The laziest student in the world.

Today, perhaps, the laziest student in the world, visited my blog. It is not uncommon for people, from University web addresses, or other educational institutions, such as Secondary schools or high schools, to arrive on my blog, with what is clearly an essay question in their search terms. Sometimes, I get dozens of people from the same country, searching with the same essay question, arriving on the same page, of my blog. I can only imagine the consternation of their teacher, when a dozen or more of their students hand in the same copy/pasted essay (mine), as their own!

Plagiarism is very common amongst today’s students. I see other evidence of it too, sometimes. Occasionally, someone searches with an extended quote from one of my essays, and arrives on my blog. I assume this to be a teacher checking whether an essay is plagiarized or not...for how else did they get a hold of an extensive quote from my writing?

Today’s example was a classic. A person searched from Mongolia, in Asia, with the search terms “Mongolian laziness essay”! Just think about the most likely interpretation for what is happening here. This searcher is probably a student, from Mongolian, who had been tasked to write an essay about Mongolian laziness. I assume this to mean that their teacher had identified them as lazy and required them to write an essay on laziness, as it applied to Mongolians, as some kind of punishment. So, it is a stroke of genius order laziness for that student to then search the Internet for an essay on Mongolian laziness, to steal! I mean, how lazy can you get, than getting someone else to write about laziness, when that is your own task?

What is, perhaps, funniest of all, is the page they arrived on. It was an essay on Mongolian laziness. In fact, it was an account of my experience of teaching one of the laziest students I have ever encountered – and the ways he dealt with the tasks I set him. Given these two experiences, I am left to wonder if Mongolia has a problem with laziness, as a cultural issue. If anyone knows more about this, please comment below.

On a more serious note, it is a worry that so many students, these days, are using the Internet to answer their school essays for them. This speaks of a generation too lazy to learn to use their own minds. Any child who grows up doing this, instead of actually writing the set tasks, will never learn to write or express themselves in written form, in any way at all. They will become incapable adults. Not only that, but not having learnt to exercise their minds in disciplined thought – which they will have avoided – they will probably be quite dim, as well. It doesn’t bode well for the future world they shall be tasked with creating – along with the rest of their often ill-equipped generation. It seems likely that people who are now middle aged, will see a real decline in the level of discourse in the world, by the time they reach old age. Quite simply, many people will not be capable of complex discourse in any verbal form, at all. Another thought occurs to me. If the common man, is poor at dealing with words, one might have thought that the few who were truly literate would be prized – but I think it likely that the opposite will be true. When the average man is too verbally dumb to appreciate the output of the verbally bright, the writings of the best writers will be even less appreciated than they are today. It takes an educated and well informed audience, to receive well the thoughts of the best writers. The reader needs to be a sufficiently erudite companion to the writer, for the relationship to work well. Sadly, the younger generation today, in so many parts of the world, are not cultivating high verbal skills. So, they will become people unable to appreciate or enjoy them in those who do so equip themselves. Basically, the future promises to be a philistine one. I wonder whether Mankind will be able to pull itself up from that now seemingly inevitable precipice? The search terms of my innumerable plagiaristic searchers, is not an encouraging sign as to our probable shared future. I suppose this is what the beginning of the ends of Empires and civilizations looks like: a decline in the quality of the people being a first and troubling sign. It won’t be that far in the future, when such people are unable to manage the culture they have inherited. After that, the process of forgetting will begin. Soon, all will be gone.

It all begins with students too lazy to think their own thoughts and write their own essays. The Internet is full of them. In fact, that is what many students think the Internet is for: doing their homework for them. Some advice: if you see signs in your child that they are pilfering off the net, cut them off. Force them to write their work on their own. It will be the best stimulus to their mental growth you could ever invent.

I am left with one final dilemma: do I publish the offending student’s IP address to reveal what he or she has done...or do I not? What do you think?

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.

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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.

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Tilda Swinton, Cornelia Parker and The Maybe

“The Maybe” was a work of art, supposedly by a collaboration of Tilda Swinton, the actress and Cornelia Parker, the artist. I say, “supposedly” because the truth of the matter is that the origin of this work lay outside the heads of both of these ladies.

In the early 1990s, I conceived a performance art work called Lord Valentine the Misplaced. This was an 18^th Century dandy, living in the 20^th Century world. I was fully attired in 18^th Century clothes and had old world airs and mannerisms. I took this work of living art, to both London and New York and it was eventually covered on CNN in 1994, NBC News in February 1995 and Reuters on 14^th February 1995. There was also coverage in the Observer newspaper in October or November 1994, and Time Out magazine, of London, in November 1994. Basically, it was quite a well known work, by the mid 1990s.

Now, an odd thing happened one night, in London. I was attired as Lord Valentine the Misplaced and was to meet a journalist (one Andrew Mosby from Time Out magazine, if I recall correctly), at Beach Blanket Babylon, a rather trendy and ornately decorated bar, in Notting Hill, West London. This was in November of 1994, after an article had come out about me, in Time Out.

As I entered Beach Blanket Babylon, I saw a familiar figure, her head laying on the shoulder of another woman: Tilda Swinton, the actress. I had seen her in person, several times before, but never really spoken to her. She had been pointed out to me, at Cambridge University, when I was there, many years before – since we both attended it, though she was rather older than me (still is!).

This pair were very interested in me. They appraised me with eager eyes, thinking thoughts that would later become clear. I did wonder at their closeness, since Tilda Swinton’s head was on the other lady’s shoulder. I did wonder at what kind of relationship they had. Then again, girls are often much more touchy-feely than guys.

Both studied my 18^th Century attire carefully.

I believe that Tilda Swinton introduced her friend as Cornelia, because she became so labeled in my mind, thereafter.

“What are you doing?”, one asked – I can’t remember which, though I think it was Tilda Swinton – “Are you trying to get cast?”

“No.”, I said, for my purpose was deeper than that. I didn’t explain what I was actually doing though.

The conversation was very brief, but there was something guarded about Tilda Swinton, at the end. She suddenly tugged at her friend to come away, a thought seeming to have come to her. I passed on, seeking my contact within.

It was the following year that Tilda Swinton and Cornelia Parker, collaborated on The Maybe. This was a simple piece of performance art/live art, in which Tilda Swinton slept in a glass box, in everyday ordinary clothes. Now, what I found immediately interesting about this was that it was a piece of living art – which is precisely what Lord Valentine the Misplaced was. I also thought it very interesting to note, from the pictures released at the time, that Cornelia Parker had been the lady with Tilda Swinton that night, in Beach Blanket Babylon. It was immediately obvious where the “inspiration” for this work of art had come from. I had created a piece of living art. Tilda Swinton and Cornelia Parker met me whilst I was being Lord Valentine the Misplaced – and Tilda Swinton (it seemed) had the idea of copying my idea and embodying herself as a living work of art, too. Particularly telling was the use of unattractive everyday clothes for The Maybe. Brian Sewell, the art critic, wondered why Tilda Swinton hadn’t dressed up as some kind of Sleeping Beauty (though maybe not in those words). It is clear why not. Had Tilda Swinton dressed up in any kind of beautiful period clothes, she would have revealed the inspiration for her work. She had no choice but to be in ordinary clothes, so as to obscure the original inspiration for the work.

Later on, Cornelia Parker and Tilda Swinton fell out over who “thought” of the Maybe. Both claim to have conceived the idea – though Tilda Swinton makes the louder claim that the idea was hers. It is very, very clear why this argument has arisen: because BOTH ladies met me, at the moment they decided to imitate what I was doing. The reason they can’t agree on who was responsible for thinking of it, is that NEITHER was responsible for the original thought. All they decided to do was to create a “me too” art work, based on my own prior explorations of living art. It is very telling that neither can agree on who conceived it, which indicates that they have something in common, at the moment of conception: that common point was the meeting of me as Lord Valentine the Misplaced. Had only one of them met me at that time, then only one of them would be laying claim to the idea. Their very argument points to the moment of contention: the instant they both met me, and one of them (or both of them) decided to imitate my work, in their own way.

Of course, the fact that they recognized my work as living art (implicitly, since they imitated it), does go to show the success of my work.

Cornelia Parker has gone on to produce other pieces of work, though Tilda Swinton hasn’t. Evidence of the influence of my work on Cornelia Parker can be seen in another of her proposed works. My art work was called Lord Valentine the Misplaced. Interestingly, Cornelia Parker wanted to put a meteorite back into space and used the term “misplaced” to describe this action – so the meteorite would now become a misplaced object. This seems to be a clear adaptation of the idea of misplacement as art. Lord Valentine the Misplaced, was misplaced in time – Cornelia Parker’s meteorite would have been misplaced in space. It is an analogy of my prior work.

We can see here, how Cornelia Parker conceives some of her works. They are adaptations or analogies to other people’s work. She is translating other people’s ideas into a different setting. Tilda Swinton’s The Maybe is a sleeping piece of living art, dressed in everyday clothes. Lord Valentine the Misplaced was a waking piece of living art, dressed in 18^th Century clothes. Cornelia Parker’s proposed meteorite project was a rock misplaced in space. My Lord Valentine project, was a human misplaced in time. These are both analogous to each other, adaptations of the same idea in a different context.

It is important that the true origins of the work of artists and supposed artists, like Cornelia Parker and Tilda Swinton – because the art, in these cases, lies in the idea, for they are conceptual works. If the idea is not truly theirs – as it is not, in both cases, here – then the work of art is not truly theirs either. The history of art is being defrauded if we are led to believe that the origin of these works lay in either of these ladies minds. The history of art deserves better than that. The true background to each conceived work should be known – and the “inspiration” that gave rise to them, should be appreciated.

This blog is but one page in an internet Universe of trillions of pages, thus, very few people will read it. So, please help spread the word about the origin of The Maybe, as an adaptation of the ideas behind Lord Valentine the Misplaced. Tell the story of how Tilda Swinton and Cornelia Parker met me at Beach Blanket Babylon in November 1994 and recognized the artistry in Lord Valentine the Misplaced, enough to want to steal it for themselves. If you have a blog, or other website, please post a link to this article, to help people become aware of it. Thank you.

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.htmland 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.

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

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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.

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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.)

The death of the individual.

People die in various ways. Most nowadays die of old age. Some, however, are killed, as children, by their education. I saw something recently that made me reflect how dangerous “education” can be. It was a simple thing really, something that most might overlook – but to me it was quite disturbing. It was a school art exhibition.

Now, you may be wondering why and how I could find a school art exhibition disturbing. It was, actually, more than disturbing – it was saddening too. What provoked me to feel so was the manner in which the works had been carried out, and the way in which the children had been taught. The works were all in the style of Paul Klee, the painter. There was, perhaps, the work of a dozen children, each absolutely indistinguishable from the next, because all sought to be imitations, as perfect as they could render, of the style of Paul Klee. There were other artists too, in this exhibit, who had been imitated and echoed. It was dispiriting. Each child had been taught to give up their instinctual creativity and in its stead, taught that they must copy to create art. Every child, in that school, under this particular teacher, had had their creativity extracted from them. Not a single piece had anything unique, special, or in fact, artistic about it. They were all slavish copies.

I should point out at this point, that this is not a criticism of Asian schooling, in particular, although Asian schools are just as guilty of this practice – for this school was an international school in Malaysia (I shall not name it). Thus, it is clear that the policy of encouraging students to copy, has crossed over into the international schools.

To teach a child that to create is to copy, is to kill something very fundamental to the mental health of the child. In a way, it kills all that is special about them. These children would be better off not having any art lessons at all. Being taught in this way, ensures, indeed absolutely guarantees that none of these children will become artists. True artists never copy – their art emerges from within them, and is not dependent on external models. None of these children had the outlook of an artist. They had the perspective of photocopiers.

It is hard to understand, for me, at least, how their teachers and their school can consider instruction in imitation, to be an art lesson. Art is not about imitation – true art, at least. Those who think art is about imitation haven’t really understood it.

I have some advice: if your child ever comes home with an artwork in the style of or manner of a famous artist, please withdraw them from the art class. They will learn nothing there, they will, in fact, unlearn their innate creativity. Art lessons like that, will turn your child into a derivative clone. They are better off with no art lessons at all, if all they are teaching is the art of the plagiarist.

Sometimes the best education, is no education at all. It might be hard to accept that, in this world of high pressure schooling and home tutors. However, it might be worth your time to have a good look at the way your children are being taught. Are they learning to copy or create? If the former, no school, would be better than that kind of school.

(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.htmland 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.)

A look inside a Singaporean company.

I was speaking to a friend who works in finance recently. I won't give too many specifics, lest he be identified, but he is not, originally, from Singapore. He has, however, many years experience of living and working here. He had some interesting things to say about how Singaporean finance workers do their job.

Firstly, he noted that they were always at a loss when asked to do something new from scratch. It seems that their "wonderful education" hadn't prepared them for this. What they would always do when asked to do anything, was to go searching for something or someone to copy. Sometimes, this would work out OK, if they chanced upon the right thing to copy. However, it was not infrequent, that they would find the WRONG thing to copy and completely screw up the task. It was quite beyond them to think for themselves, from the beginning, how to approach the problem and solve it independent of external models. Thus, their only choice was to copy.

He also noted a herd mentality in financial analysts originating in Singapore. Well, there is a good reason for this: they are NOT actually analyzing things for themselves but have simply copied the person they think is the best/most respected in the field. They do this for two reasons: firstly, they are not very good at thinking or analyzing for themselves - and secondly, they don't want to stick their necks out and venture an opinion of their own. They want to be able to say that: "Well, the best guy in the field thought the same thing, so you can't blame me for getting it wrong, too." They see this as a failsafe way to make a living. Tasked to analyze they will just copy the best and use their copying as their best defense against charges of incompetence that might come later, if they prove to be wrong.

Well, my friend, who is a very senior financial person had a solution to this problem of Singaporeans copying all the time. He didn't hire them. He hired an office full of Malaysians instead. Apparently, this was somewhat of an improvement.

So, this brings me back to my primary worry here, regarding Singapore: what exactly is the education system making people into? It seems, from examples from the workplace, that I have encountered, that it creates people unable to think for themselves, unable to create, unable to express an opinion of their own - or unwilling to do so, which amounts to the same thing - and only able to do one thing: copy someone else. To my mind, that doesn't make much of a worker, nor much of a contribution to the world. However, the economy has managed to come this far, based on this way of doing things (though we cannot know how much of this was due to external input from imported talent). Yet, I think there is a severe limit on how far a nation can go when all it is doing is copying other nations, other people and other things. To copy, the object, person or idea must already exist - which means that Singapore can only be second in everything, at best...and that makes for a second rate nation, not a first rate one, as the powers-that-be would have locals believe.

How can this be changed? Well, it would have to start in the classroom but extend throughout the whole culture. The idea that copying is acceptable must be thrown out. It must be discouraged...banned even. Until then, everyone here will take the intellectually lazy way out - and copy their way through working life.

Personally, were this change implemented, I think it would be a great improvement, however I am under no illusions: even if the system was completely overhauled today - it would take DECADES for the way of this place to change. Those who are already adults will not be able to change - it is too late for them. We must look to those who have not yet begun their schooling. So, it would be at least two decades before anything positive could come out of it.

There is one political problem, of course: I don't think that the present government wants a thinking population - and so may very well continue with the present system, indefinitely, for it ensures one thing very well: that people just can't think. Perhaps, that is, in fact, the whole purpose of the education system here. Maybe the output - people who can't think for themselves - was, in fact, the INTENDED product. What a thought. I just hope it is not true. Yet, we are left with two choices: either the education system is competent and has produced its intended output - unthinking, some say robotic, people - or the education system is incompetent and has failed to produce what it wishes to: "creative productive adults" - as they sometimes say they want.

I will leave it to you to consider: is the education system competent or incompetent? Is the end result desired or not? In my view, neither situation is a good one - because the output is not ideal. There are better ways to live, than to live a life of copying. I wonder how long it will take before that is realized around here?

(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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IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals.If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)