The incredible Internet essay writing machine.

To some students, indeed, I hazard, many, the Internet is seen as an incredible essay writing machine. All they need to do, to "write" their essays, is to type the question, set by their teacher, or Professor, into the Internet - and hey presto, out pops links to a thousand different answers, instantly. Then, all the student need do, is copy and paste the judiciously chosen text, into their MS Word - and they will have "written" their essay, in a few clicks of a mouse.

Today, I was moved to reflect on this phenomenon by an apparent student from Cebu in the Philippines, who arrived on my blog with the search terms "Write on future hope". He had not even rephrased his teacher's request into something more likely to get the right kind of response - he had just entered his teacher's request into the Internet. This, in itself, suggests that he or she has a limited understanding of search engines, as well as of essay writing skills. The searcher, of course, arrived on my post about "future hope", in which I write of writers not aging in terms of their writing skills, but maturing instead. I now expect that somewhere in Cebu, a teacher is going to be digesting some interesting views, indeed, perhaps, surprising views, from his student that show a remarkable understanding about what it is to get old. How funny.

There is a serious side to this. The Internet may lead to a generation of students who do not write for themselves, who do not think for themselves, who do not make mental effort for themselves. The lazier members of the Internet generation, may become people completely unaccustomed to personal thought or mental effort. The result will be a future world in which most people cannot think, at all. It would be ironic, indeed, if the consequence of sharing knowledge, globally, via the Internet - which I think is a wonderful facility for THINKERS - should turn out to induce a generalized mental malaise.

This is not the first time I have seen searches which indicate that someone is looking to plagiarize an essay. I have seen this kind of search many times. Sometimes it is even as sad as asking me to write a single sentence for them as in a very popular search: "A sentence with the word "prodigy" in it". This kind of search occurs every month. Scrutinizing the search terms that lead people to my blog, I am led to the conclusion that there are an extraordinary number of student plagiarists out there. Frequently, for instance, I have what I assume are teachers arriving on my blog, whose search terms include large or distinctive quotations of my writing. They are clearly checking up on their students to see where they got a particular piece of writing from. So, it is not all the students' way: some students, out there, are clearly getting caught for their plagiarism. Unfortunately, however, the student searches outnumber the teachers seeking plagiarism perhaps 30 to 1, maybe more. So, most teachers either don't notice, or don't care to find out.

To my mind, I see the Internet creating two classes of people: those who use it to enable to think more about more topics - and those who use to stop thinking altogether. The first class of people will grow in power and influence, and the latter class will eventually be found out, with consequent harm to their lives, careers and hopes, if their societies think ill of such conduct. Thus, the Internet, far from being a great leveller, as people think of it, may actually end up being a great divider - not because of the Internet, itself, but because of the people who use it. The Internet allows people to become MORE of what they already are. The thinkers can think MORE, the slackers can slack MORE. Thus it is that the Internet becomes an exaggerator of who we are: we become more extreme versions of ourselves. Perhaps this is a good thing, in a way, for it will make it clearer who people are, fairly quickly. We can then save much time in the assessment of our fellow man. The thinkers become greater thinkers - and the slackers, become even more slack. To tell which is which - just use a search engine on their written work and it should soon become clear. The thinkers will have no exact matches for their work. The slackers will often be found to have plagiarized a writer, somewhere in the Internet universe.

All this leads me to advise that all teachers, everywhere, should run a check on characteristic phrases of their students' work - particularly for those students whose written contributions seem better than their classroom participation. It is altogether probable that many of the students who are able to perform so well in homework, but relatively poorly in class, are, in fact, Internet plagiarists. There is no excuse for not finding them out, in the modern world: all you have to do, is Google "their" work. I believe there is even an Internet service for checking up on students call Turn It In...so check it out and unearth all the plagiarists in your classroom. To do so, is to do them a favour, since it might prevent them from falling out of the habit of thinking. That could save them from a very dull life indeed.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

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What did Patrick Swayze do for a living?

Bizarrely, someone arrived on my blog having asked that very question. Now, where do you think this person came from? Togo, perhaps? Outer Mongolia? Pitcairn Island? Have a good think. Please come up with your own idea of where someone who didn't know what Patrick Swayze did with his life, might have come from.

Well, the answer is the United States of America. That is right, the person who asked that question was surfing from Indiana, in particular the Indiana Department of Education.

Now, personally, I was surprised that a US citizen would not know what Patrick Swayze was known for. Yet, it made me think. I don't think that this is Patrick Swayze's particular problem. I think he exemplified a simple phenomena that we might wish to forget about: most people, no matter how prominent at one time, are going to be forgotten.

Patrick Swayze was most famous for "Ghost" in 1990 and "Dirty Dancing" in 1987. He was, at that time, a "big name"...everyone knew who he was. Now, of course, that is not so. Many people - perhaps the one who searched - have been born since his heyday. These young people may never have seen his work. They may have heard the name, but not known any work to which the name was attached. Then again, others who did see his work, may have since forgotten him, or have reached the state of "not being able to quite place him". In time, this will happen to almost all film stars and similar people. They are able to attain intense fame, over a period of years, or decades, but that fame simply may not endure. The people who know them, grow old, they forget, and the young never know. In time, all who knew that person's work, directly, pass on - and those that are left probably never encounter the work of an "antique" actor.

So, the most famous of the famous, now, are almost all destined to be forgotten, before even this century is out. Very few will be remembered in centuries to come. Perhaps, not even the greatest film stars, will be remembered. Their fame is bright, but brief. It is not the kind that endures. That latter type subsists on work that future generations have reason to revisit, again, and again across the centuries and millenia. Modern film is unlikely to "fit the bill". Few people trouble themselves to watch films even twenty or thirty years old - so how many would bother to watch work that was a hundred or five hundred years old? Only historians would do so. Thus, in a remarkably short time, the people we now see as most famous, will be forgotten, known only to experts in the field.

The people who are remembered longest are not, paradoxically, I think, the ones whose work is most intensely regarded, necessarily, in their lifetimes. It is the work that offers most complexity, most difficulty. Thus, the less popular contributors, may, in the end, be the most famous, to posterity.

To those who doubt this, I invite them to name one actor from the time of Aristotle. It is not possible for anyone who is not a specialist dramatic historian, to do so. Yet, the average man can name at least three philosophers of the time: Socrates and Plato being the other two. Anyone even slightly knowledgeable about the era, can name a dozen more. Yet, none of these people would be able to name an actor, or a singer, or any other of those kinds, most given to attracting attention DURING their lifetime.

Thus, it is, that those whose work is more complex, and deeper, proves more enduring. This is so, because later man has REASON to revisit the earlier work: it still has something to offer.

To understand this, is to realize that attention is given to the wrong people, in our time. The ones least likely to be of interest to future generations, receive most attention. The ones most likely to be researched by future generations, live relatively quiet lives, perhaps in academe, or on the shelves of bookshops. They are not, necessarily, the "stars" of our time. The stars, on the other hand, are convinced of their own immortality based on their fulgurant public presences. Yet, that dazzling brightness will fade remarkably fast and this is something of which they are delusively unaware.

Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are now, known to all - but once they pass on, their memories will fade catastrophically fast. A century from now, only film specialists will ever have heard of any of them. There may even come a time, when they are too obscure even for film specialists to have heard of. Their "fame" is, in some ways, an illusion of our own, foreshortened view of time. We live brief lives, so it is difficult for us to conceive of what happens beyond the scale of a lifetime. To understand this phenomenon, however, we can just look up some old films, online...something from the 1930s perhaps. Doing this is a sobering experience, since the "stars" of the day, largely consist of forgotten names. So many of them, who might, in their day, have been "names" are now nothing more than arbitrary collections of letters, alongside each other. They have already become lost to the awareness of the common man. So, too, will it be for modern "stars". They won't shine brightly, for long.

If you want to know who will be remembered, by future generations, you need to look to thinkers and creators, whose work does something new. These people have a habit of being discovered, considered and respected by times to come. I can't tell you who they are, however, because their work can take some while to come to be appreciated. Yet, they are out there, perhaps sitting in a cinema, watching the "stars" unaware that future generations might think of them, more highly, than the people they spend their money to watch.

Yet, Patrick Swayze is not without a kind of victory, despite the fact that it is possible for an American not to know he was an actor. At least, they still know his name. One day, of course, not too long in the future, they won't even know that. Yet, he shouldn't despair - because alongside him will be almost all the other "stars" too.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 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.

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.)

Deep thinkers or sheep thinkers?

Karl Albrecht, the writer on psychology, divides people into "deep thinkers" and "sheep thinkers". I thought this division was applicable to the situation in Singapore.

A deep thinker is one who thinks for themselves and is independent in their thoughts and conclusions from the mainstream of the society around them. They see things as they are. They understand what others do not.

A sheep thinker is one whose thoughts are acquired from the surrounding society: what they read in the media or hear from others. They don't realize that their thinking is determined by others and believe that they are thinking for themselves. However, they never think for themselves and, in fact, don't really think independently at all.

Now, Singapore's leadership has, in recent years, begun to urge its populace to "be creative". The aim is to create some kind of intellectual hub. However, there is a problem. For too long, Singapore has encouraged its people to be sheep thinkers. The way children are educated does not instill deep thinking, but produces sheep thinkers. There is a great pressure at all levels of society to conform - and so almost everyone does.

Karl Albrecht observes that all totalitarian societies have sought first to eliminate the deep thinkers, or control them, so that they would not awaken the rest of the society of sheep thinkers to reappraise their situation and come to understand it. Thus, these types of societies will try to create sheep thinking masses - just as Singapore has done. The problem for these societies however is that without deep thinkers, certain kinds of technological, scientific and cultural development will not occur: for sheep thinkers are thought followers, not thought leaders and will not create anything new.

If Singapore is to become a creative hub, it will have to start encouraging deep thinkers in its midst. This is something with which the system is unfamiliar. I wonder whether the system can really take the presence of true deep thinkers in its midst? Would the powers-that-be not be instinctively uncomfortable with such people and try to muffle them?

Singapore's education system is still creating sheep thinkers. I am curious as to whether this will change and deep thinkers will start to be fostered. We are at a cusp, in some ways. If Singapore wishes to have a creative culture, it will need deep thinkers. However, having deep thinkers makes the population less sheep like - and yet, sheep like is exactly what the government has tried to instill in its people for the last five decades. Basically Singapore can't have it both ways. They can either choose to be a creative hub and have deep thinkers...or remain as easily controllable sheep.

The question is: which will Singapore's government choose: the deep thinkers they know they need...or the sheep thinkers they know how to lead?

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