California State Public School System in Jeopardy

It is strange, sometimes, to see, from afar, the priorities of another country. America has built itself on the ingenuity and energy of its people (and the immigrants they managed to attract) - yet those who decide on education matters, there, sometimes seem to forget this.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing 4 BILLION dollars of cuts in the education budget, in attempt to balance state finance, in the face of its housing crisis and stagnant economy. For those who may not know, I should point out that this does not mean that the education system was over-funded to start with. It is just that he has to find cuts somewhere and thinks he can find them in schools.

California needs its teachers but doesn't appear to value them. Apparently, every year, it has become traditional for many teachers to receive pink slips, in the Spring (before March 15, according to State law), informing them that they might soon be fired. This is done to prepare them for the possibility of losing their jobs. Many of them, in past years, did not, in fact, go on to lose their jobs - but they were informed just so that the state had the option of firing them.

What do you think this does to the morale of teachers in California public education? It must be terrible. No doubt they feel undervalued and insecure. In sending this message to the teachers that they are of no value, I have no doubt that that will affect what happens in the classroom. A demoralized teacher is hardly likely to be an inspired or inspiring one. No doubt this annual and rather cruel ritual negatively impacts teaching throughout the California state education system.

About 14,000 Californian teachers have just received pink slips. Some of these are even award winning teachers like Lincoln High's Guillermo Gomez, 37, who was declared a San Diego County Teacher of the Year in 2006 for his work in suburban Chula Vista. Not even being talented in the classroom, is protection against these latest cuts.

Other states are stepping in to offer signing bonuses to Californian teachers, to lure them away.

What effect will all of this have on Californian education? Well, firing so many teachers will not change the number of students - but it will logically increase class sizes and the workload on the remaining teachers. This will prompt some of those teachers to give up teaching as the job becomes too much - or leave for another state. Thus, it could be the beginning of a viscious circle.

One thing is certain: the quality of public education will decline further in California. Is this wise? Can America afford to have a poorer educated population when it already has one that is poorly educated, by international standards (see the PISA OECD education report, I have referred to elsewhere in this blog. America was outshone by very modest countries, on the education front.)

The damage done to the education of California's children, by such cuts, is cumulative and not easy to change.

From a foreign perspective, it is strange to see a country built on great minds, take so little care of future ones. I only hope that the cuts eventually come from somewhere else in the state budget, than education.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and four months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and nine months, and Tiarnan, twenty-six months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind, niño, gênio criança, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Homeschooling "on the rise" in Singapore

I was heartened by the headline above in the Straits Times - until, that is, I actually read the article.

Have a guess how many primary school children are actually homeschooling in Singapore? (Including all the expatriates who have the automatic right to homeschool, unlike locals.) Factor into your calculation that the population of Singapore is around 4.6 million people.

Well, the true figure is about 280. That is right, less than 300 children are being homeschooled, in Singapore. Apparently, this almost vanishingly small number is regarded as a trend, by the article writer.

The question is, of course, why are so few Singaporeans being homeschooled? The answer is the same one we have received, so far, to date: permission, while it can be given in theory, is difficult to obtain in practice.

We don't have to go far to come to an understanding why so few people receive permission to homeschool. The official Ministry of Education position is, according to the Straits Times: "...as far as possible, Singaporean children should attend national schools to learn a common set of core values, knowledge and skills". Underlying this seems to be the view that homeschooled children might not share these "core values" - hence getting permission for it, is not easy.

I don't know if our experience of trying to homeschool our son, Ainan, is typical or not. I can only say that it hasn't been easy. I have been trying to get permission for homeschooling for one and a half years. We have got nowhere so far. I have written many, many times to the curiously named "Compulsory Education Unit" that is in charge of homeschooling, but the only replies I have ever received are: "We will revert to you shortly". That is fine, except they never revert at all. Six months will pass - and then I write again, only to receive the same reply: "We will revert to you shortly". Only they don't....this procedure may be repeated ad nauseam.

One day I even called up the executive responsible for answering my mails, who wasn't doing so. She would only say: "I can't give you an answer".

Well, there you are then. No wonder there are only 280 homeschooling children in Singapore. I wonder how many of them are, in fact, the children of expatriates? You see such children don't need permission. What I would like to know is how many Singaporean children have ever been given permission to homeschool? Are there, in fact, any at all? We don't know. We only know that we are still waiting for that famous reply to revert - after one and a half years.

The odd thing about all of this is that anyone who really feels strongly about homeschooling will find that almost any other country of the world would give automatic permission to homeschool, to anyone who sought it. Virtually alone in all the world, is Singapore concerned about a "common set of core values". Most other countries are satisfied to offer a diversity of educational opportunities to their people. They are not scared of diversity.

We will still try to secure homeschooling for our son - and perhaps our other children - in Singapore. We will see if we can make that total 281 or more.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and four months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and nine months, and Tiarnan, twenty-six months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Of curiosity and criminality

Which is worth more: a tree or a PhD? Have a think about it and come to a decision.

Which did you choose, the tree or the PhD? (You can say in the comments if you like).

Well, I think the tree is worth more, when you know a little bit more about the tree. In 1964, a young geographer, Donald R. Currey, was working his way towards his doctorate, and was interested in gathering evidence for Ice Age glaciers, in the Southwest USA. He was on Wheeler Peak with a colleague when he came upon some bristlecone pines at the timberline. They started drilling cores into them, to determine their age. They found one that was over 4,000 years old, which rather excited them. Then their only corer broke.

They had, before them, an even bigger tree than the others. It was known as "Prometheus". Without the corer, there was only one way to find out its age: kill it. Shockingly, this impatient young man called the U.S. Forest Service to ask permission to cut down the tree, just so he could find out how old it was. Even more shockingly, some dimwit at the Forest Service said yes to his request. So, Mr. Currey (as he then was) and some Forest Service personnel duly cut down this magnificent ancient tree 8 foot up from the base. Then they settled down to count the rings. They got to 4,844. (Later dendrochronologists determined that it was actually over 4,950 years old). Donald R. Currey had just killed the oldest living thing on Earth, known, at the time, simply to find out how old it was.

I really had to share this incident with you, because I was stunned by the stupidity of the attitude that would allow such a wonderful multi-millenial life to be snuffed out, just to find out how long it was.

It was completely unnecessary to kill the tree. All they had to do was come back another time, with a new corer and get their answer that way. However, this young man had no patience for that: getting his PhD pronto was more important than the life of the oldest living thing on Earth.

No-one should put short term personal gain, over the long term health of the world - or the existence of a magnificent life, such as the nigh-immortal tree that Mr. Currey killed that day.

That tree had stood from the dawn of human civilization, right up until the modern world: from the time of the Ancient Egyptians to the time of the 20th century Americans and the hippies of the sixties - until one young man put his immediate career and personal curiosity before its undying life. Think of the sadness of that trade: he killed it just so he could write a number on a piece of paper - the tree's age. (Oh, and make some observations about the Little Ice Age - which most regard as being just 600 years ago: so there was no need to gather information from such an old tree, at all).

How many of you, now, think a PhD is worth more than a tree? Comments please.

By the way, Donald R. Currey went on to earn his doctorate five years later. He had a successful academic career primarily studying a single lake - Bonneville. His papers on geomorphology of lakes, paleolakes, lake basins, and coasts; geotectonics (paleolimnology) and geochronology and geodynamics of quaternary lakes; geoarchaeology; and environmental change in desert, mountain, Arctic areas were highly cited.

Personally, I would swap his entire career for the grand tree he murdered in the name of it.

As a direct consequence of Mr. Currey's tree killing action, Bristlecone Pines have become a protected species - and the areas in which they grow are now part of a national park. (Something for which Currey, in perhaps a fit of late-arriving guilt, lobbied for.)

Rather pointedly, despite all his academic ambitions, Dr. Don Currey is most famous for the day he killed the oldest tree in the world. Or should I say, infamous.

So, if curiosity ever leads you to a course of action with irrevocable harmful consequences, please pause to think again. Don't do as Mr. Currey did - for the sake of us all.

Dr. Don Currey, himself, didn't have the lifespan of a tree, though: he died at 70 in 2004. I hope he came to understand what he had done, before his time was up.

Prometheus, the ancient tree, would still be alive, today, if Mr. Currey hadn't killed it, for career advancement.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and four months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and nine months, and Tiarnan, twenty-six months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Rice or Soylent Green? A Singaporean journalist's view

I was rather surprised, this morning, over breakfast, to read that a Singaporean journalist was suggesting that Soylent Green would be an answer to world hunger.

The article appeared in "My Paper", written by, Leow Ju-Len, a blogger cum journalist from Stomp (the Straits Times collection of trendy bloggers).

Reading his suggestion would have been enough to put me off my food had I not already finished eating when I came across it. He was writing of the problem of rising food prices, rice shortages and the like. He thought he had an answer: Soylent Green. He went onto explain that Soylent Green was "plankton". Oh dear. He clearly hasn't seen the film. I remember one line from it, shouted by the protagonist, played by Charlton Heston (this is a memory from the 70s): "Soylent Green is people!"

Yes, that is right - unwittingly or otherwise, the Singaporean journalist in question was advising cannibalism as a solution to world hunger.

Now, either he didn't know what Soylent Green was - in which case was it not rather dangerous to use a cultural reference without understanding it - or he was being subversive. I can't determine which.

I know the world is in a bad way - but I shudder that one day it might be so bad that cannibalism might be the answer to world hunger. One Singaporean blogger journalist is already on record for stating that it already is. He really should go and see the film.

By the way, given the magnitude of his error, he could not have chosen a more ironic title for his article: "Scarcity doesn't cause hunger, stupidity does."

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and four months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and nine months, and Tiarnan, twenty-six months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

The Best Student in the Class

I had an unusual experience teaching, once, in a Singaporean school.

It was a neighbourhood school. The students were not what you would call academic, nor were they what you would call particularly interested in school. They were the kind of students who endured school - and then went onto to endure poorly paid jobs in life. I would say many of them were busily ensuring that they didn't have a future for themselves.

Yet, there I was to teach them in whatever way would work, how to write better. So, I set about it, deploying every trick I had learnt over the years to engage the class. It seemed to work. That however is not the issue I wished to write of. There was another matter which came to my attention: they couldn't write very well.

They were sixteen years old - or older - and yet had little grasp of grammar, spelling or what constituted an interesting sentence. Almost all of them were like this. One boy, however, stood out, for being quite polished in his writing. His sentences were complete and well-made. He used interesting words correctly. He had something amounting to a style. Errors were few and minor and the overall effect, on the page, was of an intelligent mind speaking quietly, to one, of his life. I was impressed. I wrote: "Excellent" at the bottom of his page and carried on with the class.

At the end of the class, when all others had left, he stood in front of me, with a little notebook in his hand. He offered it to me. "Sign it, teacher", he asked. I looked at what was written within. For each subject listed, there was a date, a space for a teacher's signature, the time of the lesson and a place for comments from teachers on how he had been. I understood at once: this boy, who was by far the best writer and most able student in the class, was under behavioural monitoring. Though he was clearly the most capable of all of the students, here, he was regarded as a "bad boy".

I signed, carefully and wrote: "Good writing work, today", in the comments section.

He didn't react. He didn't seem to believe what I had written. You see, on another occasion, in a later lesson, I had asked the class to write of a time in which they were unsuccessful. He found it difficult to start. I knew his writing was good so I asked him what was wrong. "The problem is, I am always unsuccessful." In other words, he had too many instances to choose from.

"No you are not!" I admonished him kindly, "You write well: you are the best writer here."

Again, I saw in him that he didn't really believe it.

"The problem here," I said, looking into his sad eyes, "is that you don't believe in yourself."

Yet, now, I ask myself: is that really the problem, or is it that the educational system doesn't believe in him? After all, they are monitoring the attendance and behaviour of their best student. Somewhere along the line, his school has come to misinterpret him, as a human being, and fail to understand his essential quality. It seems, furthermore, that he has internalized that view and doesn't believe in himself - which prevents him, of course, from seeing his own evident merits.

This saddens me. For when I read his words, I saw a mature and humane thinker, able to express himself well. Yet, he is not appreciated - and so does not appreciate himself.

I think it is time schools appreciated their students for their deeper qualities - and not just the superficial issues that may have got this intelligent boy labelled as "trouble".

Every time he wrote for me, I pointed out the merits of his words. I only hope it sank in. I only hope he came, finally, to believe in himself and his merits - for clearly, no-one else around him has.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and four months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and nine months, and Tiarnan, twenty-six months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Talent will out

There is a saying in Britain: "Talent will out". This means that those who are talented will eventually succeed - but is this true? One doesn't have to be very observant, in life, to come across many people who are evidently talented, but not very successful. Clearly, all is not as it seems.

My contention, supported by a lifetime of experience and observation, is that talent, in itself, is not enough to guarantee success in any field. There are simply too many other factors at work, as well. Often, it is not the most talented person who succeeds - but the best connected. This is an example of the "who you know, not what you know" phenomenon.

Acting is a case in point. What is the background of the actors who "make it" in public life? Well, very often, in fact, too, too often, they come from families who are already connected to showbusiness. This explains something I was often confronted with, when I was an actor: the best actors did not necessarily get the jobs - and the ones who did get the jobs, weren't always that good as actors. They had something else going for them: they knew the people involved in the projects. This happened a lot.

I met many good actors in those days. I met many actors who seemed to have much more talent than their famous colleagues - and yet, they were relatively unknown. They had talent but they didn't have the opportunities provided by good connections in the business - and so, ultimately, they failed to succeed.

I use acting as an example, but this phenomenon will apply, in varying degrees, to almost all areas of life: knowing the right people really helps - in fact a lot more than actually being the right person (in the sense of having the talent).

Let us just check out the backgrounds of a couple of famous actors as examples. Ewan MacGregor - of Star Wars fame. Now, those who know him well, won't be surprised, but others, who don't, might be surprised to learn that he had a relative in the original Star Wars film. No doubt that connection helped put him in touch with George Lucas, at the right time. Furthermore he is related by blood or the marriage of his relatives, to three established figures in British showbusiness: Denis Lawson, Shelia Gish (very respected) and Lou Gish. With such a base of connections to start out with in the showbusiness world, it would have been a lot easier for the young Ewan MacGregor to establish himself than his unconnected contemporary competitors.

Another example is Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame. He started out his career as one of the most connected individuals you could imagine. Both of his parents work, in some way or other, in showbusiness. His mother is actually a casting director. That is the person whose job it is to select people for roles on behalf of production companies: they are the people who cast actors. Clearly, she would know, personally, many key players in the business, many people able to give her son a job. The same could be said for his father. He is a literary agent - which is more relevant that it seems. A literary agent is connected to the film and tv worlds through the sale of books to them. So, his father, too, would have good showbusiness connections. It is impossible to run Daniel Radcliffe's life again, without his parents connections, but undoubtedly he would have had a hard time of it - and may, in fact, never have succeeded at all, without them. That is what I would expect, anyway, from what I have seen in other talented but unconnected individuals.

There are many talented people in this world who never really get the chance to shine. I met many on my way in England. None of them made it. Yet, many of them "had it" - in the sense of talent. It is a pity really. I have often thought how much better films and theatre would be if the person who was cast was actually the best person for the role - rather than just the best connected person (as it usually is). I rather feel that the quality of that particular art would be so much higher if it were so.

No doubt this observation applies to many other areas of life, too. Everything would be so much better if it was genuinely the best, most suited person doing it. Indeed, it would be good, indeed, if the saying: "Talent will out", was true - but it isn't.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and four months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and nine months, and Tiarnan, twenty-six months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)