. I can see many of our team are touched, because they keep coming back.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Good morning, Tsim Sha Tsui (5)
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The question is: Which is the real Hong Kong? Perhaps I am an old dinosaur, but I know what I prefer.
Good morning, Tsim Sha Tsui (4)
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Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Good morning, Tsim Sha Tsui (3)
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Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Good morning, Tsim Sha Tsui (2)
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The shadowy sky-scrapers in the backdrop appear to be floating in mid-air. We may not work in them, or be able to afford to live in them. But the view is at least available to all.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Good morning, Tsim Sha Tsui
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The chance juxtaposition of the young and old makes up a microcosm of life for some of us. We keep looking for excitement but are really lost when we are young. Only after many years of struggles do we finally learn to appreciate peace and quiet. However, by then we do not have many years left to enjoy it.
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This is the way that Tsim Sha Tsui wakes up. More on it later.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
School in the shadow
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Evidently the school building was built according to the standard design adopted by practically all the recently-constructed school buildings funded by the government. The design works in most other places. Unfortunately in this case it is smack against the backside of another school - an International School in a much more favourable location, which adopted a much more sensible design.
Evidently the government did not bother to change the standard design to adapt to the special situation. I can imagine the rationalization from the government: if the design was changed it would have incurred more expenses, which would not have been fair to other schools; and it would have taken longer, which would not have been desirable for this school, ...
I suppose we should not be surprised by this, knowing that education in Hong Kong is run by bureaucrats, not educators. And our government sees education as no different from customs, crime-fighting, corruption-fighting, running wet-markets, ... Under this philosophy, many absurdities can be justified in the name of equality and fairness. Ironically, it does not insist on equality and fairness in the selection of the Chief Executive, nor the formation of the Legislative Council.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Choking
Some students perform well in classes and homework assignments but have problems with examinations. Several years ago I had a female students who was one of the extreme cases. She was very meticulous in examinations and answered the questions well. But she took so much time on each question that she could only complete half of the questions. As a result she often performed poorly and even failed in the examinations. At the time, I could not quite understand her problem and was not of much help to her.
I undertand the problem better now, partly from Malcolm Gladwell’s article on “The art of failure - why some people choke and others panic”, in his book “What the dog saw”. Learning usually starts from explicit learning, involving a lot of conscious, deliberate, careful analysis and thinking. Then, as the learner gets better and better at it, the learning is happening more and more implicitly, unconsciously, fluidly, outside of awareness. These two learning systems are quite separate, based in different parts of the brain.
Under conditions of stress, however, sometimes the person lose trust in her honed instincts, and the explicit system takes over. That is what it means to choke. Choking is different from panicking, when someone stops thinking under pressure. Panicking is thinking too little, choking is thinking too much.
A panicking student makes wild guesses. A choker is extra careful and second guesses herself. A panicky student should work and prepare harder. Gladwell says, however, choking requires a different solution, perhaps to concern ourselves less with the performer (ourselves) and more with the situation in which the performance occurs. He maybe right, but I am still not quite sure how to do that.
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Under conditions of stress, however, sometimes the person lose trust in her honed instincts, and the explicit system takes over. That is what it means to choke. Choking is different from panicking, when someone stops thinking under pressure. Panicking is thinking too little, choking is thinking too much.
A panicking student makes wild guesses. A choker is extra careful and second guesses herself. A panicky student should work and prepare harder. Gladwell says, however, choking requires a different solution, perhaps to concern ourselves less with the performer (ourselves) and more with the situation in which the performance occurs. He maybe right, but I am still not quite sure how to do that.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Campus AV
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A student was watching AV in the library. Another photographed him watching, without his knowledge; and then posted the photograph on a popular forum. The “hero” discovered the photograph. He put up a profanity-filled posted on the democracy wall on campus. The poster was removed fairly quicky because of violations. But not before generating a heated discussion.
What does that tell us about (some of) our students?
Monday, December 14, 2009
Good Morning, Hung Hom
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