Ranting on my high school education

Okay this is not exactly ranting. It pin-points a few things which I feel are very wrong with my high school education or just Singapore education in general. Sorry for the lack of decent posts these days. JC has began and I no longer have the leisure to write about random interesting stuff.

Apparently I was quite bored as always so I went to look through the HCI yearbook for 2013. And I was amazed that they actually listed out every single achievement the school has achieved throughout the year. Looking through their achievement especially in the sciences, I started thinking about the reason for their spectacular results for certain science competitions. Then I started thinking what's the difference between their school and ny that made the results differ so drastically.

Are boys really superior to girls in maths and science? I don't think so. For SJPhO, it's apparent that NY and HCI are on par, if not NY achieving better results. However I noticed for chemistry and biomedical olympiad, the difference is huge. It so happens that I took part in both and seeing their outstanding performance made me a little sad. But what's the reason behind?

I remember that for biomedical olympiad, the amount of help that our school offered could be almost reduced to zero. Okay, so definitely we have to read the textbook, fair enough, and there is a list of reference texts that we have no idea where to find them. Also there are a few links to neuroscience websites. Okay now you have to read up on your own. Kthxbye. Then there's no more news until the day of the competition.

Nobody took the olympiad seriously. In fact, the entire 401 was forced to go for the olympiad. No one was motivated to study for this olympiad and the results, not surprisingly, were quite bad. Only very few of us got into the second round and maybe one or two highly motivated individuals got bronze? The school didn't announce it anyway.

In comparison, those in hci were given thick stacks of notes to refer to. Not saying that we shouldn't try to find more information on our own, but the information on the internet are so disorganized and varying in standards that some notes will definitely be helpful. And also, it's apparent that hci took this competition seriously. Therefore, I think that the students were also more motivated and thus achieved remarkable results in the end.

For SJChO it's a bit of a different story. The reason that HCI always outperform NY in SJChO is mainly due to the difference in difficulty of the school's chemistry syllabus. I still remember the first lesson of our chemistry olympiad training. We were deeply traumatized. Before the day we were still using the convention of bohr's planetary atomic model and suddenly BAM lvl 1up you need to visualise everything in 3D quantum mechanics now and we don't care if you have read the relevant chapters of your chem O textbook we are going to test you on it the first thing on the first lesson! Well the guys have no problems. At first we thought they were so into chem they actually read up and know everything by themselves. No. They actually learnt these stuff in their school syllabus, in Sec 3, before the chem O lessons started.

So we appeared very dumb there for the following chem O lessons, and for a long time felt inferior until we realise that this difference in ability is due to the syllabus.

Not sure if hc chem syllabus is a bit crazy, they actually covered way more things than that required in O level. Especially on physical chemistry. NY, in contrast, really covered only the O level things. This put us into great disadvantage, or rather, put HC into great advantage. Being properly taught and covered in school lessons is definitely better than simply skimming through everything in weekly 2 hour lessons that are not even properly delivered.

Something definitely needs to be done to NY's chem syllabus. Chem is becoming the easiest science to score among the three sciences. There are almost no challenges for chem papers, just the possibility of carelessness. Unless you have difficulty understanding the concepts, chemistry is never difficult. In comparison, NY's physics syllabus, which in my opinion is not that easy, helps to pull up the overall standard of physics students in NY, which may also explain our not so bad results for physics o.

Syllabus aside, there's another thing which I feel HC and NY are very different in, which is the passion and interest in what they are doing. From my observation, girls tend to follow rules. A lot of them don't really know what they want, so they set their grades as a measurable goal, something to spend their time working on. However, they do not feel much for the things they are putting work in. They are putting in their effort purely to be good. Be the good girls they always are.

Boys, on the contrary, can be very passionate in what they are doing. It's this great passion that motivates them and make them push themselves further and further. This is rarely observed in girls. Most girls just want to achieve their standard of "good", and that will be good enough. This may be able to explain why guys tend to outperform girls in competitions, things that require one to go for extra miles. Sure, some girls mug for competitions. But they really just mug for the sake of competition, not their own interest. In the end, they may achieve good results, but their interest may not even lie there. Of course, this theory does not fit for all guys and girls. There will be some girls who are motivated by passion and some guys motivated by result. However, because of the general trend, the school cultures of hc and ny are very different.

For example, the entry requirement for certain special programmes are much higher in NY than in HC. This does not make a lot of sense to me, because since you are only specialising in a field of interest, why must you be good at everything? However that's the case in NY. (It may be due to the belief that most girls when they mug, they mug for everything instead of just one. So only the overall result reflect true ability of the student.) It seems that in NY, you must be first good at something before you can develop your passion for it. I'm not sure what the culture of HC is like, but I know that the requirement is definitely lower, there are more people in the program and many of them who are extremely passionate individuals get to participate in various related activities.

Comparing our high school lives, I feel that mine is a bit wasted. What did I spend my time on? Well I admit in Sec 1 I was totally goofing around. In sec 2 my passion started to develop for the sciences partly because I was good at them and partly because I found the other lessons (especially humanities) unbearable. In sec 3 and 4 was when I started to get really interested in the subject through exposure to higher order stuff.

The exposure that the school gave was definitely not enough. I tried to borrow relevant books and read them. However, reading these books was at the bottom of my to do list. With so much workload and other mugging to do, I have to eventually return them without absorbing much of the content. (just like now I have a university physics textbook right beside me and I'm still blogging this sigh I should read it thoroughly someday). You see, that "someday" is always the excuse for not reading these stuff. I admit I'm a bit of a procrastinator, but I also wished that back then I'm not so caught up in school work, especially in projects and assignments that I know won't assist me much in my learning.

Maybe it's really that my passion is not strong enough. Maybe if it's a hc guy he will prioritize those readings over the mundane school work. I don't know. It could be my own problem, but I was trying. The mindset of many ny girls is to get decent grades for exams, and I was probably one of them. But I'm already in that group that starts late. Some of the hardcore muggers start preparation one months before block tests and two months before end of year. In the end? Good results still not guaranteed (one hard paper that relies heavily on thinking rather than memorisation kills all). I really don't see the point in setting the examination as your only goal since the examination system is very flawed. Marks don't reflect competence. Some of my PRC friends still get many marks deducted because they didn't write precisely enough. Even for physics you have to remember certain model answers to get the full mark. There's just no point.

If I were to relive my high school, I will probably take up a research project in sec 3, be fully committed to it, focus less on grades, and learn more by understanding than memorisation. I don't believe that I'm born innately inferior in my ability to learn and understand. Okay, I'm not born a genius, but I trust that I'm smart. All I need is more commitment and practice, and mostly importantly, the strong drive to understand and gain new knowledge. Now I'm in a good class full of good people. I can learn from them, instead of constantly comparing myself to them and feel inferior. Self-improvement is still the most important thing in life.

Sorry if my post sounds incoherent. It's meant to be a rant post so yeah...but the issues discussed are real and significant. I'm now very happy with all the subjects being the ones I like. I really hope my passion can be strong enough to motivate me to achieve greater heights. Also, practice, although not very interesting, is important to achieve competence. I'm not striving for proficiency but a clear understanding must be reached and I must be able to apply the concepts well. I shall keep that in mind.

P.s. not sure if you can see but I'm trying to improve my english. My english in this post is really bad with repeated vocab and sentence structures...sigh. Also it's a bit sad thinking that probably no one will read this post in the first place.

First confirmed encounter with an INTJ

So sorry for the inactiveness recently. Life has became so hectic now that although I have many things I want to share I don't have the time. In fact it's like 2.56 am now and I really should sleep instead of writing this, but oh well...

There's this guy in my class. He doesn't behave very normally and it was pretty obvious since the first day we met him. It is known that he has some kind of condition. Some of his abnormal behaviours include:
-talking very loudly when expressing his views, in a random and interruptive way
-unable to form his speech in a continuous flow, always pause suddenly
-making hissing sounds when he's alone (not engaged in any social interaction)
-persistently talk about one topic when others have moved on to a different topic, oblivious to lack of interest in the topic discussed
-general lack of facial expression
-following people around without the awareness of how people want to stay away from him

And, not sure if coincidentally, he is an INTJ (with 99% certainty).

I have always searched for potential INTJs around me but I don't think I have found many, and I only suspected them to be because they don't really fit well into the description. But this guy, he fits almost every description of an INTJ perfectly. And really as the theory has predicted, there's nothing much to say between INTJ and INTP.

Yes, I'm sure I'm an INTP now. After this encounter, the difference between a J and a P is obvious. The degree to which a J organise his/her life and everything else is pretty scary, or maybe that's just because he has more extreme J characteristic.

Sorry I accidentally spent 20 min looking at type descriptions. Back to the topic. It's quite interesting how people can be grouped and some temperaments just seem to go well with others while some don't. And a difference in a letter could produce so much difference. Now I'm having problem dealing with him. Communication with him feels difficult. How can I convey the message that it's not so right to follow the girls to the bus stop and go home with them everyday o_o

I know he has some condition so it may not be his fault (or is it), and I do wish my class can help him instead of isolating him. However it's just so difficult to tell him what's right and what's wrong in the intuitive sense since he seems to be lacking some of the human experience. I do wish to help him in his integration into the social world, or it will cause a lot of problems, for both him and the society.

awesome idea

One day if I'm rich, I'm going to build a real life house that looks like minecraft house. Then I can literally live in minecraft when I want to.

Watch this: https://t.co/WrIqWowRB8

Another update on life

Apparently I'm too bored and don't feel like sleeping yet despite having PW and KI homework yet to be done and the fact that it's 1.16am now. Anyway since JC has started for quite long I suppose it's time to write a blog post about it.

So umm, as I have mentioned in a previous post I'm taking PCMKI and got into 14S7D. It is a really quiet class, but I believe there's a hidden awesomeness in everyone yet to be displayed. I prefer the class to be quiet anyway, I can never build profound friendships with extroverts.

I'm still pretty excited at the things we are going to do at JC. Mr Kwek just granted us all a long term loan on uni physics textbook with modern physics inside which is awesome. #nerdpride I'm also excited at the various research opportunities given to us.

I think I'm still lacking confidence, especially when the people around me are all so experienced in science research and have read up lots of stuff, way more than me anyway. Suddenly I feel very motivated. I don't know much but I can always learn. Although I'm uncertain of how much I can gain in this short timespan of two years, I will do my best to learn as much as I can.

Oh and regarding KI, there's seven people in my class doing KI which is quite a lot, compared to three for our senior's batch. Sadly I'm STILL the only girl in SMTP doing KI. Why... T_T

Ok I should sleep earlier, after reading my new chem notes :D This post is random and somewhat meaningless. Just to give my future self some encouragements and let the passion live on...

kthxbye

Why is the sky blue? The illusion of knowledge.

I bet most of us have asked this question when we are young: Why is the sky blue? Depending on the type of parents you end up with, you get various responses. The worst ones being "stop bothering me with these annoying questions". Of course better ones may try to explain, that the sky is composed of lights of various wavelength and wavelength blue light is shorter so it's easier to be scattered and then reach our eyes and blah. However most don't know that that's just half of the story. If one is curious enough this question may follow: Why is the sky not violet then, since violet light has even shorter wavelength?

I asked my physics teacher during the GCP trip and he doesn't know either. Being my lazy self I only looked it up just now. The answer is amazing. It shows how many of us are confident that we know the answer but in fact, we don't.

Below is taken from http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8631798/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/why-skies-are-blue-instead-purple/.

Why skies are blue instead of purple

When seeing colors, physiology is just as important as physics

The sky is blue — physicists tell us — because blue light in the sun's rays bends more than red light.  But this extra bending, or scattering, applies just as much to violet light, so it is reasonable to ask why the sky isn't purple.

The answer, explained fully for the first time in a new scientific paper, is in the eye of the beholder.

"The traditional way that people teach this subject is that sunlight is scattered — more so for shorter wavelengths than for longer ones," says Glenn Smith, an engineering professor at Georgia Tech.  "The other half of the explanation is usually left out: how your eye perceives this spectrum."

While writing a physics textbook some years ago, Smith noticed that physiology usually gets short shrift, even though the spectrum of skylight — when analyzed — is about equal parts violet and blue.   

Smith has written an article for the July issue of the American Journal of Physics that puts the physics of light together with the physiology of human vision.

"This is nothing that people who work with eyes haven't known for a long time," Smith told LiveScience.  "I just had not seen it all in one place before."

The physics behind seeing blue skies The physical explanation for the blueness of the sky is attributed to the work of Lord Rayleigh in the 19th century.

As a common prism reveals, sunlight is made of all the colors of the rainbow.  When light from the sun enters Earth's atmosphere, it is scattered, or deflected, by molecules in the atmosphere — primarily nitrogen and oxygen. 

Shorter wavelengths (blue and violet) are scattered more than longer wavelengths (red and yellow).  So as we look in a direction of the sky away from the sun, we see those wavelengths that are bent the most.

The light of day is actually a complex spectrum of many different wavelengths, but it is dominated by light with wavelengths between 400 nanometers (violet) and 450 nanometers (blue). A nanometer is 1 billionth of a meter.

How the eye sees color The human eye is sensitive to light between roughly 380 and 740 nanometers.  On a typical retina, there are 10 million rods for sensing low light levels and 5 million cones for detecting color.

Each cone contains pigments that restrict the range of wavelengths that the cone responds to.  There are three varieties of cones for long, medium and short wavelengths.

"You need all three of them to see color correctly," Smith explained.

The peak response for the long cones is at 570 nanometers (yellow), medium at 543 nanometers (green), and short at 442 nanometers (between violet and blue).  But the three cones are sensitive over broad, overlapping wavelength ranges, which means two different spectra can cause the same response in a set of various cones. 

A good example of this is yellow.  There is a certain narrow range of wavelengths that we might call "pure" yellow (or another for "pure" blue, and so on).  However, the same set of cones that reacts to a light of pure yellow also responds to the superposition of pure red and pure green light.

The sky's light plays tricks Two spectra that have the same cone response are called metamers.  Smith stressed that this only concerns the neural signal coming out of the eye — long before any processing by the brain.

"In previous research, people excised cones from the eyes of dead people and measured the response to different spectra," he said.

The same "trick" that makes red and green turn into yellow is happening in the sky.  But in this case, the sky's combination of violet and blue elicits the same cone response as pure blue plus white light, which is an equal mixture of all the colors.  

"Your eye can't tell the difference between that complex spectrum and one that is a mixture of pure blue and white," Smith said.

In other animals, the sky color is undoubtedly different.  Outside of humans and some other primates, most animals have only two types of cones instead of three (dichromatic vs. trichromatic). 

Honeybees and some birds see at ultraviolet wavelengths that are invisible to humans.

The last part makes me wonder how it's like to be a honeybee and how wonderful it is if our eyes can perceive a wider range of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Anyway, that's not the main point. My main point is about how we all fall prey to the illusion of knowledge.

I first know about this theory through a show on national geographic channel called "Brain Games".  (That's a really good show btw, telling us how badass our brain can be and stuff) Think you know how a zipper works or how a bike looks like? It's likely you don't, even if you are confident you know. The thing is, our brain always tend to be over-confident on things. In the show, they asked people on the streets to give a range of values as their answer. As long as the correct answer falls within the range, they answer correctly. However, most people still give overly small range. For example, do you know how many countries are there in Africa? Don't google, go to the following site:

http://natgeotv.com/ca/brain-games/videos/illusion-of-knowledge

It's interesting how our brains can deceive ourselves into thinking that we know so many things. The truth is, we don't. Unless we recognise this fact, humans cannot progress. Recognising our limitations in understanding is extremely important in Science. Rather than assuming, we need to examine and analyse our beliefs, and verify them. Ignorance is not about not knowing. Ignorance is not knowing that you don't know, or worse, knowing that you don't know but couldn't care less to know it.