Fai Mao's Sandbox

An Annotated Definition of Educational Philosophy

I have a difficult task tonight because I have to provide you with an overview of the development of educational philosophy in a way that will hopefully help you develop an educational philosophy of your own in a single lecture. This is a difficult task when you remember that some schools of education split basic educational philosophy into two complete classes. That means that even going fast and just hitting the highlights so that you can get a basic understanding of what educational philosophy is will be difficult in the time we have tonight. I basically have two options: I can either talk really, really fast, giving you lots of names, dates and terms that would leave you saying “Gee he’s really smart but I still don’t have a clue” or I can simply the process. I have chosen to try and simplify the process down to what I consider to be the essence out of 4000 years of philosophic thought from several different civilizations and give you just the very top of the tip of the iceberg that is educational philosophy. So please, please, please remember what you are getting is just the most abbreviated of outlines, a skeleton, the bare bones of what it means to think philosophically about education. You will have to put flesh on those bones yourself but that is Ok because I believe that everyone is a philosopher. Everybody thinks philosophic thoughts. We just need some help and practice to organize those thoughts sometimes.

Even so, I'm going to have to talk really fast.

All that we are going to do tonight is define the term “Philosophy of Education” Once we do this you will have the ability to begin to flesh out you own philosophy of education. This may at first seem to be a silly way to proceed; but as with many things appearances can be deceiving. The way we are going to do this is to get to a working definition of each word, "philosophy" and "education" and then combine those definitions in what I hope will be a meaningful way.

But, before we go farther I want to allow about 10 second for you to take a deep breath and relax and clear your mind. Because we have a long way to go and a short time to get there.

Is everybody relaxed? Are you ready? Here we go.

What is Philosophy?

The word Philosophy literally means “The pursuit of wisdom or knowledge” That does not really help us much. Who doesn’t want to be wise? I’d be willing to bet that if you asked anybody at any time; “Do you want to be wise? Do you love wisdom?” they’d say “Of course!” So the meaning of the word doesn’t help us much.

So let’s look at a definition out of a dictionary:

phi·los·o·phy

–noun, plural -phies.

1.the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct.

2.any of the three branches, namely natural philosophy, moral philosophy, and metaphysical philosophy, that are accepted as composing this study.

3.a system of philosophical doctrine: the philosophy of Spinoza.

4.the critical study of the basic principles and concepts of a particular branch of knowledge, esp. with a view to improving or reconstituting them: the philosophy of science.

5.a system of principles for guidance in practical affairs.

6.a philosophical attitude, as one of composure and calm in the presence of troubles or annoyances.

Philosophy. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Philosophy (accessed: June 17, 2008).

As you can see the more complete dictionary definition does not help much either. Indeed, with definitions like that you’d think a forest was just a bunch of trees.

I think it was the American philosopher Alvin Plantinga who defined philosophy simply as “Thinking about things in a systematic way” and I think that he gives us a better working definition to start with though it is still rather broad. If you think about it his definition includes the literal meaning of the word but expands it in a good way. What I think he means is that all thinking, regardless of the subject is based in philosophy. Every thought, every word, everything that we think we know is tied to a philosophic concept in one way or another; and he if he didn't mean it that way I do mean it that way. When you think, as opposed to acting on an instinct you are engaging in Philosophy.

I know what some of you are thinking: “I’m going to be a science teacher. Science deals in facts not philosophy!” Now I am not going to ask who is thinking that but I am going to say you are wrong. Science is steeped in the philosophy of naturalism which is a type of philosophic realism that developed in the 16^th century and rest on a set of assumptions none of which are ultimately provable. Some of these assumptions are:

1. The Universe really exist

2. The Universe is orderly and obeys natural laws

3. We are smart enough to figure out what those laws are.

How do we know any of these statements is true? Yet to be a scientist you must BELIEVE all of them. They are simply considered to be “Self Evident.” Don’t you think I am just picking on science either; every field of study rest upon philosophic assumptions; if you look for them you can find them.

You could argue and some philosophers such as George Berkley have argued that at least of some the statements above are false. Berkley took the, at for me, rather extreme position that matter does not exist. That everything we see is product of our mind or the mind of God and when he did that the other two assumptions of science became problematic as well. Thus, for Berkley the universe does not really exist, it obeys no fixed laws and we cannot know anything true about reality but only what we see. You have probably already heard Berkley’s famous question: “If a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it fall, did it make any sound?” The answer depends upon whether you think the universe exist independently of the observer. Most of us would say “Yes, it made a crash when it fell” but Berkley would say you cannot know that because you didn’t see it."

Now obviously I am engaging in a little bit of silliness here because I’m purposely using examples, the materialism inherent in science and Berkley's radical empiricism, that clash with each other. But the object is to show you the reason it is difficult to answer the question “What is Philosophy?” is because philosophers believe different things about the basic structure of the universe and to some extent what you believe the universe to be affects what you see. But how can we come to a definition of a subject is this diverse? Well we could break it up into specific types or branches of philosophy but I’m not sure that helps much at all in a general sense. We are looking for a general answer to the question “What is Philosophy?” not, “What is Scientific Philosophy?” Besides, if we simply put a word to modify “philosophy” in front of it then we just have two words of nonsense, not one. So before we can say "What is educational philosophy?" We must answer the question, "What is Philosophy?"

If you think the conflict between Mr. Berkeley and Science is problematic then I probably shouldn’t tell you that it gets worse. Please remember here that we are touching only the tip top of that iceberg and so most of these statements could be construed as over generalizations

Ludwig Feuerbach believed that the only things that exist is the physical world, no God no mind – just electrons firing in the brain with no higher purpose, nothing except what is. But Alvin Plantinga is Protestant Christian at a Catholic university who uses philosophy to defend a religious belief. Martin Heidegger believed we can only know we are human because we fear death and Ludwig Wittgenstein spent his life questioning our ability to communicate with each other. He thought language was so unreliable that we can never truly know anything about each other or even talk to each other meaningfully because of the connotative problems associated with language

Let me explain this last one a little bit because I see that some of you look like you don’t understand what I mean, which I guess also sort of proves Wittgenstein’s point. I want you to think of the word “Tea.” What images, words, or feelings do you associate with the word “Tea?” Take few seconds to think about what “Tea” means to you. Maybe even as you think about the word write down a few of the mental images you think of when you think of “Tea.”

What comes to mind when you think of tea? How many of you have at least one of these on your list?

1. Dim Sum

2. Milk

3. Lemon

4. Sugar

5. Cups

6. Saucers

7. China

8. A shop on the street

Do you know what I think of when I think of “Tea”

1. Big plastic tumblers

2. Lots of ice

3. Screened in porches

4. Ceiling fans

5. Baseball on the radio

6. The fatigue of agricultural work

7. Bales of hay

8. Big dogs

So, when you look at the things that I associate with the word “Tea” versus what you associate with the word “Tea” are we really talking about the same thing when we both say “I like tea?” Are we? Is your connotative idea of "Tea" even the same beverage as mine? Connotatively, the way we think about tea is very different. Now if something as common and simple as “tea” is so different because of our background, nationality and upbringing imagine how different our individual conception of much more abstract concepts will be. Doesn't Wittgenstein have a point? How is it possible to really know anything that someone else tells us?

So I ask you again. What is Philosophy?

I think part of the problem we've been having is that we’ve been looking at the problem wrong. Think of the word “Science.” Is Chemistry the same thing as biology? What about Genetics and Astronomy? They share some things but you cannot say that each is the same as the other. The different branches of science are held together by that common set of assumptions that I mentioned earlier and by adherence to the scientific method. Thus different branches of science are held together by the fact that they do different things, Chemistry, Biology, Astronomy and so forth, in the same way.

Likewise, philosophers come in different flavors. Philosophers can focus on metaphysics, logic, morality and ethics to name a few and there are divisions within the divisions but they are tied together not because they believe or because they say the same thing but because of how they approach the subject. So what is the scientific method of philosophy? What links the writings of such diverse people as Jean Paul Sartre, Thomas Aquinas, Friedrich Nietzsche and A.J. Ayer? The answer is that science asks "How" and "What" questions but philosophy ask "Why" and "If" questions. All philosophers from the pre-Socratics until today look at something and ask "Why is that?"or "If that is so then what does it mean?" It could be argued that little children are the most philosophic people on Earth because they are constantly asking strange questions like: "If the cat wags its tail does it become a dog?" But is that any different than asking "If a tree falls in a forest and nobody heard it fall did it make a sound?" Well yes it is because children are, at least if you believe in a rational material that really exist, asking out of an ignorance of biology and at least some of the time Philosophers are asking because they want to challenge our perception of the world.

There is a fly in this ointment however, "Why" and "If" questions cannot normally be answered in a definitive way. So the question behind the question then becomes: Why ask why?" And here, believe it or not we have our answer to the question, "What is Philosophy?" Philosophers are looking for better ways to ask questions. You cannot get the right answer unless you ask the right question. To ask the right question you must question everything. Thinking about things or actually thinking about how to think about things is, I believe the first step in learning. It is the most basic type of intellectual activity and all of us do it all the time. It is also the fundamental activity of philosophers

Philosophy is the art or science asking what questions are worth asking.

Think about that a moment. What we are saying is that when we are looking for answers that we cannot find it might be because we have wrong question. Is it plausible to believe that you will every get the right answers if you are asking the wrong questions?

When viewed that way all of the sometimes contradictory answers above are understandable. So, when we think of education in philosophic terms we need to be sure that we are asking the right question. Our philosophy of education isn’t about the answers we have but about the questions we want to find.

Sometimes doing that means the philosopher ask very strange questions. This is the approach that Descartes used when he consciously tried to doubt everything. What he found was that he could not doubt that he was doubting and therefore there must be someone or some thing to doubt so he was able to say "I cannot doubt that I doubt and doubting requires thinking. Therefore because one must think to doubt and thinking requires a being to think so I think therefore I am.” Which leads me to sometime wonder how many people today are not really here since they never appear to think?

And that brings us to our next question: What is Education?

Most teachers would probably answer the question: "What is education?" by using one of these two models: "Education is imparting knowledge" or "Education is helping the student discover knowledge." because as an educator you can perceive yourself as delivering knowledge or facts to your students on one extreme; or you can, at the other extreme use a curriculum that is based upon letting students explore a subject in more or less unstructured way. Most of you will probably fall somewhere between the two. However, in Hong Kong the public schools tend to lean rather hard towards content based education.

What is interesting about these two ideas is that neither is actually education. They are pedagogy! Pedagogy is the science of educating but not education itself. Pedagogy is means to an end. It is how we deliver a curriculum in schools. If it were the sum of education then no education could ever occur without pedagogy or could have ocurred before a pedagogy existed.

Without a doubt John Dewey is the most important educational philosopher in the last 200 years and yet, in many ways John Dewey was simply an advocate of an improved pedagogy. However, I believe that his pedagogy was based upon a better understanding of what learning is and how education should replicate the way naturally learn. That does not mean I always agree with everything he said. It certainly does not mean that I agree with everything that is done in his name. Dewey believed that education should be tied to experience and that academic skills are best mastered when placed in context of real life situations and when solving actual problems.

Notice if you will the last three words of my previous sentence.

Now remember how we defined philosophy? It is the art of science of asking what questions are worth asking. Dewey, though trying to reform pedagogy got the right answer to the question "What is education" because he asked the right question Why do students find knowledge easier to learn if they see a purpose for those skills? Because if what they learn is seen as valuable to them they have motivation to learn it. Do we, through practice gain the desire for more esoteric knowledge that we have less use for? Yes but that is an acquired taste.

So what is education? Education is the way that humans learn to solve the problems required for living.

So if we put our two definitions together into a unified whole what do we have?

How about this: Educational Philosophy is the process of asking questions in a

way that allows students to gain the answers needed for living in society.

Question #3: Why do I need an educational Philosophy?

Well, given that we are out of time, you'll to answer that one yourself.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who dabble in Educational Philosophy

Labels: Educational Philosophy, Fai Mao, John Dewey

I was forwarded one of these silly trivia quizzes about things that smart people know but that most people are clueless about. After reading the questions and looking at the answers I decided that in many cases the "Smart people" are clueless as well.

The following questions were sent to me with the disclaimer that none of the questions had trick answers

1. Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

Their answer: Boxing

Comment: What about Olympic and Sumo Wrestling? I guess the World Wrestling Federation would be excluded from this because the participants tend to know who the winner will be before the match but not in Olympic and Sumo Wrestling. The winner is unknown until the contest ends, it is also difficult to know who is ahead in these sports until the contest ends. So get a life Braniacs there isn't just ONE sport like this.

2. What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward?

Their answer: Niagara Falls

Comments: What constitutes "Backwards" in this case? Couldn't these falls be just as easily moving West or North West? I realize this one is picky but still, why backwards?

3. Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perennial vegetables?

Their Answer: Rhubarb and Asparagus

Comment: They missed some. (A) Prickly Pear Cactus is native to North America but is now grown commercially all over the world. It produces a very sweet and sticky fruit but the pads can also be eaten and quite commonly are. While the fruit is fruit the pads would qualify as a vegetable and it is a perennial plant. (B) Mesquite is a tree that grows in the US South West and Northern Mexico. It is, I believe the world's largest legume and produces bean pods that native American tribes ate all the time. I am not saying they are very good but they can be eaten. (C) Bamboo is also, I believe a perennial plant, it grows all over the world and many parts are edible. (D) Roses are perennial and a member of the apple family and the "rose hips" are commonly eaten as a fruit. But, the leaves can be picked, washed and eaten in a salad, and the leaves qualify as a vegetable. (E) The tops of the taro plant can be chopped up and eaten like spinach, if you cut only the top and leave the tastier tuber in the ground the top will grow back does that qualify as perennial plant? (F) There are several trees, I don't know which ones right off hand that have edible leaves. Those would qualify as vegetables though they are not commonly eaten, they could be and trees are perennial plants.

4. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

Their Answer: Strawberries

Comment: I may have to give them this one though I find it hard to believe that there isn't another fruit like this.

5. In many liquor stores, you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the bottle is genuine; it hasn't been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside the bottle?

Answer: The bottle is placed over the pear when it is a pollinated bud and the pear then grows to maturity inside the bottle.

Comment: Kind of the only way to do this and a curious product but you don't have to be smart to be able to figure this out. I guess this just prove that these smart people are also heavy drinkers.

6. Only three words in standard English begin with the letters 'dw' and they are all common words. Name two of them.

Their Answer: Dwell, Dwarf, Dwindle

Comment: These people are not as smart as they think they are: Each of the words above have various forms that give the words shades of meaning. What about Dwelling, Dwelt, Dwells, Dwellings, Dwarven, Dwarfish, Dwindled, Dwindling, Dwindles are those words? Why do they not count the different tense as a separate word? After all a Dwarven Woman is not necessary the same thing as a woman who is a dwarf. What about first names like Dwight, Dwayne, and so forth, are those not English words?

7. There are 14 punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name at least half of them?

Their Answer: period, comma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parenthesis, braces, and ellipses.

Comment: I thought a hyphen and a dash were the same thing. Please show me on a standard keyboard where a hyphen is versus a dash and what the difference is? This is a matter of usage not symbol. Two separate words are made into a hyphenated word by placing a "dash" between them. Also when was the last time anyone ever used "brackets" or "braces" in a sentence? You don't even use them in citations anymore. I am not sure they are punctuation for English so much as operators in mathematical equations.

8. Name the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.

Their Answer: Lettuce

Comment: Wrong! You can buy pickled lettuce in any Asian grocery store and the Chinese cook it all the time. However I've never seen lettuce frozen, wait I have because I sometimes used to see frozen sandwiches in deli's at bait shops and those sandwiches had lettuce on them. But they were not very good sandwiches and the people who made up this quiz probably wouldn't buy anything from a bait shop anyway.

9. Name at least 6 things that you can wear on your feet beginning with the letter 'S.'

Their Answer: shoes, socks, sandals, sneakers, slippers, skis, skates, snowshoes, stockings, stilts

Comment: Inconsistent application of rules in a game is the mark of a cheater. In question 6 of this silly quiz it did not use variant forms of the words here they use four words that are near synonyms - sneakers, sandals and slippers are all types of shoes. If they list those then why not saddle shoes, surf shoes and sand shoes? Then they could have 9 thing that start with "S" that you can wear on your feet. It also seems to me that you do not wear stilts, skis or snowshoes on you feet, they are attached to your shoe which you wear on your feet. So you do not, in a technical sense wear skis, snowshoes or stilts on your feet unless you are barefoot beforehand. The same is often true of skates which are wheels or blades attached to a shoe or boot and are sometimes a separate device clamped to or over a shoe. But if those items are listed then why not spats? For that matter, if the people who put this silly quiz together had ever walked through a barnyard they'd know that there is at least one more thing that starts with "S" that you can wear on your feet and that is why you always wear boots instead of shoes in the barnyard!

There is a lot going on; riots in China, Bangkok and South Korea, high fuel prices, earthquake relief, shop signs falling off of building and killing pedestrians in Wan Chai and a horrible traffic accident in Central yesterday but I guess it is a measure of my jaded intellect that I chose to deal with this today.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who may be smarter than the Hoity Toity Set thinks he is

Labels: Fai Mao, Hong Kong, Humor, Trivia

I am just at the beginning of my summer break. That means I ride the bike go for walks, shop, sleep late and stay up playing video games. Not much time for blogging until the 2nd week of July

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who doesn't blogg on vacation

Labels: Fai Mao

Big story on TVB tonight about a VP and and two flunkies at Centaline Real estate going to jail for in one case a whopping three years - hey we're talking what they give murderers here- for taking "Tea Money" or under the table finders fees. Holy cow! There maybe there is hope for Hong Kong yet. But maybe I'm just an optimist.

We've been looking for a new flat and it is so hard because you cannot know what is a better value by looking at advertisements. One 1200 square foot flat may actually be about 1000 square feet and and another one about 800 square feet. If you look at village houses it is even worse because they do not show pictures of the actual dwelling! Every time I deal with the real estate agents here I feel like I need a shower, they just make me feel so dirty. To help solve this problem the real estate association has come up with a set of guidelines on how to figure the interior size of flats. These now tell developers that it is unethical to figure window sills as part of the square footage. Now of course they couldn't just measure the gross internal space excluding the obvious window sills, AC ledges and balconies that are not listed in places with governments that make a cursory effort to care about having honest weights and measures. No, even with these new voluntary rules if the flat is listed at 800 square feet you can expect about 600 or less actual space inside.

But I guess that all this just means that the HK Real Estate association is living up to it's motto: "We give lawyers a good name"

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The blogger who isn't a real estate agent

Labels: Fai Mao, Hong Kong Realestate

Does anyone still fall for this scam?

Holy Cow, I must get 12 of these a week.

Labels: Con Games, Fai Mao, Fraud, Internet Scams, Nigeria

The past two week have been as the last two weeks of any school year always are, the busiest of my year. One of my hats at the school is that I am responsible for end of year textbook return for all secondary students. I have the textbooks cataloged into the library system and assign them by checking them out to students in the fall. This is a big job that makes me both mentally and physically tired. However, getting all the books back, assessing fines for damage and getting everything closed down and ready for next year is just part of the job and in a certain way I enjoy the hectic pace and the feeling of accomplishment that comes with completing so many task. The past two weeks are filled with heavy lifting as I stack and move the books into the summer storage area and assessing the condition and recording the return of the books. It is also fun to see the high school seniors, who were in grade 2 when I became the librarian happy about their graduation even if I know most of them are far to naive and immature to really be considered adults. But they are at least old enough to begin that real education that comes from actually living and I can be happy for them and appreciate how hard they have worked to graduate. I can also look forward to a vacation, and a general period of relaxation, and refreshment so that I can rest up for the coming year that begins in August. So this is in many ways my favorite time of the school year.

All is not bliss because there is something that pops up at the end of the academic year that as an educator in Hong Kong I do not like. I always have a number of parents approach me for textbooks. They want their child to have every book for every class in the coming year so that they can have the summer to "get ahead" for the fall. The school has a rule that we will only do this if the child has been recommended by the Special Needs teacher or if it is an AP class. That does not stop parents from asking.

Do not misunderstand. I am all for academic excellence. Kids need to know facts, there is a place for hard academic work. Subjects should be challenging and academically rigorous. But there is a place where academic enrichment becomes child abuse and many parents in Hong Kong have passed that point about 5 extra tutorial sessions ago. One of the parents asking for textbooks this week told me that she had already enrolled her child in a math camp in Illinois and still wanted him to go completely through the Algebra 2 book that takes all year in the 9th or 10th grade. Luckily for her son the teacher did not agree to this. She expects her son to make an absolute 100 on any math test he takes, nothing less is acceptable. If she were ever in a movie Dorothy would probably drop a house on her.

I believe that this type of excessive expectation being forced upon children is, at least in part, a result of the EVIL corporate environment here. Most of the parents have to work what amounts to two jobs here to get one pay check. 70 or 80 hours a week seems to be about the norm for a lot of jobs. Thus there is a very real belief by parents that this is not only what it takes to not get ahead but to simply stay economically afloat in Hong Kong. As a result kids here are often raised by maids who get them up, send them to school, and then drag them from tutor to tutor until midnight when they come home to do their homework and then put them to bed at 3:00AM for 3.5 to 4 hours sleep. It is amazing to me how sleepy the middle-school and high-school students are in Hong Kong.

You can make an argument, perhaps a good one that this is just Chinese culture. Not being a cultural relativist I still say it is EVIL. Children need time to be children. I could, if I wanted list reasons for this but it probably wouldn't do any good. The parents are doing this out of fear that they mistake for love. They are afraid their children will have to work as hard as they do and see the accumulation of academic trivia as the hedge against the kid next door who might know just one more fact. It doesn't matter that the child can only play the piano pieces required for the test. It doesn't matter that they can memorize mathematical formulas but have no understanding of how they relate to the real world. It doesn't matter if they have no social skills. I doesn't matter if they exhibit signs of mental illness caused by stress. It doesn't matter that after a certain point higher grades on standardized test cease to be predictive of success. Nothing matters except being able to get good grades so that they can one day work 70 to 80 hours a week in a prestigious job. My God! I think Prestige is over rated!

I have learned that I cannot argue with the parent's mindset. Illogical people actually have their own internal logic.That means that most of the time you cannot reason with irrationality. Historically the best way you oppose irrationality is not through reason but though force and I do not have the authority or desire dissuade them that way. What am I going to do; beat some sense into them? Unless you can show them that they are wrong which is very difficult they cannot be reasoned with. Thus, if I refuse they complain about me to the administration and threaten to take their child to another school. If I give into them I am aiding and abetting the abuse of their child. So the question is, do I want to lose my job or help them abuse their child? I am beaten either way. I've kind of defaulted in the past to giving the textbook if a teacher or principal will agree to it but some of those can be leaned on will give books out regardless of any actual academic need.

This is a question I've thought about at this time of year for several years. How can I get parents to see that often times their kids grades would improve, or at least not fall if they were allowed to take some time off and be kids in the summer? I've tried lots of approaches. I am ashamed to say that maladaptive ones have been the easiest and the most successful. "I'm sorry, that textbook is being replaced and the new one isn't in yet." will work in some cases. "Come back next week when everything is returned" is another ploy because sometimes they do not come back; and even if they do I've bought the child a week off from extra math. I've also had polite conversations about the limitations of standardized test and the need for developing the whole person not just math skills. Nothing has been very successful.

For some reason the parents here tend to focus on math and science and generally ask for math books. This is frustrating to me because most of our students need extra help in language not math. So I just absolutely fume at the inappropriateness of this. Not only are they working their children like dogs when they need a mental break they are giving them practice in skills they do not need at the expense of the skills they do need.

Next year I am going to ask the principals if I can try something different. I am going to play to the parents fears but in a different way. I am going to purchase three or four copies of various books, written at different levels that deal math topics. These could be titles like The Physics of Baseball, Flatland, The Mr. Tompkins books, Galileo's Daughter, Fermat's last Theorem, just to name a few but I'll have to find some at a lower reading level as well. Then before parents start pestering me for algebra books I make an announcement for an "Advanced Summer Math Program" that will prepare the students for next years math courses with an explanation that we are broadening the thinking process so that the students are able to understand the concepts easier.

I am going to suggest to parents that their psychotic little brats (That is after all what abused children become) read one of these instead of doing endless extra math problems and write a short reflective paper on what they learned. This is sound in a number of ways but the most important one is that it shows kids that the math we do in a book exist in the real world. Geometry, trigonometry, algebra and calculus all describe REAL things, events or situations and being able to see those in life makes math easier to learn because kids see it as a practical skill to know. Knowing why a curve ball curves and showing the mental calculations a striker makes when he kicks a soccer ball or the relationship between musical notes and fractions give children useful clues about not only math but life. More than that it gives the kids practice reading technical materials and in dealing with abstract concepts and in writing and thinking which is what they need help in. I believe that this will be more beneficial to the students as well as less onerous. Who knows, maybe reading about baseball will encourage them to actually grab a glove and bat and go outside and play some baseball. Stranger things have happened.

We will see if the parents buy the plan.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The proponent of a sneaky curriculum

Labels: Childhood, Education, Fai Mao, Hong Kong, International Schools

June 4th was the 19th anniversary of the night that PRC tanks made mush out of several hundred people that were agitating for greater democracy and freedom in China. However, it could probably be argued that the ones who died were the lucky ones. About 500 of them were arrested and have been in jail every since. 19 years in a labor camp for asking for a less repressive government.

If they'd joined the Taliban as terrorist they'd be in Guantanamo Bay receiving three squares, have religious services and chaplains, access to health care, not required to do hard labor and have the possibility albeit a small one, that they will have their case heard by a civilian court. Plus, when the US either wins or loses the WOT they might be released. By contrast, the people arrested in that government square were not terrorist, they didn't want to murder everyone who didn't hold their narrow and barbaric theology and they were not even armed. They were a threat only to the old men with shoe polish in their hair and not much of a threat to even them. Yet, they have been held without trial, forced to do hard labor, malnourished and abused for 19 years.


I don't go to the candle light vigils that commemorate what happened that night. My eyes are the wrong shape. I don't want any of the what amounts to Chinese holocaust deniers to be able to say: "See, it is just a plot but evil foreigners to discredit our great nation!" It doesn't mean I do not care.


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who prays daily that China, his adopted country, can be free

Labels: 1989, Chinese Politics, Fai Mao, June 4, Tiananmen Square

Thomas Jefferson once said "That everyman owes allegiance to that home and hearth into which he was born and beyond that, France!" So I guess the idea of dual citizenship has been with us a long time.

This issue of dual citizenship has been pretty embarrassing for the local Mandarins over the last week or so. THBT appointed a whole bevy of young (i.e. under 70) Yes men (or madams!) to fill positions in the government that were created just for them to occupy. I guess this is to start grooming the supply of Beijingophiles that can be trusted by the PRC to run for the Chief Executive office after Hong Kong gets universal suffrage in 3024.

As it turns out, everyone of these people had citizenship or permanent residency in another country. In normal circumstances that would be fine. If you are a lawyer or butcher, baker or candlestick maker here in Hong Kong it is OK if you someday plan to abandon us for retirement in Montana. But, governments should not be run by foreigners. That is what happens in a colony. Hong Kong is not a colony of Canada, the formerly great Britain which is now just the UK, Australia, the US or anywhere else. If you are going to be in the government be a citizen of the country that pays you and nowhere else. This is just basic patriotism.

Now to their credit, all of these people at once renounced their other passport as soon as it became know that they held them. However, they should have done this BEFORE a public outcry was raised. I would also question how much the renunciation really means? Did, for example the entire family of Greg So, who I have met and is fairly nice guy, renounce their Canadian citizenship? If not, what is the possibility of him regaining Canadian citizenship if his family moves there in the future? Given the insularity of the HK government from criticism I guess that this is about as good as we can expect.

The other part to this scandal is both more sinister and more repugnant to me. The government has not published and indeed refuses to publish the salary scale for these glorified paper-pushers and Donald Tsang want-to-be officials. The salaries of civil servants here are always somewhere above outrageous and generally just below what averagely corrupt third world dictators pay their mistresses to do the landry but at least we know what the salary is. How much are these people being paid if the government is embarrassed by their salary? The fact that we are not being told makes me believe that these salaries are the real reason that Henry what's-his-name the financial guy says that Hong Kong needs to broaden its tax base.

Hello corrupt mainland bureaucracy.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who believe that government officials should work for less than market value rather than 4 to 6 times the market value

Labels: Citizenship, Fai Mao, Hong KOng Government, Immigration

Drool, Britannia, Britannia drools in waves,
Britons very very very soon will all be slaves.

Bow, Britannia, Britannia towards Mecca prays
Britons very very very soon will all be slaves


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who believes that all religions have a right to evangelize in a non-violent manner.

Labels: Fai Mao, Freedom of Religion, Islam, United Kingdom

I can't add much here.

Fai Mao

Labels: Fai Mao

Other than the being married part this guy could be describing me.

I think that the true Retro-Sexual is the middle-aged, happily married guy who respects his wife but wants to punch the clowns spraying graffiti all over Causeway Bay

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Happily Retro Blogger

Labels: Fai Mao, Humor, Retrosexual

Once again Charles the Hammer pounds heads.

I like the term "Climate Change Agnostic"

Until Next Time
Fai mao
The blogger who is more of a Skeptic than Agnostic in this case

Labels: Fai Mao, Global Warming

The religion of peace strikes again.

This is just so typical of the Islamic mind set in many cases. (Notice I did not say all)

Until Next Time
Fai mao

Labels: Fai Mao, Islam, Islamic Terror

This has to be a candidate for best bit of bathroom humor I've seen. However, you see this kind of stuff all over China


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger with a dirty mind

Labels: Fai Mao, Humor, strange News

I like the ending of this article.

I find it amazing that so many on the political Left cannot see that their political agenda pushing the world towards totalitarianism.

The issue is Freedom

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who will be in Thailand Next week

Labels: Fai Mao

The ever lovely, looks twenty-five years younger than she is, really smart and pretty wife and I want to move. She is changing jobs and will be working in the far wilderness of Tai Po starting in July and I already work in City One. She finds Causeway bay to be "convenient" where I just find it, crowded and undesirable. However, it is now too far away from where either of us work to live there so we are looking for a new flat. Yesterday was the third round of flat hunting. How frustrating.

Housing in Hong Kong is way, way, way over priced. That fact doesn't seem to register with anybody in the government here though which probably has something to do with the property developer's cartel that actually runs the place. It also seems that the government is oblivious to the way that the high cost of housing reduces Hong Kong's competitiveness; but that is another post for another time.

We decided to look a little farther North than Kowloon and have been looking in the Tai Po, Tai Wu areas. It is frustrating because the concept of farther out is cheaper does not really seem to apply anymore.

So, yesterday was Shenzhen which has become a real possibility. I think that Shenzhen is also over priced but it is a matter of degree. The same flat in Tai Po market that cost 4.5 million will cost a measly 1 million in Shenzhen. Shenzhen has come a long way in 10 years. It is clean, has done a good job of reducing crime, has wide sidewalks, tree lined streets and a Wal-Mart grocery store. Believe me, Americans may hate Wal-Mart in the US but they'll love it in China. All in all, Shenzhen has a lot going for it. But I don't know if I want to live there.


The real issues are more complex

The disadvantages
1. The commute time would be greater and I don't like the train.
2. Traveling outside China would be problematic
3. The unpredictability of the PRC government is another issue.
4. The almost non-existent sense of building maintenance exhibited by the people in China.
5. Having to carry two different currencies
6. While an SAR like Hong Kong it is still far more like China than Hong Kong.

The advantages
1. Much more space
2.Much less expensive
3. Better grocery stores
4. Less crowded
5. The mainland tourist all go to Hong Kong or Macao
6. traveling in China would be easier
7. I could own a Chevrolet
8. THBT is not the CE of Shenzhen
9. Long Hair Leung doesn't live there

It is really a tough call. The flats are much nicer and larger and cheaper. The issue is that do the disadvantages of living there out way the cost.


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who is house hunting

Labels: China, Fai Mao, Hong Kong Realestate