Nov 8, 2011

One down

For our ELL adaptive writing section we were supposed to write a story about a visit to the dentist, to be read by children under the age of 10. Had fun doing it, did it in fifteen minutes which made up for the two hours I spent on Section A (because forty-five minutes into the paper I hadn't even finished my first point about contact, and at the 1.5-hour mark I was still at my second point about power. Fatal!!). If I were my ten-year-old self reading my adaptive text, though, I'd probably laugh at it - or be disgusted at how lowly they think of ten-year-olds - and then write something like 'oral hygiene is important because nobody wants to kiss a girl with bad breath'. Ah, the ten-year-old me.

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Was just reading the GP Package on Education since tomorrow's the GP paper and if I don't get an A I'm gonna bash myself up for not bothering to memorize examples and all. There was this one article about the failures of the current Asian education system, on how its 'rote-based curricula and examcentric systems' aren't suitable for the new and challenging information economy and whatever, and how East Asian students top worldwide academic tests but retain the information for the least amount of time because they believe there is little utility in what they've learnt in classrooms. And how Asian students were placed first in their understanding of Math and Science but also scored second lowest in their enjoyment of these subjects. And how the failures of the current Asian system of education has led to high dropout and suicide rates especially in Japan, and even parents seeking to put their children in a Western-style education with less information-cramming and more creativity-infusing instead.

And I'm just like, dang, this is so not the thing to read on Day One of my A Levels.

And right now I'm blogging.

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