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Erpz.net was briefly gone yesterday for almost the entire day because the host, Siteground had some harddisk damage on the server where this site was hosted and everything on the site was wiped out. I tried accessing the FTP and found that everything, including the http access were gone.
Fortunately it came back up in the night, when I just reached home and wanted to send in a support ticket to complain about the problem. I hope this never happens again.
This letter was written in early 2008 as an expression of late teenage angst at my high school. Most details have been forgotten and the context is no longer very clear to me. It reflects some of my earlier writings that were expository but driven largely by my intellectual passion in education.
It has been quite a while since something bothered me to the degree this issue of how lousy your department is did. The last time was perhaps when I was in high school, when the rather incompetent humanities department head pioneered some rather disturbing means of assessment (Major Research Papers, as they were known) – that has since been resolved after it was replaced by some more experimentally disastrous modes of assessments, for which I was not subjected to (and therefore I see no issue with that). I shall, in this little letter, outline the faults with your department and offer my suggestions to ‘correct’ these problems.
I begin with the course materials for they are at the forefront of ‘educating’ your students. If anything else, it is the only thing that comes directly in contact with the learners of your subject. The design of your lecture notes have been kindly standardized, which presents organizational ease students would gladly appreciate, but no additional readings are provided (though I would think some students also appreciates this) and it is declared that whatever students need are within the notes issued. Further readings or exploration is discouraged implicitly this way. All notes are arranged in rather logical order that introduces concepts and definitions but it appears that more emphasis is placed on memorizing the definitions than understanding the concepts (this will be elaborated in the pedagogy segment later). Diagrams are poorly annotated and large chunks of text that follows diagram are in prose but ‘bulleted’, making it confusing for student as to whether to take the entire chunk of text as a ‘point’ in the theory or mere elaborations. Blanks are often placed in wrong positions because teachers edit their lecture presentations after sending notes for printing. I therefore suggest that all blanks be scrapped so that lectures can proceed quickly and that more spaces are provided between chunks of text for notes to be written. All conceptual points should be summarized and written in good English (read: good English, not just easily misunderstood English). All diagrams should be well annotated and unnecessary repetition of diagrams removed.
Lecture time are often wasted on administrative matters that demonstrates deep distrust in the student’s desire to learn. To attend a lessons in a premier institution is to expect no time wasted on unnecessary disciplinary remarks made by teachers and that both students and lecturers are on time. There is really no need to mark attendance for lectures or waste time waiting for students who are late. To miss out a part of the lecture should be the punishment in itself – there’s no need to humiliate these students by starting the lecture late on purpose and then claim these late comers responsible for the fast pace of the lecture or worst, the incomplete-ness of the lecture. Incessant nagging about student performance during lectures are not at all appreciated and seen solely as an avenue at which the lecturer lets out his/her steam on the students, achieving practically no effect on the grades or effectiveness of lectures (often even undermining that, as well as respect for the lecturers). There is thus no need for attendance marking during lectures, or the wait for late-comers, or any ‘disciplining sessions’ – lecture time should be left purely for lecture on the subject
Technicalities with course materials and the ways lectures are carried out aside, the pedagogy of teachers reveal a profound misunderstanding in the cognitive abilities of the students as well as the processes by which one acquires academic knowledge of a subject. A social science, or any rather scientific subject, should be taught with the hope that students understand theories and concepts, as well as the implications of them. Next step would be the application of these concepts on the real world, the ability to draw evidence, real world examples to support theoretical concepts and possibly critique the inadequacies of theory. Ideally, we should be producing students capable of explaining the theories and giving examples in his/her own words.
Unfortunately, your department focused all energies on teaching ‘answers’ of potential examination questions to students since day one. There is no appreciation for the knowledge to be acquired, no consideration given to the way concepts are used in the real world (whether it is the predictive or the explanatory value) and absolutely no respect was paid to the history of the subject. Authorities of the subject are rarely introduced – I strongly believe that understanding the settings at which certain theories surrounding particular phenomena are discovered would aid one’s critique of the theory as one would then understand the timing and circumstances for which the concept served a valid explanation for some phenomena. Such ‘assessment-oriented’ approach would be seen as an indication of laziness in part of your department (if not ignorance), perhaps only interested in the results of the students rather than how interested students are in your subject. What could illustrate your distorted ideology towards teaching more than one of the lecturer’s exclamation during one of the paper review sessions: “Please, I urge you to memorize all definitions, the exact wording of each and every definition as given in your lecture notes. Do not use any definitions you picked from elsewhere or constructed yourselves because their wording are often wrong or difficult to interpret and this frustrates the markers. That means they have to waste more time on your paper and you’ll probably be given lower marks for that.”
It is perhaps why I come to realize how some of my peers who were initially curious about the subject were practically put off by it, possibly till this very day. I have no idea if this was your department’s intention but I was lucky my initial passion for the subject (built from the numerous outside readings and a steady supply of magazines on the subject) was never watered down by your horrible approach to teaching. That I went on to pursue tertiary education on this subject could only be attributed to the fact that you and your fellow colleagues have failed to practice the flawed pedagogy to its extreme for you all are still human. Of course, you might try to refute my claims by highlighting the numerous students pursuing further studies on this subject who are from our institution. That I do not deny, for it is the innate allure of the subject and perhaps the demand for knowledge in this field that have drawn this intellects towards the subject. In raising this point as a rebuttal, your department should thank God your screwed approach was not consistently applied (plausibly due to a few rebel lecturers who truly believed in the subject and loved that exploration).
I have, in the course of my education in the institution, approached tutors of the subject (ie. your colleagues) regarding some of the matters I have pointed out above but they all appeared to shrug at them. Replies offered ranged from ‘instructions by the department’ and ‘every tutor in our institution is doing it this way’ to ‘that has been the case all along and we have no problem with it’ and ‘you are a special case, I don’t think other students would think this way’. My friends have suggested I return to teach at my alma mater and clean up the mess I observed in my school days. I hope that this letter will just do that without having me to compromise my future.
This is an article draft penned some time in 2008 reflecting the style and content of my earlier writings driven by my intellectual passion for education and pursuit of knowledge.
Social Scientists are plagued with this particular divide that is non-existent in the word of Arts and Science. Well, there are cases of particularly weird arts-science mix of beings like Euler, who, as one of the greatest Mathematician, devoted substantial time trying to introduce mathematical notations for music and in essence, mix everything music and mathematics up. It’s as if vector geometry and complex number’s correspondence, but this time, things just get a little more complicated as more of our senses becomes involved in the concoction. But Euler is really rare, and he cleaned almost the entire realm of mathematics of quirky symbols that everyone everywhere would not agree upon and introduced the whole idea of ‘functions’ and it’s notations, without which, we may not be even able to learn programming language because of the sheer complexity of the machine codes kind of ideas.
Pardon me for the introduction that seem to have absolutely no link with the title itself, but in all, I was attempting to demonstrate that there are poetic social scientist who sees humans as being somewhat divine and miraculous and studies the non-mechanical, the purpose-fixed aspects of humans, stuff like aggregate ontology (if there’s even such thing) or philosophies that involves questioning of functions, fundamental reason. For me, I prefer to look into the observable patterns, and the parallels between science and humans themselves, and how laws that govern nature often has its twin doing similar things for the humans. These laws, when stripped to its barest level, is as good as a gravitation acceleration constant – absolutely meaningless. I therefore, must propose this idea of segmenting the human world into 2 layers – 1) Before Reason – the layer void of reason, like molecular interactions, the existence, and many questions that philosophers can debate for another millennium and fail to obtain answers for, all the laws that govern things before human participation, and 2) After Reason – the layer of purpose, where we can explain things after making some assumptions and ignoring the previous layer. For example, when we ask why he went to the post office, we are satisfied with the answer that ‘He went there to get some stamps for his friend’. In that sense, we ignore all the layers beneath, like why his friend need stamps, why is he the one getting it, and if his friend can’t get it, why, and if his friend is attending some functions, why is he doing so and this goes on up to a point like, ‘why is he in this world’, and even further, why his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents exist’. This asymptotic line of reason is the transition to the previous layer, where there’s absolutely no point of explaining things, and not possible anyway.
That was a preamble to thinking about things, and I have chosen to express the above concepts in a more mathematical, and scientific way so that it aids understanding. In any case, I have selected certain laws that are throwing their weight around the scientific realm to explain social sciences, and here, I shall be elucidating the effect of intervention of nature’s equilibria.
This WordPress blog has become Propagator‘s archive for more ‘valuable’ articles. Only exclusive stuff to be retained for future use or reference will be posted here.
What do you call a person who spends his/her weekend reading about Quantum Tunneling, Socrates’ Moral Philosophy from a book The Great Philosophers, Wave-particle Duality, History of Netherlands, Summation of the Grandi’s Series and it’s cousin, and finally, a poor attempt with the Hwa Chong Ionic Equilibria Lecture Notes? Vib.
As if a single term would suffice to describe such a person. I didn’t read all those topics on Wikipedia. I mean I do that sometimes but for this weekend, I really went into the books sort of knowledge and truly understood many things that I haven’t when I was surfing through Wikipedia. While I spared myself of Schrödinger equation, I took de Broglie’s hypothesis pretty calmly and understood what it means. In fact, de Broglie’s PhD thesis presented one of the most elegant relation that I can imagine (as compared to the one that I can’t imagine, which is Euler’s Equation; ironically with the imaginary term in it), and I read about it quite long ago when I was being introduced to the field of Quantum Mechanics. Quantum tunneling is something that helped excite me further about the quantum world. I must say all the quantum thing that I was ever interested about was more to do with Unifying Theories, which I have been brought into by Brian Greene several years ago with an online version of The Elegant Universe. I seriously think anyone concerned about natural forces should watch this. I spent quite a fair bit of my Secondary 3 life pondering over the stuff the video mentioned but then exams set in and so goes Relativity, Superstrings and stuff. Now it’s time for a revival. In fact, this weekend of exploration made me visualize wave-particle as an entire continuum where you either behave like a wave because you have too small a mass that you are almost pure energy or you behave as a participle because you have too large a mass that makes your wavelength so small and undetectable. Whatever in-between are just the quantum stuff. More importantly, I suspect a connection between gravity and electromagnetism. I just have this feeling that gravity is just the ‘electromagnetic’ counterpart of particles.
Then on to Socrates, I discovered how his idea of man being creatures of perfect rationality (but not wisdom) is actually coinciding with economic thought. His ideas banished Altruism almost entirely, by suggesting all good is done to cultivate one’s soul and gain happiness. Well, from a Kantian perspective, if you believe in Socrates, just twist the whole means-end thing around. I do have my doubts about Socrates but I must say that his spirit is absolutely commendable – exemplification of a rather ideal moral person, though his wits and playful rhetoric often work against him in terms of him being a philosopher or at least a pillar of thought. To put myself in his shoes, I suspect he would rather be a commoner, forgotten, rather than to be father of philosophy itself. I guess unless philosophy is purely a study of techniques of inquiry, Socrates should not like his position as the ‘father’ at all.
Finally, the mathematics I have just to learn to appreciate is really fun! Grandi’s series, and a whole lot of mathematically counter-intuitive stuff has helped make it less rigid. I mean, for a pseudo-arts-quasi-science student like me, it wouldn’t be fun for me if there was a universal and perfect answer to every problem in the world. I truly enjoy the fact that we can sit down and discuss whether the sum of a particular series should be this or that, or whether the series converges to a particular number. That’s more Mathematically Vib, or Vibbishly Mathematical whichever you would prefer. The (1 – 2 + 3 – 4 + 5 – 6 +7…) series actually sums up to (in the Euler’s revised definition of summation sense) a quarter! Can you believe it?
While reading a lot of crap brings down your grades quite very occasionally, I do enjoy the moments of epiphany of realizing how Superfluid defies gravity (it’s quantum jiggling supersedes it’s tendency to form solids; or to put it in another way, the quantum rule against non-motion of the particle overcomes any potential inter-atomic forces), or why on Earth would an electron orbital consist of two spaces with a node of discontinuity in between and yet the electron can move within the two places simultaneously. I do hope to be a Polymath but that can easily cause myself to stray into the abyss of a ‘Jack-of-All-Trades (And Master-of-None)’. Well, I’ll just explore what I like for the moment.
No, nothing. Let’s talk about it next time.
近来又在看金庸的小说，将竟一周便把碧血剑上下两册阅完，其实这也没什么，只道自己看中文书籍特别慢。但那也好，看中文书籍才不至三两头地往书店跑，乱花钱。眼看虽是看金庸的小说似点上了引，但眼前大事一桩大事未了，小说着玩仪儿也就先搁着。
几天来为了拍SVA东奔西跑，连拜六都被迫得到学校去。只望此事一了，便可真正地Slack也。花了一整年的时间拼搏，本该是休息的时候，惜在小弟朽木一大块，竟没在今年得成全A之愿，只得花此假期慢慢反思进修，明年再好好地拼一场，因此每能在此假期中享福。悲也，悲也！
Many a time I have been told that gaping generation gaps should not exist in a family like mine, so gaping that it hinders unparalled and unobstructed contact and communication between members of the same family. Well, given the current circumstance, my instincts capitulates freely towards that notion; but on zooming closer into the roots of this familial conundrum, praticalism begs indifference.
What I believe, is that such generation gaps arise from the lack of understanding, ignorance, indifference or whatever you call this lacklustre ability to comprehend the sub or mainstream culture of the next generation. Perhaps an unwillingness to accept or a in-built persistance to ram down the throats of the other, personal experiences and perceived benefit, abets this phenomenon. Well, I thought that it would be an uphill task apportioning blame for this conundrum, given that we are superficialites with nary an authority or power over what nature endows us with. You could be quick to derise and say: Blame the causers of this problems! The aged, the middle-aged, for their complacency and extreme esteem, for their unfounded belief that their, and only their experiences and ways of life would serve much in the individual’s personal journey through life. This argument appears sound on the surface, but the underpining insinuation speaks of wrongly and unjustly apportioning blame on the wrong entity. I proffer that mother nature shoulders the full blame, given humanity’s inability to manipulate whatever nature endows us with, or whatever characteristic nature flings at us — just like the instinct to force ideals upon the other.
You would agree that the above paints a very bleak picture, in the aspect of solutions for this familial conundrum. The answer is a stark affirmative, and I shall explain, from my perspective why this is so. The question burning on every sociologist’s mind addresses the probability of seeking a solution to this problem, the problem from which the contraction of vices and breakdown of society’s atom stem from. We are overwhelmed in a maelstrom of quick-fixes to this problem, this influx of superficial solutions being exacerbated by the trend of increasing communication breakdown, the engineering of more and more socio-cultural barriers which manifest in the form of fashion trends and the whatnots of youthful displays which collide head on with the wisely image of the older generation, between the child and the parent, between the parent and the grandparent or between the child and the grandparent. All this bodes ill towards the basal functioning of the society, which in essence, is a consolidation of men bound by the same creed or culture.
Generation gaps could well arise from one’s different piriorities in life. Many are quick to condemn the over-gregarious spending culture of teenage mall-goers, but forgot that they likewise, are victims of a massive social plot which plays upon the instinct of authoritative bodies to believe in their philosophy and dress surbodinates — in the case of generation gaps, are the occupants of the lower rungs of societal or familial hierarchy — in a palette of self-concocted values and principles. Hypothetically, if youths commanded the higher authority, the older generation’s culture of conservatism or even mindless money-spindling could be on the receiving end of blunt derison. Perhaps the notion of a mechanism that displays the same characteristics as westernisation or macdonaldisation operating in the local context comes to mind. Similar to the higher power’s ability to dominate and play an influential role the establishing of western culture in part-western societies or countries of oriental roots, the older generation, armed with a plethora of anecdotal experience, harbour the capacity and perceived moral authority to establish a foundation of principles that run on the experiences gained by the authoritative figure. And because one’s piriorities fluctuate throughout the course of life, these principles evolve, usually stablising once the one reaches the yardstick of middle-age. Now, no longer are pursueing fashion or the owning of state-of-the-art gadgets important; money making and providing for the family takes preceedence over the former. This results in an instant derison of the child’s spending habits or the child’s capitulation towards the pestilential influence of various social vices — for the case of communication breakdowns between the child and the parent. For the case between the parent and the grandparent, perhaps the grandparent advocates a disapproval over the parent’s obsession over money making, the decades of experiencing life’s wraths and sweet intangibles allowing them to grasp the worthlessness of monetary wealth in comparison to intangibles like familial bonds and love. Is this not apt illustration for the futility of advocating solutions which do not and cannot address the root conundrums?
Perhaps a passive role played by the authoritative figure can go far in quelling unrest or the suppression of malevolent rebellious behavior exhibited by the social surbodinate in counterance towards the uninvited dressing down of time-proven principles, as this passiveness is a manifestation of acceptance and comprehension of fads and the person’s moral or financial inclinations. No doubt, one could chalk up a heavy moral debt in steering clear of time-proven advice, but if this is adequate to alleviate generational gaps, the social profit would far negate any financial incurrance. Let us bear in mind the importance of the role the social atom — the family — plays in ensuring a cohesive society.
Hi. This is Christopher Yang. Well, this post is in acknowlegement of Vib for allowing me an archive for some commentaries I produce for leisure.
Before I commence my debut post, I would first like accentuate the importance of taking into cognizance the fact that these are commentaries based solely on pesonal perspective, and statistics, data etc provided will be researched throughly to prevent any deviation from the factual truth.
Thank you.
这是我交上我校文学创作比赛，落榜的作品。没什么，只是希望能与大家分享。这属于微型小说。
夜晚，悬挂灯下。钢笔在纸上来来回回，写出了心中的话：“阿珍，再过一周，我就出狱了，你要是愿接受我的话，就请在镇外那棵老松树上挂起黄色的丝带。要是不愿接受我的话，那就算了。。。” 搁了笔，心想：好久没写字了，手指感觉麻麻的，就不必太长了，她没接受我的念头，也看不下去。
阿财再多一周，就能出狱了。他望着那灯泡所发出，黄色的光；他决定在出狱那天，程着公车，往回家的路去，要是在镇外看见那充满黄色丝带的老松树，就在镇里下车，回到妻子，与儿子身边。要不，就程着那似乎马不停蹄的公车，到世界的另一的角落过崭新的生活。虽说是这样决定，但阿财还是放不下那八岁大，重未见过的儿子。心里最深处还是期望着妻子阿珍会接受这做了八年牢，受了八年牢苦折磨的粗人。他把信收好，准备明日交给那监狱官，用点小钱收买那贪虫，替他把信寄出去。
时间是美妙的，一周悄悄地过去了。这一日，阿财在八年前，确实很期待，但到了这一天，他却没感觉一丝的欢喜。他抱着唯一的希望 – 妻子会在松树上，挂满黄丝带。也或许，那是个负担 – 他犹豫着，忧虑着，担心结果不如他所求。那将是失望，一种无法形容的悲痛，而他得带着它去过那新生活，那陌生，却也充满机会的新开始。下午。天气决不非常，但空气，却似乎格外清新；这点阿财也注意到了，不禁深呼吸了几次，才肯往公车站走去。
周围的环境，与他入狱时，没两样，只不过墙上的漆淡了些，公车站也是如此。等车的人不多；这监狱离住宅区很远，探狱的人也没几个。通到此处的公车，更是寥寥无几：就只两辆，比起等车的四个人，可少一倍。那其余三人内，一位也是刚被放出来的男子，而另两个大概是刚入狱罪犯的亲属吧。384号公车来了，那将是带他走向人生新一个旅程的车。
“刚放出来呀？打算回家吗？”那披头散发，看似有二十出的男子道。他就坐在阿财的后面，突然这么问，唤醒了正想着接下来该怎么的阿财。
“回家看看，家人不接受我，就到别处去。”阿财已习惯长话短说；做过牢的人，没一个是好的，跟他们说这么多干嘛。但结果还是经不起纳闷，再添了一句：“你呢？要到哪去的？”
“我呀？孤儿嘛，无家可归，看镇里有落脚之处，就安定下来。我被关了五年啊。想想，这五年来，吃喝住宿都有别人包办，出来了，感觉有点不自在。哈哈，真是好笑，这一天不知期待了多久，现在又。。。”话好像还没说完，就被阿财打断了。
“你可好，无牵无挂，我有妻有儿，放不下。”说了便望着路旁一棵棵的大树在窗外闪过。外头的风，把一片秋黄的树叶，吹到阿财的手中。他笑了，这是他在这八年来，首次真诚地笑。那男子用手拍了拍阿财的肩膀，问到“怎么啦？感触那么多？妻儿怎么啦？关了八年没见到呀？”
“八年啦，他们没一次来看过我。这么久了，他们要是能接受我，便会在镇外那棵老松树上挂起黄色的丝带。那我就回家，要不就。。。” 阿财把手掌合起来，紧紧地握着那树叶，又往窗外看了。
“喂，这还真有趣。我陪你一起等吧，祝你好运啦！不如告诉大家，一起等呀！”说完便在车上传着阿财的故事。没想到这故事感动了大家，连公车司机也兴奋地驾着车，好像恨不得想看这故事的结局似的。这时车上多了一个青年，那男子忍不住，又把故事重复了一次，挑起了青年的好奇心。弄得那青年缠着阿财，要他说出那段往事。山路崎岖，公车跳动着，阿财说出了自己的经历。大家都听得入神，呆呆地望着阿财。
窗外出现了一个小市集还有一座座的小屋；公车渐渐接近小镇了。瞬时间，车上的人都变得紧张，司机也更小心地开车。“喂，这里那棵老松树还有多远呀？”那青年不禁大声地问道。“不远了，该快到了吧。”阿财自己也紧张起来了，用手指抚摸着掌中的树叶，看着周围的环境。这地方改变了好多，自己也不怎能认出来，但那老松树的样子，他绝对忘不了。路旁的妇女看着他，好像认出了他，想向他说什么似的。她们手中牵着的孩子则傻傻地望着阿财。
现在已是傍晚了，天空染上了一层橙红色。阿财想起了当初的事：当时已入中年，生意失败，为了还债，被迫走私毒品。判入狱的那天，妻子怀着七月的身孕，似乎想跟他说些什么的样子，失望地望着他，看着警车把丈夫带去。是因讨厌他而不去探狱吗？阿财低下头，看着手中的树叶，安慰自己：大概是为养家没时间吧，八年来，辛苦她了。“是不是那儿呀？那儿没有棵老松树呀！阿财，你自己看吧！”司机想快上前看，兴奋得用力压着加速板，使公车直往前冲。
阿财这时继续低着头，不知是不敢看那老松树，还是公车的速度太快，头抬不起来 – 就像过山车上的乘客。那青年激动地呐喊“怎么这儿建了一栋房子？老松树没了！”公车停了，大家见阿财还低着头，都静静地等待，不知下一刻会有何事发生。阿财这才慢慢地抬起头，看着那栋大房子；他慌了，急忙冲下车。老松树已被砍除，矗立在它位置的是盏街灯，正发出与监狱里灯泡一样的黄光。一个影子出现在阿财脚低，阿财抬头一望：是个一手牵着小男孩，另一手持着条黄色丝带的妇女 – 阿珍。阿财露出了八年来的第二个微笑。车上的人欢呼了，特别是那位青年。阿财的泪水溢出眼眶，滴在手中的树叶上。