The politicization of education

Photo from The History Place

Governments all over the world have no business poking their noses into classrooms. It is a dangerous mix, politics and education, when people in apparent power decide what youths should and should not learn. Disasters are engineered this way. Hitler's youths, Mao's Red Guards, Japanese Revisionist textbooks. I don't need to write anything more to prove the point.

If you're in government and reading this: get your butt out!

Oh, and Happy Teacher's Day.

20th century - the 1910s

Photo from The Warder Collection, New York

Too much of my historical knowledge was gleaned from western sources. I probably know more about the American Revolution than what went on in China during the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.

The ascension of modern China began in tumultous times - the end of dynasties and the focible opening of a nation cocooned since time immemorial. We talk about how the dragon in the east is roaring to life. The 1910s were a time where China was known as the sick man of the east.

Sun Yat-Sen. A man who tried to bring China into the modern world. A man who was frustrated by self-serving warlords. He must have felt a tinge of helplessness, just like how small he looks in this photo, surrounded by guns and military men all with their own agenda. Millions more would have to lay down their lives before a dream of a strong China came to fruition.

Sun Yat-Sen, father of modern China. I wonder what he'd think of the China now?

20th century - the 1900s

Photo from archives of Wright State University Libraries

Flight.

What is your reaction when you think of that word? What about these names/date: Leonardo da Vinci, Heinkel HE 178, Chuck Yeager, Yuri Gagarin, September 11?

Who could have guessed then that a couple of brothers in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, USA would bridge the chasm between myth and reality in 1903?

The sky is not the limit.

Death of a photojournalist

Photo from www.iwojima.com

The death of Joe Rosenthal was reported by yl. I do not know much about the man behind the most recognisable photograph of World War 2, if not the 20th century itself. One trait of successful war photographers is serendipity. Right place, right time.

This event got me thinking. Maybe I'll run through memorable photos from the 20th century. One photo for every decade. One photo which is instantly recognisable as representative of that period in time.

Suggestions welcomed.

Journeys in life

Image from The Hoplites

So I made from second commute to work on foot this morning. After last week's fiasco with underestimating the distance and overestimating my stamina, I ran a shorter route. Reached the office about 20 minutes before time. Much better than walking in, dripping wet with perspiration, to the curious stares of my colleagues.

Let's hope I make the distance at Stanchart later this year.

On other news, maybe looking for an opening in China. Those of you in the know, please pray for us...

Theory versus reality...

Image from Google

..don't really match up. That's so very true of driving school and what transpires on the roads everyday. Do I signal before filtering? Do I stop at every stop sign? What about letting some other car filter in front of mine when it signals? *snigger*

So that much is the feeling that runs through most of my colleagues' minds during pedogogical training 2 weekends ago. There will be 2 more weekends of such training. *yawn* Can't really say anything much because I'm not a bona-fide certified teacher, just some two-bit con artist making some dough every month.

Anyway, after winging my way through class for 6 months I really think most education trainers and the training methods are out of touch with what goes on in reality. Much like the disparity between what is mapped on a sand-table and the hell the goes on in the trenches of war. I just read D-Day by Stephen Ambrose, the guy who wrote Band of Brothers on which the TV series was based. They don't really teach you how to react when the guy next to you gets blown up, much like how we don't get taught how to deal with students who:

1. Eat their test papers
2. Hug pillars
3. Walk around with their flies unzipped

Ah...the wonders of dealing with socially-clueless kids...

Choosing your words carefully

Image from Google

Logo and tagline on a truck belonging to a construction company:

Where a man can enter, we can put up a pile

*ouch*

Weekend just past

Micrograph from Google

There's a virus running loose in wifey's & my stomach. Came down with fever on Friday night, diarrhea over the weekend and still feeling the effects of it today while wifey is sick in bed, having diarrhea & vomitting.
Stomach flu is quite debilitating. Let's hope that Faith doesn't get it.

***

Logo from IBFAN website

Wifey took part in World Breasfeeding Week activities organized by Breastfeeding Mothers' Support Group in Singapore. It was interesting to see families from different walks of life turning up in Tampines West CC. Given the importance of breastfeeding, especially in the face of aggressive marketing of formula milk, the event would have reached more people had it been held in a shopping mall in town. But it's difficult to get sponsorships from big companies when the activity that you're promoting (i.e. breastfeeding) does not directly result in large-scale consumer spending. Think about it, how much are you spending on formula milk per week? A can of Enfalac HA for 0-12 months costs about $15 and lasts about 10 days. That's $45 a month excluding visits to the family doctor (I leave it up to you to figure the link between formula milk and visits to the family doctor). Compare that with how much a family would have saved by breastfeeding. It doesn't make commercial sense for big-name companies to sponsor such an event.

Well, to paraphrase someone, it's about doing small things with big love and not about doing big things with little love.

Not really idling

Image from Google

Let's write something before this blog really dies. It's been a month or so.

Work is more or less becoming a routine. Good and bad. Hope I don't settle into a mood of counting the days before the next pay check.

On other news, the pounding continues in the Middle East. How many lives need to be lost before people come to their senses to end this Jacob vs. Ishmael feud?

May God have mercy on us all