Facebook and the ivory international school dream

Back then, I wanted to move to an international school very early on in high school, tired of rote memorization and looking for * something else * that I believed was more holistic, with better teachers, better programs.  The tuition fees were exorbitant! And hence, I stood outside, from my public school looking faraway, for a freer land.

The international school community was then for me an ivory tower, an idealistic dream.  My dream was protected from all reality that was happening behind those walls.

Nowadays, with facebook and the Internet, the walls are torn down.  Yet, if I were a student now, how would I feel?  Envious with the prom parties, the international travel photos, the non-Vietnamese facebook friends, the good-looking dresses? Disappointed with a world not always filled with motivation, good friends, good teachers? Or simply appreciating what I would be having even more?

With facebook and such transparent personal information load, would the world feel more empowered, or more disenchanted with more reality? When more truth is relatively easier to seek now than before, people could be more self-conscious. But their quality of life, improved or not, seems to me not being essentially driven by this development.

Power, Money, Love, Ideals, and Life frames

- You know why you should advocate for U.S. colleges over other countries? Because it's where kids can be asked to dream and have both the freedom and the social pressure to dream and pursue one's dream.

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The Singapore and U.K. education frame students' purpose around making it to the top of the corporate ladder, and hence, valuing money.  The Australian education teaches students specific vocations, valuing stable life.  The Vietnamese education separates professors from students, which makes students have nothing more exciting to do than to bond with each other more and hence, to value love.  And here I am, indoctrinated by the habit to ask why, wonder about life's purpose, like a black sheep in these circles when talking about "dreams." 

I recently find myself at odds with the circle I'm familiar with as well.  These people I know, inspired by their U.S. education and understanding so well their own life reasons, are pursuing their dreams, ambitious, worth-pursuing.  Some others make do with what they need to live first, money and family.  Some take advantage of the time and the skills to become, step by step, more powerful.  When the pieces are arranged together, the attractive picture of various impacts and happy lives shimmers.  On the pessimistic frame, it looks as though some dreams have been left behind for new dreams and the realistic life to take the lead.  On the optimistic frame, maybe it was just a hole in the U.S. college education: one should not strive for individual impacts or for becoming heroes, because in reality, the collective impacts of a generation and how those interact with external forces of the society they live in should worth more than any particular case.

When I get depressed and put on my pessimistic frame, I could be so sarcastic of people, even though they do nothing wrong or bad, and being sarcastic of them means being sarcastic of my own self.  When I put on my optimistic frame, I have to turn off my impatient desires for answers and angst for knowing the future.  When I couldn't care more about anything and stay with my under-twenty personality, it feels like a kid, so optimistic, moving on, playing, smiling.  Sometimes, it feels sad having such a messy soul, as it makes sharing too challenging.

Leng's email - Elite education

Dear friends,

A friend forwarded this that I just read, and was really struck by it.  It is a critique of the elite universities, and their tacit support of privilege, and complacency, and the creation of a class of people who substitute form for substance—and are not aware of it. 

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education/ 

I send it to you because you are 1) like me, a product of some of these elite universities, or  2) you are hoping to get into these places, or  3) you help people get into them! Not that climbing the ladder of achievement or privilege is wrong, nor that we are not free to choose the normative values of our own life.  However, the creation of an unthinking and unreflective elite—by universities, corporations, special scholarship schemes and selection process, civil service selections, etc.—is a concern, at least to anyone who is educated (in the broadest definition of education), because education ought to  help the many, not the few.

If you’ll excuse my normative slight of hand in the above, the educated mind tries to at least not be too self-delusional.  But if Marshall Goldsmith’s What got you here won’t get you there,  and Malcolm Gladwell’s  Outlier , both of which are about “successful” people, are right, the successful (including those well educated) are self-delusional. The successful drivers that successful people attribute to themselves are post-hoc narratives.  Gladwell suggests that Gates and Jobs et al are successful because they rode a generational wave—people born in the 1950’s who came of age in their 20’s during the birth of a new technology.  Goldsmith, arguably the most influential executive coach, would say that successful people were given more breaks than they would care to admit, or could even recognize.   Ability was never a sufficient reason, and sometimes, not even a necessary one. 

Your thoughts are welcome.

Leng

Leng Lim

"Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love--Reinhold Niebuhr"

Gaming the SAT

The statistics and reports have bias of whoever created them.  College Board reports say that there's no actual change w test prep courses and advise students using only CB's stuff.  Kaplan says that there are actual changes in their students' scores.  The National Association consists of mostly high school counselors, whom, because of the admissions political game, cannot say that they like private admissions/college prep entities.  But then, when they retire, they become private entities themselves =)  Likewise, college counselors cannot say outright that they need elite students even though they truly need them to keep the elite circle running.  Hence, they have to say that they favor the poor, even though only a handful of them are need-blind.

When people measure students' changes in test scores, the initial student sample has to come from the same score range, similar student backgrounds/ family backgrounds, and controlling for the type of coaches/teachers they have for us to have any better insights on our course performance.  Maybe Yola can do this test one day? :) 

This article brings up an interesting perspective on how the results delivered by for-profits vs. non-profit school may not be that big http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/nyregion/22private.html - the important lies, with both types of school, in how good the management is (efficient, result-oriented, etc.)

Over time, I realize that teachers are not there for the knowledge.  With the right motivation, anything can be self-learned.  The key thing is that in those transforming years, students will form habits that will stay with them when becoming adults and those include: how to learn, how to manage time, how to ask for help, how to stay focused and determined, how to be accountable with others, and how to make decisions.  That's why good teachers are needed.  That's where Yola's value is important, not the change in test scores, even though that's the only tangible metrics we can boast about. 

Tu

- Hide quoted text -

On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 4:42 PM, Duy Phan | Yola Institute <duyphan@yola.vn> wrote:
The schools actually are the ones who created the frenzy about the SAT. They now are kicking the ball away from their field.

On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 4:27 PM, Khoa Pham | Yola Institute <khoapham@yola.vn> wrote:

Tu and Duy, what do you think?

http://www.unigo.com/articles/gaming_the_sat/?taxonomyId=760030