People & Culture

17 October 20074 September 2011

Learning: the need to relentlessly acquire knowledge

i had a long talk with my kids today.

much of this was with the intent of creating an understanding why the relentless acquisition of knowledge is so important. ie learning & studying. i found that constant berating of the kids to study hard was not working well. time to change plans.

after thinking a bit on the subject, it all comes back to creating leadership behaviours in people. studying hard is not a natural behaviour that kids of the playstation generation would do in their default mode.

i needed to create a purpose for them. kids are leaders in the making. but they need a vision.

the most important is to constantly talk about their dreams, ambitions, desires etc. they could relate to this a bit better than the need to study. in some cases, i needed to work a bit more on the subject as some of the dreams needed to be clearer, and strengthened in order to be a compelling reason to acquire knowledge & experience.

i would often use a lot of probing “why” questions to understand what and why they have these dreams, ambitions and aspirations. but this is where it gets difficult, because not many people understand “why” they do things.

you’d be surprised that this lack of understanding “why” also exists in adults well into their working careers. so it is not just kids.

i look to society as a whole to find my answers why people in general do not understand the “what & why” questions. i conclude that we are not trained that way.

look all around us:

we are always told what to do, and what not to do ~ we are seldom asked what we want to do, and why – not a lot of thinking & soul searching required here
we are always told that many things are impossible
we are always told not to dream but we should focus on today ~ short term vs long term thinking
we do not have tolerance for mistakes, whereas i believe that learning from mistakes is one of life’s most valuable lessons – this lack of tolerance also inhibits creativity, risk taking and innovation

although very simplistic, but these are very key environmental factors influencing the way we are. these restrictive environmental factors are even more apparent in our country – as compared to (say) some developed countries.

so i tell my children that they have to develop their own thinking. my job? is to provide them with the correct environment.

4 October 20074 September 2011

What kind of person are you?

dancer

According to an article in the Perth Now, most people will see this dancer moving counter-clockwise because they use more of the left side of their brain and tend to be more logical and practical. People who see the dancer moving clockwise (like me) are right brain dominant and tend to be more risk taking and imaginative.

LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses logic
detail oriented
facts rule
words and language
present and past
math and science
can comprehend
knowing
acknowledges
order/pattern perception
knows object name
reality based
forms strategies
practical
safe

RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses feeling
“big picture” oriented
imagination rules
symbols and images
present and future
philosophy & religion
can “get it” (i.e. meaning)
believes
appreciates
spatial perception
knows object function
fantasy based
presents possibilities
impetuous
risk taking

From Viewzone:

Experiments show that most children rank highly creative (right brain) before entering school. Because our educational systems place a higher value on left brain skills such as mathematics, logic and language than it does on drawing or using our imagination, only ten percent of these same children will rank highly creative by age 7. By the time we are adults, high creativity remains in only 2 percent of the population.

So what kind of person are you?

29 September 20072 September 2011

One laptop per child project

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project got me excite about a year back when I saw Nicholas Negroponte’s video keynote address (35 minute video clip).

The project is an education project aimed at putting one laptop for each child – especially in the developing nations. The key objective is to provide children with the best education possible and access to latest information and communication no matter where they are and how unfortunate the society that they live in.

The reason this project is so exciting is the solution to achieve this: the USD100 laptop, which uses low power and is able to operate even in places where electricity is not available. As for communications, the only prerequisite is a communications node. The laptops will provide a mesh network to allow communication beyond the nodes and into the homes.

What makes me curious though, is why isn’t Malaysia on the list of countries supporting this project? Anybody can connect this to the Minister of Education?

23 September 20074 September 2011

Cultural gaps in our society

I am in a cultural analysis mood today.

One other cultural phenomenon often cited is the moral degradation of our youngsters. The topic that brought me to think about this was a facebook discussion thread titled “Lelaki Melayu Bermasaalah” by a girl called Akmal Fairuz who complained that young malay boys are uncouth and describes them as “tidak bertamadun”.

whilst the misbehaviours described by akmal fairuz is not confined to one race, i think the root causes are similar.

personally, i think there is a huge cultural / mindset gap between the “elders” and the “youngsters” today.

forgive me for generalising, but i believe that elder malays (and malaysians) tend to be very conservative, and constantly espouse “traditional values” etc.

youngsters, on the other hand are far more open to the global influences (internet or not).

elders constantly talk about censorship of movies, websites, music etc. whilst to me this seems impossible and is a regressive step backwards in denying the changes that is happening in the world today.

because of this, there is a sense of rebellion… an anti-establishment attitude, “i’ll do my own thing, i don’t care” type of feeling amongst youngsters.

i remember my days as a teenager… the teachers, the rule makers are those people who you would dare and defy. why? because we no longer liked being told what to do (like primary school kids & babies).

i think this is a natural reaction when we are growing up and trying to break away from being a baby/kid to being a grown up. at that point we think that because grown ups set the rules, so if we were to be grown up, then we would have to break existing rules and set rules of our own.

for a conservative society in a global village – these current norms are topics that will be seriously challenged & tested. but being conservatives, the elders feel that youngsters have no right to challenge their authority. thus creating this huge cultural / mindset gap.

as elders, do we listen, engage, and properly advocate our views with the youngsters?

i think not. we live in a society where the elders tell the youngsters what to do. the gap is quickly growing to become a gulf. the sooner we have open and honest debates about this issue, the better.

23 September 20074 September 2011

The problems in present day society

The recent tragedy of Nurin Jazlin Jazimin, 8 years old (al-fatihah) gave me cause to think about the society we are becoming today.

Being a self-analyst deep down, i pondered long about the tragedy: how can somebody commit such a heinous crime on such innocent children? what motivates them? what are the external factors? has the police profiled such crimesters? why do they become the monsters today?

I would like to live in a place where my children are safe to go play in the playground or ride their bicycles around our neighbourhood. but cases such as these would only cause the undesired reaction of more people locking themselves out in the home and minimise exposures outside… which only leads to a more insular and silo society: it is a vicious cycle which needs to be broken. getting people to fight a common cause is going to be more difficult which the ever increasing “every man for themselves” attitude of our society.

So why do these crimes happen? seriously i do not know, nor pretend to be an expert. but being a self analyst, i believe that we all have to look deep down within ourselves. no, i do not blame nurin’s parents… i would like all of us to see the faults we have and how it manifests itself in our society.

Why do people want to inflict pain on others? i believe that every person fundamentally is compelled to do this. We scold others, because we have been scolded. We put pressure on others, because we are being pressured ourselves. And we hurt others, because we are hurt. The difference between us is the level of pain.

Make no mistake, i hope and desire to see nurin’s murderer and others like them to be severely punished and with pain here in the hereafter. Yes, i want them to suffer, because i share some fraction of the pain felt by nurin’s parents… as i am a parent myself.

It is a vicious cycle. But sometimes i feel that we have ourselves to blame. The first thing we should do is to stop hurting others. Except for very few circumstances, it (hurting others) is not warranted.