Learning much from college?

A study calls into question the rigor of undergraduate education in America, and the article sparked 100+ comments on whether the American colleges are falling behind the rest of the world, as with its elementary schools and high schools.

The study claimed that a big chunk of the undergrads surveyed show no improvement in their critial thinking, complex reasonsing and writing by their sophomore year. Statistics aside, I do feel I didn't get much out of my own college experience, except for something to show on my resume. Of course, the college experience depends on what you make of it. But I do agree that the universities are responsible for beefing up the curriculum and really put students' best interest in their front and center agenda.

With the advancement of technology and the increasing competition for jobs and resources, the future trend of education will inevitably move toward self-generated learnings. Students will have to take ownership of their own development, instead of relying on third parties looking after their interests. That's how this article ties back to the "Tiger Mom" controversy. Maybe parents are responsible to impart the sense of self-displine to their children at an early age. And maybe parents should take a bigger role in their kids' life, when the young and restless don't know better how to manage their time and think ahead... ...

Reading list...

Too many good reads, too little time, here is a round-up of my to-read list in edu world:

1. LA Times on Value-Added Analysis
2. UC Berkeley Professor's review of "Measure of Effective Learning"
3. Master Teacher's Class Always in Sessions in Chelsea High
4. Debate over Effective Learning
5. Tenure issue

Chinese mothers

Well, it's all over the news, Amy Chua's controversial book on the superiority of Chinese way of education. Since there is no way to avoid it in education blog-sphere, I might just give my two cents on this.

Being the only child growing up in a traditional Chinese family, I have to say that Amy's account is overly exaggerating. Or, we have to analyze each family case by case. In my scenario, my Mom was never the "Tiger Mom" who always demanded top performance. Although, there is certain expectation that I should strive for the best I could be, she never yelled at me if I get an A-, instead of A. But on the other hand, I still got the pressure from my peers who always got the perfect score on everything, maybe their Moms are more in line with Amy Chua? Who knows...

Going back to the Chinese v. Western way of education, there has long been a debate over how to merge the two extreme ways of educating kids. Chinese parents are overly protective and demanding, who discourage young kids to think on their own and thus produce the so-called excellent mediocrity: Chinese children tend to grow up with the perfect scores, but with very low self esteem and lack of character of their own. On the other hand, westerners are too lenient in a way that eventually causes irresponsible acts in youth such as drug use and premarital sex. So is there a middle ground here? Is there a perfect way to educate our kids so that the parents know when to let them go and when to rein them in?

I think this is a very important topic that should not be taken lightly. Therefore, I am planning to use this site to record my study on this matter, and hopefully will have a more clarified answer for you soon!

A new era for edu?

Titled "Is Google-fication of education underway? Among tables and 3D TV at CES, one-size-fits-all education is facing a digital death knell." The Jan 7, 2011 article on Fortune revealed the trend of increasing partnership between schools and online learning companies, claiming that virtual classroom not only ensures access of eduction to students, it also helps deliver better results.

Having long been a skeptic of online education, I just don't think anything could replace the intimate setting of a classroom: the personal attention from teachers, and the teamwork environment with fellow classmates. But it's not like the online education can't provide all that. Teachers can still provide support remotely, and peer discussions can take place virtually via online chatting. Then what else is holding me back, when the whole world is seemingly moving toward virtual-ity?

Going back to the article, the author argues that by having students taking classes online, valuable data such as correction rate of practices, improvement over certain subject, or even a student's best time to study are all captured and can be utilized to improve the quality of education. Similar to Google's model, the e-learning companies can use the captured data to continue improve their program. But, isn't it the student's job to identify his or her own weakness and work hard to improve that? If we all rely on a computer server to do all the work for us, what is point of learning in the first place? and will that student ever learn to study on his own without some sort of software feeding information to his/her brain?

Maybe I am just old school, but I still feel that one should never rid education of the personal element. Even if the whole world is going virtual, and people will never need to leave their homes for anything, I would still hope that education will be an exception, because haste does make waste, especially with learning...

Donors Choose

Just several months ago, my friend in Hongkong sent around an email anouncing their charity oriented online startup - http://www.bbmcharity.com/ - a nonprofit website that links the donors directly with people in need. Today, upon stumbling on another friend's post on Facebook, I discovered its American counterpart, http://www.donorschoose.org/, a website that shares the same concept, but specifically focuses on public school education.

Having worked in finance for the last three years, and witnessed some of the lavish lifestyles of people working on the Street, it stuns me that some of the public schools don't even have the funding for basic teaching tools, in the order of $300 to $400, which could be a third of the cost of a designer handbag. By cutting out the bureaucracy and red tapes, these websites are truly making changes to people's lives, especially the young ones who represent our future.

On the other hand, I do worry about the scalability of those companies. How will they expand their impact if they are only relying on piecemeal and ad hoc donations from individual web surfers like us. The bigger funding issues of publich schools and other social projects can only be solved by the collective of the public, and it is up to the governments to make the systems work.

Nevertheless, kudos to the kind-hearted and creative people who are behind those websites. It is in them, we see the hope in our future ...

Obligatory first post

I don't exactly recall since when I started to critique how I was raised by my parents, and imagine how I would do differently to my kids someday. Although I realize that it is not fair to criticize our parents in the hindsight, this thought did sparkle my passion in finding out THE way to give children the kind of education that would equip them with what awaits in the future. And this is the blog that, hopefully, will help me find the answer...