Are NUS/NTU graduates creative?

NUS and NTU are Singapore's leading Universities. Their graduates are locally very respected in Singapore. No doubt, they have studied long and hard. Yet, I have cause to wonder, are these graduates creative?

Recently, I had a conversation with an American who works in an American company working in a creative industry. It is a famous American company, so I shall have to leave clues out of this account, lest it be identified. Let it be said, however, that the work that this company does straddles a couple of major creative industries with global reach.

Now, this American was observing to me about hiring practices which puzzled him. You see, one of the senior managers in the local branch of this global company was a Singaporean graduate of NTU. It was part of this manager's job to choose whom to hire to do the creative jobs that they had vacant. What troubled my acquaintance was just who this Singaporean was hiring - and why. Every single time a creative job came up, this Singaporean NTU graduate manager would look through the pile of CVs he had in front of him and select the Singaporean NUS and NTU graduates who had the best academic records. He picked the ones whose grades glistened...whose resumes dripped with A grades. Now, if you are Singaporean you will probably be nodding at this point, thinking that this is the right thing to do and is only natural. However, my American's experience with the people that were hired in this way, says otherwise. You see, the problem with these NTU and NUS graduates is that THEY COULD NEVER DO THE JOBS.

If you are Singaporean, and conditioned to believe in grades as the be all and end all of education, you might be shocked at this. I shall explain for you. The problem was that these NTU and NUS graduates with the great grades were UNABLE TO BE CREATIVE. Their resumes looked wonderful. They had jumped successfully through every academic hoop along the way - but something was missing. They had learnt to pass exams and shine in that situation - but they had never learnt how to think creatively. They were, according to my American acquaintance, unable to do the job, in every single case. They were just not good employees of this creative company.

Interestingly, have a guess who WERE the most creative employees of this company? The Indonesians were. That is right, employees who had grown up and been educated in Indonesia were the best workers in creative jobs, at this American company. The second best were the Thais - my American contact remarked that they were creative and had a good work attitude, as well.

So, this problem with NTU and NUS graduates being uncreative, is not a problem that applies to all graduates, everywhere. It doesn't apply to the Indonesian graduates from overseas - nor to the Thais (or he noted the Vietnamese)...but it does apply to the Singaporean graduates of NTU and NUS.

This leads me to understand that the type of education being received by Singaporeans in Singapore is creating graduates who might be competent in an academic sense and able to handle known and familiar tasks, in structured environments (isn't the whole of Singapore one big structured environment?) - but they are not creative. At the end of their long and arduous education, there is little creativity left in them.

Now, this really didn't come as a surprise to me, having taught in the Singaporean system at all levels, and witnessed the dearth of creativity at close hand. What did surprise me, however, was that Indonesians (who are customarily looked down upon, by many Singaporeans, perhaps because their young women tend to be maids in Singaporean households), were the most creative of all the races (other than "Americans" was implicit in his observations) employed in this large, global American company.

Many Singaporeans clamour to get their child into NTU or NUS. Yet, do they understand what the results of such an education are? Do they really want those results? Do they want an academically competent, but creatively incompetent child? If so, NUS and NTU - and the whole Singaporean education system - are perfect. However, if you would like to have a creative child...perhaps it might be best to send them overseas to Indonesia or Thailand!

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight 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.

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When is a hand big enough?

There was a story, some time ago, distributed by a news agency, based in America, about Ainan. They put together this story without checking any of the facts with us - and so it came out, rather distorted.

The story was a simple one. They said that "boy genius" Ainan was too small for the labs at Nanyang Technological University, and that his hands were not large enough to hold beakers and the like.

Well, it is true that NTU have expressed reservations on Ainan with regards to his size, in their labs. The benches, for instance, are rather tall. Yet, simple measures could be taken to obviate this. A simple platform, for instance.

That, however, is not my concern in this post. My interest is in just how big or small my son's hands are, in relation to what they need to be, for NTU's labs (or any other lab).

Today, quite spontaneously, Ainan measured his hand span. He then set about measuring everyone else's. He asked me what the average span for his age was...and that gave me an idea. How, indeed, did Ainan's hand compare to other children's?

Ainan's handspan measured at 18.5 cm. Now, is this too small for a lab? I checked out a website that detailed the mean size of Canadian students. The data was taken from 2004/5. In this survey the mean span of a TWELVE year old CAUCASIAN boy's hand was 18.52 cm. Thus Ainan's hands, far from being small, as declared in the American article (which didn't check with us), are actually very large for his age. He has the hand size of a Canadian twelve year old boy.

Readers should note that Ainan is not Caucasian - he is Eurasian - so the norms for hand size would be correspondingly smaller. In a Singaporean context, therefore, Ainan's hands are even larger than a twelve year old's would be. He has a teenager's hands.

How do Ainan's hands compare to those of an adult? Well, 19 year old male students in Canada had an average hand span of 20.22 cm. Thus an adult span, as typified by a Canadian, is just 1.7 cm greater than Ainan's.

I found that rather revealing. We have been consistently denied access to labs by certain institutions - on the basis that Ainan would be "too small". Yet, this is an assumption. None of these places actually checked his size. None of them actually measured him against the requirements of the labs in question. They just looked at his age and assumed.

Assumption is not a substitute for thinking - but in many places, it does seem to be used as such.

Ainan's hands are more than large enough to handle the physical requirements of experimental work. They are the hands of an Asian teenager - or a small adult. They are not diminutive hands in the least.

This observation is supported by experience. Ainan has had no trouble manipulating his experimental environment on the eight occasions that he has managed to gain access to labs. He has been able to carry out all experiments without any physical problems at all. He may be smaller than an adult - but he is not so small as to be unable to accomplish all tasks required.

The next time someone questions his suitability based on size, I rather think I will point their way to the Canadian handspan chart. Hopefully, that will make the point.

No longer will I let anyone make the "handy" excuse, that Ainan's hands are too small. They are not.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and no months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and five months, and Tiarnan, twenty-two 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, 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.)

Online video interview with the Cawleys

There is an online video interview, on an internet news portal catering to the Chinese market, but in English, apart from commentary. It might be of interest to you.

It is found at:

http://omy.sg/common/media/vodcast.html?playlistPath=http%3A//omy.sg/news/hotnews/200711/20071107_001_whizzkid

It consists of an interview with myself, some footage of Ainan (not interviewed directly since he is rather camera shy - like many a seven year old, of course), and Professor Tim White of the Nanyang Technological University who is very familiar with Ainan and his gifts.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and eleven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and four months, and Tiarnan, twenty-one 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, 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.)

A quiet trip to NTU, Singapore

Today Ainan enjoyed a quiet trip to the Nanyang Technological University. This is a more relaxed sequel to his first visit, which was a little time-strapped. Our gracious and helpful host was the Head of the Division of Material Sciences, Associate Professor Tim White - a genial man with a flare for communicating science with interest and clarity.

We saw a synthetic chemistry lab - which immediately struck Ainan, with his very sensitive nose, as a most smelly place: he kept clutching his hand to his face. Interestingly, he was able to identify certain types of molecule by their smell.

Tim showed him some of the basic equipment of a synthetic lab, at work: a centrifuge (operating at 10,000 rpm - to which Ainan opined: "That is not fast...a circular saw is faster."; a fume cupboard - and a vacuum apparatus - to extract poisonous fumes. We also saw quite a few chemicals, many of them unpleasant if consumed. Luckily we weren't feeling hungry.

Ainan visited a Transmission Electron Microscope - through which he was able to view atoms in arrays. Yes, you read correctly, Ainan actually had a look at atoms today. The magnification was about six million times. Ainan listened intently as Professor White explained the operations of the device.

Ainan enjoyed making some complex structures of his own, drawing molecules, browsing through abstruse tomes and generally imbibing the nature of a chemical life. He had a great morning.

Our thanks to Associate Professor Tim White for his continued generosity. Ainan much appreciated the visit and the further opportunity it afforded him to come to a concrete understanding of a chemist's working life.

(If you would like to read more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and four months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three, and Tiarnan, fourteen 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, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted children and gifted adults in general. Thanks.)

Ainan visits Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Yesterday, Ainan, seven, was invited by Professor Freddy Boey, to visit the Material Sciences Lab of NTU (Nanyang Technological University), Singapore.

This was Ainan's first trip to a real lab and it gave him an insight into how they conduct their work. As you may know, Material Sciences have a strong relationship to Chemistry and are, in fact, one of Ainan's areas of interest.

Ainan was greeted with warmth from the moment we stepped onto the premises. One of the senior staff said: "I recognize you from the paper!" held out his hand and said: "Do come this way..." Then he led us through the maze of the N4 Material Sciences Lab to Professor Boey's Lab.

The Lab tour took in several - but not all - of the facilities. Ainan was first shown a computer presentation of the work of NTU in the Material Sciences, showing the diversity of their interests. He was asked several questions about what he saw and commented appropriately.

To NTU staff entering the room as Professor Boey spoke, he introduced Ainan, at one point: "Our future Post Doc!". Their curious eyes appraised his elfin, diminutive form with a welcoming smile.

Professor Boey presented Ainan with a welcoming gift from the lab: a silicon wafer, on which integrated circuits would normally have been etched, but on which the name of the lab, the University and its slogan had been etched, that very morning. Ainan accepted this with quiet curiosity - as he did the other gifts that came in a bag - such as customized pens and that essential item for those living in sweltering Singapore: a water bottle with the Material Sciences department inscribed on it. He is going to look quite the student when he returns to his primary school bearing these customized gifts.

Ainan was shown the Biomaterials lab, where biocompatible materials are made. One that struck him as particularly interesting was an image of carbon nanotubes that had been shaped into the logo of NTU. That surprised him. When asked later why, he said: "Because I thought they would be difficult to shape and cut." He was told that they had a method for doing so.

There he was introduced to biocompatible stents and other biomedical devices and shown revolutionary materials for use in replacing blood vessels.

He was shown a Clean Room where delicate work on materials is done. Then he was introduced to an Electron microscope, which he got the chance to use himself. He rather enjoyed scanning a gold coated ant, at 1 micrometre resolution - and viewing the stomata of a leaf, as giant perforations on the screen in front of him.

He was shown the gold thin-film deposition and was asked for a coin, which was promptly coated in gold.

He particularly liked it when Associate Professor Tim White, a mineralogist, showed him the structures he had in his office. Ainan has been interested in structure since he was about three years old and this was a chance to see many interesting crystalline structures in person. His favourite? A yellow model of an orthorhombic crystal.

Once home, I asked him how he rated the day out of 10: "100,000" he said. What had been his favourite part: "The electron microscope."

It was a lovely introduction for him, to the reality of the scientific world - at the kind invitation of Professor Boey. Thanks very much to all the staff at NTU who made us feel welcome and had prepared things for him to see.