On Schooling, Education and Creativity

by Jonathan in Education on Tuesday July 15, 2008 at 0112hours

Just finished watching a talk on TED ( http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html ). Video is below if you’ve got 20 mins to spare.

The speaker touches on the interesting topic of creativity and how education effectively kills it. (Although his main point is education in the States/UK, I see some relationship with education here in Singapore).

Lets talk about the paper chase in Singapore schools. I’m sure most readers would be all too familiar with it. There, i just sneaked that one past you didn’t I? The part on paper chase. I think we’ve gotten so used to our education here being about chasing papers (for the unacquainted, ‘papers’ refer to paper qualifications, diplomas, degrees, masters, PHDs and what have you).

Remember your primary school days? Lower primary was fun. Discovering new things; making new friends. Then PSLE drew nearer, we stopped discovering and started studying because a good PSLE grade means entry into that ‘holy grail’ of secondary schools. Right? And attending that ‘holy grail’ of a secondary school means getting into a solid junior college! Wow! Then if you work hard enough and score all ‘A’s for the A’ Levels, you get to attend that prestegious University.

Ho Hum.

I guess the crux of the matter is that we’re getting too caught up in the whole process of doing well now to get to the next level that we start to lose ourselves. To put it another way, as Ken Robinson mentioned, “that public education is a protracted process of University entrance.”. Even Mark Twain once said, “Never let your schooling interfere with your education.”.

I really cannot agree more.

Trackback · 1 comment

A look back on Imagine Cup

by Jonathan in IT, Programming, SP, Uncategorized on Sunday June 29, 2008 at 0312hours

Perhaps its a little bit too late, but its been said that the wise man learns from his own failures as well as those of others.

Reading this post on on a failed startup really brings back (fond?) memories of FYP, and JonShonRonVons’ adventures with Bolesis as an entry for the Microsoft Imagine Cup Competition (2007).

I realise Bolesis and GameClay faced similar problems despite being completely different projects, and on hindsight, would seem like it (Bolesis) was doomed to fail from the start as well. So the question then would be if I, having known that we would fail before starting out, would have bothered to even embark on such a project?


Hell yes.

(This is, of course, putting aside the fact that we didn’t have a choice to not even begin since it was, in all actuality, our FYP submission as well and was required for graduation.)

If you have not already read that post, go read it. Now. It presents a very candid look of the rise (and fall) of aN IT startup. If you’re not in the software industry. You can stop reading here.

Bolesis. It seemed like a very novel and innovative idea at that time, providing a framework to catalogue and distribute the educational resources of the world, especially those that were just lying around in cyberspace collecting cyber-cobwebs. But further down the road, it proved to not be the holy grail we thought it was.

Perhaps the idea was too young and ‘before-its-time’-ish. Perhaps the (greater part of the) industry was not ready to share their materials, which was the basis for our entire project. Perhaps the team (myself especially) wasn’t competent enough to undertake the ambitious project. Whatever the case, I’m officially classifying Bolesis as a ‘failed’ project (since it wasn’t really a startup per say).

But the one thing this failure has taught me is that failures are not necessarily all bad. Mr Maran, the HOD for Pupil Development in VS had a saying that went along the lines of ‘In Victoria, we don’t teach you to stay down when you fall, we teach you to get back up and climb higher.’ I think that’s exactly what the failure of Bolesis is. A wake up call and more importantly an opportunity to climb higher.

What exactly are the factors that I feel led to its failure? I’ll leave that for another post. But for now I guess the summary of that post by Jonathan Tang can be condensed (somewhat) as written (in bold) on the 2nd paragraph,

If your idea starts with “We’re building a platform to…” and you don’t have a billion dollars in capital, find a new idea. Now.

For those who don’t know, our ‘elevator pitch’ for Bolesis went something like this. “We’re building a platform to enable the widespread distribution of credible learning resources, allowing both learners and content providers to collaborate in a content rich environment.”

And no, we did not have a billion dollars in capital. In fact, we had none.

Trackback · No comments yet

Graduation Montage

by jiaen in Life, SP on Sunday June 1, 2008 at 2306hours

Courtesy of JE

Trackback · No comments yet

Keep on moving

by Jonathan in Life, SP on Sunday June 1, 2008 at 0314hours

And so we talked all night about the rest of our lives
Where we’re gonna be when we turn 25
I keep thinking times will never change
Keep on thinking things will always be the same
But when we leave this year we won’t be coming back
No more hanging out cause we’re on a different track
And if you got something that you need to say
You better say it right now cause you don’t have another day
Cause we’re moving on and we can’t slow down

These memories are playing like a film without sound
And I keep thinking of the night in June
I didn’t know much of love, but it came too soon
And there was me and you, and then it got real blue
Stay at home talkin’ on the telephone and
We would get so excited, we’d get so scared
Laughing at our selves thinking life’s not fair
And this is how it feels

Chorus:
As we go on, we remember
All the times we had together
And as our lives change,
From whatever
We will still be, friends forever

So if we get the big jobs and we make the big money
When we look back now, will that joke still be funny?
Will we still remember everything we learned in school?
Still be trying to break every single rule
Will little brainy Bobby be the stockbroker man?
Can Heather find a job that won’t interfere with her tan?
I keep, I keep thinking that it’s not goodbye
Keep on thinking it’s a time to fly
And this is how it feels

As we go on, we remember
All the times we had together
And as our lives change,
From whatever
We will still be, friends forever

La, la, la la; (repeat) yeah, yeah, yeah
La, la, la, la, (repeat) we will still be friends forever

Will we think about tomorrow like we think about now?
Can we survive it out there? Can we make it somehow?
I guess I thought that this would never end
And suddenly it’s like we’re women and men
Will the past be a shadow that will follow us ’round?
Will these memories fade when I leave this town
I keep, I keep thinking that it’s not goodbye
Keep on thinking it’s a time to fly

Trackback · No comments yet

SP SMIT Graduation

by Jonathan in Life, SP on Thursday May 29, 2008 at 0034hours

So its finally done. A diploma in the bag and many happy memories and treasured friends.

The ceremony itself went rather smoothly, but I think it was seeing familiar faces after such a while that made the event something more. And with friends and family around, it was great.

I do wish to also thank the fellow graduating batch, those whom I’ve had the pleasure of working and studying alongside the past 3 years. And of course my family for their never ending love and support. If only my grandma could have been here for the celebration; but I’m sure that somewhere up above, she was watching. And smiling.

This goes out to you Mama.

Trackback · No comments yet

Next Page →

Find It