A telling question.

About two weeks ago, Ainan, 12, asked a question I have never heard asked before.

The question popped into the air before me, utterly unannounced.

“Does violence cause video games?”, he asked, with an amused glitter in his eye.

I laughed. I had to – for I at once understood the truth of his question. Video games are violent and are suspected to cause children to be violent...but why are video games violent in the first place? As Ainan had noted...because they are based on real world violence. So, in a sense, Ainan is right: violence causes video games. If our world were not violent, video games would not be violent too: they are a reflection of the world we have made, together, they are a distillation of our times.

The funniest thing about this question is that it points to a self-evident truth...whereas the other question, more commonly asked of “Do video games cause violence?”, is not self-evident and is much prone to controversy, argument and difference of opinion.

I like Ainan’s view of the situation. In his view, real world violence gives rise to video games which are violent, which gives rise to real world violence, which gives rise to video games which are violent – which gives rise to real world violence...and so on ad infinitum. One feeds the other...they are two sides of the same phenomenon.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page. 

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.) 

MGCCon: Malaysian Games and Comics Convention: a strange reaction.

Today, I brought my two elder sons to see the Malaysian Games and Comics Convention, at KDU University College, Damansara Jaya. The reason for doing so was simple: Ainan was participating at the Astromedia stall, as an animator. In his one hour in the booth, he created a comedic animation – a short tale about the life and times of two rabbits. It was very funny. Yet, that is not why I write...something else is.

Whilst I was doing a tour of the booths at the convention, I came across one that was clearly marketing an online game. It was by Garena. I looked curiously at the game paraphernalia on display. At that point, a young man in attendance approached me.

“Have you ever played computer games?”, he asked, in a curiously condescending manner. He seemed to look at me as if no-one as old as me could possibly have ever experienced such pursuits.

“Yes.” I replied very mildly and softly, though well aware of what he thought about me.

He seemed hesitant, as if he still didn’t believe me.

“What have you played?”, he asked, seemingly convinced that the answer wouldn’t be much.

“Oblivion.”

“Oh, Oblivion!”, he dismissed. “This is very different from that.”

He then went on to explain why this game was different from the one I was familiar with.

“Would you like to open an account?”, he asked, at the end of his pitch. “If you do, we will give you the free goodies.”

I looked at the bag of goodies, back at the screen where an account opening procedure awaited me and then back up at him.

“What is the subscription?”

“Oh it is free.”

“Is it an online game?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be back.”, I said and walked away.

Little did he know, but he had lost me the moment he spoke condescendingly to me. The young are sometimes so very stupid. They believe themselves to be superior to the old – and yet, in almost every way, they are the inferior of their elders. This young man looked down on me because I was more than twice his age. He thought that I could not conceivably have any experience of modern gaming culture. So he treated me, from the very beginning, as some kind of lesser life form. It came through in his every word, tone of voice, attitude and demeanour. He just thought I wasn’t likely to have any experience of the kind of game he was marketing. Yet, of course, I have a very good idea of what kind of game he was selling. I have played similar games in my life – as most people have.

There was another reason I didn’t sign up for his game. I really didn’t like the idea of bringing another addictive gaming experience into the house, to waste everyone’s time on. There was no beneficial or productive reason to do so. The kind of product he shifted, is corrosive to family life, in excess...so I would just rather not get involved. So, I actually turned down a FREE game!

The truth, of course, is that I knew rather more about his type of game than he realized – which is just why I didn’t “buy” it. That, and his attitude, of course.

I never did go back to his stall, though I passed it by many times in the course of the afternoon.

For me, the highlight of the event was seeing Ainan’s animation. It was by far the most creative thing I saw there. 

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.) 

How to play computer games, Ainan's way.

Ainan, my 12 year old son, has his own approach to computer games playing.

A week or so, ago, he remarked to me: “I have been editing the lightwarp in Team Fortress 2.”

That sounded rather technical to me.

“How do you do that?”

He looked at me, with mild surprise, as if I had asked “How do you count to ten?”

“It’s simple Daddy. You just open the vtf file and change the colour strip.”

As an explanation, that rather failed to allow me to understand how to do it. Clearly, however, he knew how to do it.

Ainan has been doing this for some time. Whenever he finds himself dissatisfied with a gaming experience, he opens up the code for the game – and recodes it to his satisfaction, producing a game that looks the way he wants it to.

When he first revealed what he was doing, I asked him:

“How did you learn that?”

“I taught myself. It is easy. You just open the code and it is very obvious what to do.”

I am not sure that this “obvious” task, would be that obvious to most.

Ainan has a sense for these things. He seems to have an instinct for how computers work and what to do to make them work the way he wants them to. This, it strikes me, should prove a very useful skill in a future world in which computers are going to become ever more dominant. What is particularly good about this interest of his, is that it is self-directed. He is teaching himself how to do these things, because he enjoys it. It is something which arises naturally out of his own curiosity and joy. This, of course, is the best way to learn something and the way most likely to give rise to productive fruit.

So, Ainan likes to play computer games, at home. However, his computer games tend to have been customised to his own, inner vision, of what they should look like. That he does this, makes me much happier that he is spending valuable time playing such games – for I know that, for him, they are a lesson in computing, as much as anything else. He has managed to turn computer games into a somewhat creative hobby and one that is teaching him a lot more than one might suppose. I have written one snatch of his conversation regarding computer games and their coding. I have only written this quote because it is one that I remember. Quite often, however, his comments are beyond recall, because they are beyond comprehension. They are just too technical to be readily understood, by someone outside the field, like me. I am content, however, to listen and admire his enthusiasm. That is the best thing a parent can do in the circumstances. I enjoy his enjoyment, even if I don’t understand the fullness of his comments on his interest.

It gives me great pleasure to see Ainan deepen his interests, in this way. If, sometimes, those interests become so technical as to defy ready understanding, then I am even more pleased – for it implies that his understanding has gone beyond that of an intelligent, but uninitiated layman.

Anyway, Ainan’s example has shown me that there can be unexpected lessons to be found, even in the most unpromising of places, if the child, in question, is resourceful enough to see something interesting to do with the material at hand. In this case...reprogramming the computer games, rather than just playing them passively.

Carry on gaming, Ainan...and coding, too!

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

When a birthday is not a birthday.

Tiarnan is a boy prone to his own point of view. It may not be obvious what this implies, at first, but, in his case, it means that he lives in a different world to the rest of us. He sees it in ways that, perhaps, others would not.

Thursday, 20th January was Tiarnan’s fifth birthday. At least, that is how the rest of the world saw it.

“How do you feel being five?” asked Tiarnan’s mother, Syahidah, on his birthday.

“I am not five,” Tiarnan explained, carefully, as if his usually wise mother had unaccountably overlooked something, “Until my game comes.” He seemed somewhat put out, that it hadn’t arrived yet. His face seemed quite determined on the issue.

This seemed a very reasonable position, to Tiarnan. Clearly, the whole world had to wait for the arrival of his present, Little Big Planet 2, from my mother, his grandmother. Until that moment he could not possibly officially be five, since, he seemed to be reasoning, the present was his fifth birthday present – and so its non arrival meant, quite clearly, that he could not yet be five.

A couple of days later, Tiarnan rushed upstairs, in the morning, to his mummy. There was excitement in his eyes, eagerness on his tongue.

“My fifth birthday has come!”, he announced.

Syahidah at once knew what he meant, though he was already a couple of days past his fifth birthday: Little Big Planet 2 had arrived.

The wait turned out to be worth it. The verdict of my three sons on Little Big Planet 2: “The best game ever!”. Even Ainan thought so. My own intuition for why they think so, is that the game has a great variety of challenges in it…so they do not find it repetitive and boring, as most games are. They even said, most surprisingly, that: “It is better than Ultimate Alliance 2” – which had been their previous best game.

Anyway, Tiarnan’s birthday may have been a little extended – but he certainly found it enjoyable.

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page. To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

The world escapes from economic reality.

It seems that, around the world, adults are escaping from economic reality. Everywhere, in houses and apartments in developed cities around the world, fully grown adults are escaping reality into alternate worlds. They are fleeing the economic troubles all around them. What are they doing? They are playing video games.

Sales in the video games industry are up 43% on last year - which is really a lot of growth for any industry to undergo in one year - especially in a year of economic decline. Instead of cutting back on such "luxury" and seemingly unnecessary items as video games, adults around the world are making sure they splash out on these highly distracting items. Now, video games are not cheap, particularly console games - but they do offer something other forms of distraction do not offer: many, many hours of complete absorption. Quite simply, it is impossible to think of the global economic meltdown when you are playing an intense computer video game.

In the days of the Great Depression, it was a trip to the movies that provided distraction and consolation from the universal troubles all faced; now it is the video game.

I find it interesting that people are fleeing their situations in this way. It shows, in some respect, that they are choosing not to face up to the problems, but are, instead, turning their minds away from them and hoping that they will go away in the midst of their video game playing.

Now, I can understand the common desire to find sanctuary from the problems that people face - but, while it might be psychologically beneficial to do so - in terms of lessened stress etc. - it may actually be counter-productive. For if people are hiding from their troubles, then they are not actively seeking ways to deal with them. This could lead, in turn, to a heightening of the very troubles they face.

Perhaps, people are not so very different from ostriches, with their head in the sand ways. It is just that any sand that people see nowadays, will be digitized, in computerized dunes, in never ending games.

Then again, it must be good to be a computer games manufacturer. Just think of their business model: in good times, sales will, by definition be good - but in bad times, they will be BETTER. Wow...they have really got something.

The funny thing is, though, I haven't played a single computer game since the crisis began. My reaction is not, though, it seems, typical: I am outnumbered by legions of dedicated reality escapists, around the world, playing away in darkened rooms, while the economy burns.

I bet the games industry is just about the only industry hoping that the recession will be a long one.

(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.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.)

Father's Day gift from a son

Ainan is not one to buy a gift - he'd rather make one.

For his mother, he made a perfume for Mother's Day. For me - he made a computer game. It was an arcade type game which he had pieced together using some sort of programme that allowed him to play with game elements to structure something to his liking.

I was touched. He had noted that, to relax, I sometimes play computer games. So, he thought he'd make one just for me.

On opening his surprise gift, I let him play it to show me how it worked. I think he felt a strange kind of reward to be able to give in this way. He seemed most content. So was I.

I did note that he was much better at it than I was. He has the advantage of youth, I suppose.

What I find most interesting about Ainan's gifts to us, is that he managed to create an individualized gift that matched the personality and passions of each parent. That shows a certain discernment - and thoughtfulness. It also showed something else: a flexibility in doing whatever was necessary to achieve the creative goal. In the first case, he had to construct a perfume from aromatic chemicals - in the other he had to learn how to construct a computer game - and design one that he thought I would enjoy. He succeeded in both endeavours.

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

Gary Gygax, Dungeons and Dragons' inventor dies.

One of the great pastimes of my childhood was pouring over Dungeon's and Dragons tomes, and, on occasions, getting together with enthusiastic others, to play a game of it.

For those who have not heard of this corner of the imagination, Dungeons and Dragons is a role-playing game, in which you take on the role of a character, whose nature is determined to some extent by roles of the die, that generate his or her characteristics. It is the kind of game where you get to play the story, yourself, rather than just passively read about it. As such, I think it is a valuable addition to the mental furniture of any child (or adult for that matter).

Gary Gygax was a name I knew well, from about the age of 11 when I first encountered his pioneering game. It seemed to me then, and does now, that in creating the game with David Arneson, that he had fashioned a rich and complex world. It was a game of many nuances and great complexities, which appealed to me in the way, perhaps it can only appeal to a child, with their sense of endless time stretching ahead. You see, there is no doubt that a considerable investment of time and mental energy was required to come to understand and be able to play the game effectively.

Dungeons and Dragons appealed - and still appeals - to the kind of person others might refer to as "nerds" or "geeks" - and I think there is a reason for this. D and D, as it is also known, provided a complex mental system of representation of a fictional world. Learning how to play it appeals, therefore, to the kind of person who likes to learn systems of representation of the world (such as the sciences). Hence, many of its followers were of that "nerdy" type. Funny enough, Sync magazine once placed Gary Gygax himself in first position of a list of the world's top 50 nerds.

Born on July 27 1938, in Chicago, Ernest Gary Gygax led a life that did not, at times, presage the magnitude of his later achievements. He was a high school dropout, but later returned to education to take a course in Anthropology at the University of Chicago. He earnt his living, in the 1960s, as an insurance salesman - a profession not associated with imagination. Yet, he had already begun to explore the ideas that were later to become Dungeons and Dragons. In his teens, he had begun to devise game rules around miniature figurines. The creation of his fictional world had begun.

Dungeons and Dragons is based on a game called Chainmail, designed for these figurines, he put together with Jeff Perren in 1971. D and D itself debuted in 1974, with David Arneson as a co-creator. Gary Gygax founded Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) to further the game and it was a great success in publishing, book, video game and film rights, in due course. However, he left the company in 1985 (and as I remember at the time, I don't think it was an entirely happy departure).

It may seem a little thing, to invent a game, but Dungeons and Dragons was to spawn a legion of other role-playing games - and eventually inspire hundreds of computer games, based on the notion of playing a role of a statistically determined character in a high fantasy (or sometimes science fiction world). Not a few films, too, owe their origins to his game. After TSR, Gary Gygax also went onto write many fantasy novels, in his Greyhawk series. He was frequently voted one of the most influential people in science fiction.

He died on Tuesday at the age of 69. That he had been a heavy smoker for 50 years may have contributed (he had had a stroke in 2004). The world of fantasy was not his only area of creativity and he leaves behind a wife and six children (three sons and three daughters).

Gary Gygax enriched the childhood imaginations of millions of children (and adults with a child still alive inside) across the world. He gave the world a new pastime. That, I would think, is a good achievement for a single lifetime.

I am thankful for all the childhood hours I spent in the world of Gary Gygax's imagination. It was fun. How strange that I never once considered that, one day, I would write of his passing. Children don't have that kind of thought, generally.

Cheers, Gary.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and one month, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and seven months, and Tiarnan, two years exactly, 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 children who never sleep

Singapore is a country where sleep is not much prized.

Why do I say this? Well, I just have to look at the school children wending their way to school - at around 7 am. Yes, you read right. They are on their way to school by 7 am - often earlier - because school often starts at about 7.30 am.

That is hideously early for a young child to be getting to school. Yet, it is not just the school children who have to get up early - the teachers do, too. The result is that an entire profession and about half Singapore's children, suffer from sleep deprivation. I say "half" the children for a reason. Singapore once had too few schools for the children they had to teach. There wasn't space and they hadn't had the time to build them all. So they struck upon an idea: use the same schools twice in a day. The school day was divided into two halves: a "morning session" and an "afternoon session". To fit both sessions into one day, the morning session had to start really early - and the afternoon session had to finish really late. A child on the morning session will finish about lunchtime, or thereabouts. A child on afternoon session will finish in the evening.

So, this system was created for a time when there wasn't enough teaching space to go around. Now, however it is different. There are more schools. There are fewer children - yet many schools persist in this division of the day into morning and afternoon sessions.

The children don't look well on it. They are evidently tired. I have taught such children. Many of them have poor concentration, simply because they haven't slept enough. There is another factor. Many of them are addicted to computer games and play them late into the night - or watch TV to similar hours - then they have to get up before 6 am to get to school. The consequences are not good. These children are too tired to really learn much at school.

It is time that the tradition of an early morning session be phased out. The children would be less tired and could focus better - and the teachers, too, would be less worn out and better able to give their energies to the classroom.

Every nation needs to sleep: even Singapore. I would like to see schools that start at a reasonable hour - say nine am. It would be a relief not to see tired children on their way to school, at an hour when they should really still be asleep.