Category: 学

not strictly school testable content

exam success but professionally mediocre #XR#CNA late bloomer

Posted on by tiger40490

k_miswanting_blindFOMO

XR,

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/psle-results-role-models-late-bloomers-beat-the-odds-568471  is a Channel News Asia commentary I read when receiving my son’s Primary School Leaving Exam results. Some of the words resonated with me.

“What’s wrong with being average?”

“The stories we tell ourselves matter. For once, I would like to see attention given to folks, who scored, for instance, 270 (something like top 0.2%), for PSLE, sharing that they are now working at an unimpressive job, but that their professional and social status doesn’t bother them”

Most of the top students I know in my career are not _that_ successful in terms of leadership, tangible (non-financial) achievements, or compared to your income. I think most of these top students turned out mediocre (普通人). I like to talk about these stories every time I discuss top schools and top students.

Many parents tell the late bloomer stories, but those stories drive home the wrong message (see the CNA article). I want to be different — I like to talk about the exam-success-but-mediocre-professional stories. These are the most powerful and valuable stories, like the kid at the end of [[Emperor’s new clothes]]. They reveal a startling truth about exam success.

(intellectual) lifelong learning .. Instead of exam success, you once pointed out a truer measure of learning capacity. I notice the same point in various articles — lifelong learning habit is a more accurate predictor of a person’s learning capacity. Those who keep learning throughout their lifetime .. tend to end up with better learning outcomes.

Note lifelong learning is related to, but not correlated with, late-bloomer. Late bloomers have tenacity, resilience, life-long self-improvement, but they may not be lifelong “learners” in terms of bookish knowledge.

My father and I are examples of lifelong learners — we both keep reading/writing, and we implicitly benchmark ourselves against fellow learners.

On a side note, I don’t even think top exam scores equate to academic achievement. High school and lower-grade exams are all about knowledge, repetitive practice, not research, not innovative, not ground-breaking, not even close to the frontier of human knowledge. My father wrote 20+ academic books, some ground-breaking. High-school top exam takers can’t write a single research paper … until they shift focus off the exams.

standardized tests [SAT/ACT++]: debate

Posted on by tiger40490

http://rankingwatch.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-great-acceleration.html is one blogger’s observation

Standardized testing has long been a problem here. Tests like the SAT, ACT, GRE, LSAT, and GMAT  are good predictors of academic ability and cognitive skills but they invariably give better scores to Whites and East Asians than to African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans.

For many years there have been repeated demands that American universities abandon objective testing for admission and placement. One element in these demands was the observation that there was a correlation between family income and test scores. This was attributed to the ability of rich white parents to provide expensive test preparation courses for their  children.

There was an element of hypocrisy in these claims. If test prep courses were the cause of racial differences why not just make them a required part of the high school curriculum or pay the test center fees and travel costs of low-income students? The failure to propose such measures suggests that everyone knows that this is not really the cause of racial or social achievements.

 

##G3deep一叶障目 misperception

Posted on by tiger40490

k_soul_search

Abraham Maslow explored perceptionOfReality in self-actualization. I like the concept of perceptionOfReality [and 一叶障目/ tunnel vision], but this blogpost is likely to remain forgettable, unless we overinvest mental energy to make it slightly less forgettable.

— one of the deepest, most prevalent and poisonous mis-perceptions is the wrong peer group

Brank is not something I absolutely NEED in order to feel completely satisfied with my life.

OC-effectiveness is not for my role.

— BMI=sole yardstick

== The above are some of the most acute pains, where I need “1stAid” ==
— Another deep-rooted mis-perception is the count of ‘burn’ hours in my spare time. See beating up myself over fuck`ROTI

This prejudiced perception/framework has long dominated my weekend planning, my self-review, … but is it holistic or even fair?

— most  erosive, decimating mis-perception in my psychological “system” is PIP, the fixation on the one manager’s assessment of me. This one manager (such as deMunk) can override all of my colleagues + other managers combined. More fundamentally, this person’s view wipes out my self-assessment. 一叶障目.
— m2m return as the only yardstick in equity investment
— China dating fixation on 1) 身高 and 2) 文化背景.
— parents’ fixation on benchmark exams
— net worth, top schools

— necessity for car ownerhip in Sgp

broad-stroke characterizatn @学业/HK-expert #wife

Posted on by tiger40490

In broad strokes, I used to describe my wife as notHighlyEducated, but today (X’mas 2021) I told a NCH counsellor “Actually she has a diploma and worked as a preschool teacher, so I was wrong to say she was not well educated”.

In broad strokes, I always described my sister as … not a strong student and didn’t go to a top school. In reality, in some subjects she was possibly a strong student. These details are missed in the broad strokes.

In broad strokes, my wife described boy’s P5/P6 teacher as “graduated from RGS”. She also described LZ.Yu’s 2 gifted kids as NUS-High top students. Well, I don’t know what prestigious college branding they would get in the end.

In broad strokes, I tend to assume international students are more motivated in colleges.

I feel in East Asian societies, such characterizations are powerful and effective, because people are very used to hearing/reading them. The general pubic don’t (care to) know that Princeton/Harvard are not so strong in Comp Science research, so broad stroke characterizations favor the big brands.

— my kids
In broad strokes, I used to describe my son as average in Math, but in late 2021 I realized he is above average (among his cohort) in math, either in Singapore or across developed countries. My broad strokes are too broad .. those characterizatios were implicitly based on myself and the China students either at his age or my age.

In broad strokes, I used to describe my son’s Chinese as very weak, due to effort deficiency. Now I think his speaking/reading skills are well-above average in his Singapore cohort. His writing is not as bad as my earlier characterization. Those Broad strokes are misleading.

In broad strokes, I often describe my daughter as strong in Ch/En but not so strong in math. The latter characterization is possibly unfair to her.

— self-characterization .. In broad strokes, I always describe my math/physics as strong; I used to portray my academic image as “top student up to high school”, but after the UChicago renaissance, I can reuse the broad strokes “top student from primary school to UChicago”. See also

Q: how do I feel about the broad strokes?
A: I know the details, so I don’t need to use broad strokes to “impress myself”. But paradoxically, as I keep using this broad-stroke characterization to present myself to others, it reinforced a positive self-image.

Q: is the positive self-image exaggerated, weakened in the center, 金玉其外败絮其中 and harmful?
A: this self-image is substantiated with certified transcript.

In conclusion, the broad strokes actually help me 1) build a reputation and 2) maintain self-esteem. Now I have a better appreciation of the UChicago brand value, which is higher than CMU, NYU .. in broad strokes !

— top experts (any domain) in US/Japan/Germany
Depending on the field, each of us tends to assume U.S. top experts are world-class in that field.

I think only 2 other countries, Japan and Germany, are universally considered leaders in virtually all fields.

Britain could be a #4. Russia and China are perceived as less integrated into the international community
France? Not perceived as a scientific nation
Most European countries are too small in terms of population.

For all other countries, their national experts are less trusted internationally.

In my first and only visit to Thailand (with my dad), the tour guide brought us to a snake farm, selling snake oil. The presenter was a medical doctor from Hongkong (accent-wise, probably mainland Chinese medical professional working or trained in Hongkong). As soon as we heard he is from Hongkong, we we started paying attention. I asked my father why a Hongkong doctor in a Thailand snake farm.  He said “so that Chinese tourists would believe it”.

edu resource uneven distribution

Posted on by tiger40490

We know that educational resources are never evenly distributed. Everyone wants to get into the better schools.

Singapore’s resource allocation is supposed to be more merit-based whereas other countries often have more wealth-based allocation. Singapore also features many international schools, but I’m putting them aside.

In either merit-based or wealth-based systems, you are always performance-ranked, as I said years ago. If you are a musician you may want to ignore the ranking and focus on your music. I happen to have a UChicago and NUS under my belt.

— various edu resources:
I feel the most important education resource is not school but the extended family. One of the greatest resources is a home-maker mom, to keep the kids under control.

A very economical and popular resource is private tuition. My son likes center-based rather than home-based.

— Exclub .. When you think of the wealth-based, you confront the exclub-wealth. Actually we are relatively OK in terms of exclub-wealth, but we would need to cut spending on other things such as overseas trips. Luckily, I have prepared myself for years to deal with and hopefully overcome the waves of cultural shocks related to top schools, stratification, stigma, branding.

 

top secondary schools may!!be suitable|accessible to boy

Posted on by tiger40490

Note this is not a parenting principle.

1) boy doesn’t look like the academic type
2) boy lack the absorbency capacity, drive/motivation

In the abilities/effort framework, I see gaps on both fronts… More on the effort side. Effort does affect abilities, as seen in his math.
In middle schools I became ‘engaged’ at a much earlier age than my peers and developed my competitive Abilities.

Chinese edu: 基本功

Posted on by tiger40490

See also

Chinese culture (and to some extent Eastern Europe, and East Asia) is more serious, relative to the west, about fundamental skills (基本功), stringent, tough training

  • calligraphy
  • piano
  • street dance contest…
  • ice skating
  • women’s marathon
  • speed coding

In terms of sports, China and neighbors are formidable, why not stronger than the west !?

In terms of tech innovation, the west still has a better system including their education philosophy/orientation.

In math, things are more nuanced. I don’t know why Chinese mathematicians are not dominant, but quant world has high Chinese representation.

In many engineering/science subjects, students don’t need to be as precise as in quant. An 80% grasp is often good enough to get you an A.

In programming, Indian students receive less rigorous training, but not weaker in general, based on my decades of first hand observation.

My sister often says her fellow accountants are often focused on precision and missed the big picture priorities.

There are other competitive domains .. design, architecture, literature, music, visual arts, performance arts, business,

 

[17]top secondary school→limited advtg@uni level

Posted on by tiger40490

I attended a top high school in Beijing. This school’s academic standard was much higher than the average school. See https://tanbintpy.wordpress.com/2016/07/03/toxic-fellow-parents-fixation-on-top-schools/. Therefore, the above-average students in a top school felt so high up there. In terms of the standardized test scores, they might be the top 1%. Same thing in Singapore.

However, they often fail to *maintain* the lead at the uni level. Many students from the average high schools catch up. Some of the top achievers in uni indeed come from top high schools, but
* other top achievers come from average schools.
* many fellow graduates from top high schools aren’t so outstanding (like me)

As I said in https://btv-open.dreamhosters.com/2016/08/16/roller-coaster-academic-competition/, these late bloomers pump up their effort and prove that their abilities aren’t that much lower than the early bloomers.

My colleague Damien said he became motivated to study only in the uni. That’s a huge contrast to my own learning journey, where my effort level and learning was greatest at high school level (mostly in Beijing), not university level.

Another reason is the nation-wide standardized tests. No such thing in uni, so your lead is significantly reduced.

After graduating from uni, the relative positions change even more radically…

gr8idea: take-up-for-fun: wordy problems

Posted on by tiger40490

My assumption — he has lost the basic skills. Pushing him hard will be ineffective.

温和地坚持

On the other hand, he probably needs more perseverance. He has a tendency to give up and puts in fake effort.

Note Take-up-for-fun involves (confrontational?) facetime and can create pain (frustration/regret/losing-cool) in me, despite the ‘for-fun’ slogan.

Biggest problem — insufficient intrinsic motivation