Does School Destroy Our Creativity?

Photo taken from Education.

First of all I would like to wish all the teachers Happy Teachers Day!!

I really appreciate and grateful to these great group of individuals whom had devoted their life to educate us to be a better person in the future. Despite of our mischievousness and ignorance, they never failed to educate and bring out our potentials through knowledge, skills and values.

But there lies a problem that has significant effect to all those who had gone through the educational system. The question is…

Does school destroy our creativity? 

I still remember when I was in the kindergarten, education was fun. I love to go to school. I love to explore and I have a loads of things that intrigued me. In the kindergarten that I’ve went, the teachers were great, though they were strict they promote critical thinking and also do encourage us to do mistakes in our learning process. It does build up my interest in all the subjects that I learn. The best part is we’re constantly rewarded if we do well in class.

I believe most of you have this kind of similar experience too. That is why when we were kids, we will take a chance. If we don’t know how to do something, we will have a go on it. We are not frightened to do mistakes. We are not frightened to be wrong because there’s no punishment unless we are naughty.

As I entered primary school everything turned out to be completely different. Obviously the educational system was way different compared to what I have experienced in kindergarten. This time, teachers discourage us to do mistakes. Every single mistake will result in punishment. Under this educational system, we are trained to be like a parrot. “MEMORIZE THIS!” instructed by the teachers. We’re thought to memorize, but not to understand. Don’t ask why, just memorize! If wrong, spank you!

I and many others do understand and appreciate the good intention of our teachers, but this is not an effective way to educate the students.

Here is an interesting video that I would like to share with you. Sir Ken Robinson, an internationally recognized leader in the development of innovation and human resources, has an interesting point of view on how destructive is our current education system.

This video is 20 minutes long and was recorded at TED Talks in 2006. I’m sure you’ll love his humour and great thoughts.

Here’s another video of his lecture at UCLA. This video takes about 1 and a half hour, but believe me it worth you the time.

If you like and enjoy this post please share it around in Facebook or tweet it so that the message could reach a much wider audience.

Eli Shares Joins SwinTalk

Photo courtesy of SwinTalk.

SwinTalk is basically a blog for all Swinburnites or Swinburners or whatever you call it, who are currently diligently shaping their melon in Swinburne University (Sarawak Campus).

Why join SwinTalk? The website said it best

“Enhance Communication + Broaden Your Network of Friends”

It's also a place for the students and staffs sharing their student life and experiences in Swinburne. In the same time promoting your own blog in the blogroll.

Been studying in Swinburne for almost 3 years, I never seen any published articles or magazines made by the students - or maybe Swinburne Sarawak Newspaper. I was expecting something like that before I start my studies because it an Australian university and I have a high expectation of the campus having a weekly or monthly magazines. Obviously not happening here.

Maybe it's because of the culture here or the current economy situation where publishing a magzine is quite costly. Another big downturn is would anybody willingly to grab one of it?

With that kind of dilemma, there is almost no chance to even publish a single issue of magazine. But thanks a lot to the technology nowadays, this problem has came to an end. We have SwinTalk!!!

SwinTalk is FREE, even better you can give out comments and feedbacks, and also share your ideas. Compared to the traditional type of magazine, SwinTalk has the ability to feed your eyes with videos.

Note:
Newspapers or magazines with moving pictures and short clip videos are only availabe in the Harry Porter's world. We ain't wizards or witches.

For those Swinburners and Swinburnites who are reading this, you are encourage to join us in SwinTalk. It's very a great opportunity for us to get our voices out there and in the same time get connected with others. Who knows your soulmate might be reading your post? ;-)

Discovering Myself: Aptitude Test

After applying for course transfer from engineering to business, the university called me up for an aptitude test. I don't even have any idea what aptitude test is and to make it more confusing, at first I thought it was an attitude test - because it sounds similar in the phone.

So what is aptitude test?
It is basically a test to assess your current strength, skills, hobbies, interests, abilities, style of working and your interaction with other people. The test will showcase your best advantages by recognizing your strengths and will let you know which career is suitable for you.

The test only consist of yes and no questions and it only takes about 15 minutes to complete it - even a kid can predict their future career - NO KIDDING!!

My result:
I'm an ARTISTIC person with ENTERPRISING and CONVENTIONAL personalities.

Interpretation:

Photo courtesy of *meppol.

ARTISTIC
Original, intuitive and imaginative, and enjoy creative activities such as composing or playing music, writing, drawing or painting, and acting in or directing stage productions. They seek opportunities for self-expression through artistic creation.

People who fall under this category prefer flexibility and ambiguity, and have an aversion to convention and conformity. Artistic types are generally impulsive and emotional, and tend to communicate in a very expressive and open manner.

They value aesthetics, and view themselves as creative, non-conforming, and as appreciating or possessing musical, dramatic, artistic, or writing abilities while lacking clerical or organizational skills. The preferred work environment of the artistic type fosters creative competencies and encourages originality and use of the imagination in a flexible, unstructured setting.

Typical careers: Musician, reporter, blogger and interior designer.

Photo courtesy of Speaking Channel.

ENTERPRISING
Energetic, ambitious, adventurous, sociable and self-confident. They enjoy activities that require them to persuade others, such as sales, and seek out leadership roles. They are invigorated by using their interpersonal. leadership, and persuasive abilities to obtain organizational goals or economic gain, but may avoid routine or systematic activities.

They are often effective public speakers and are generally sociable, but may be viewed as domineering. They view themselves as assertive, self-confident and skilled in leadership and speaking, but lacking in scientific abilities.

The preferred work environment of the enterprising type encourages them to engage in activities such as leadership, management, and selling, and rewards them through the attainment of money, power, and status.

Typical carrers: Salesperson, business executives and manager.

Photo courtesy of Darren Byrne.

CONVENTIONAL
Efficient, careful, conforming, organized and conscientious. They are comfortable working within an established chain of command and prefer carrying out well-defined instructions over assuming leadership roles. They prefer organized, systematic activities and have an aversion to ambiguity. They are skilled in and often enjoy maintaining and manipulating data, organizing scedules, and operating office equipment.

While they rarely seek leadership or "spotlight" roles, they are thorough, persistent and reliable in carrying out tasks. Conventional types view themselves as responsible, orderly, efficient, and possessing clerical, organizational, and numerical abilities, but may also see themselves as unimaginative or lacking in creativity.

The preferred work environment of the conventional type fosters organizational competencies, such as record keeping and data management in structured operation, and places high value on conformity and dependablilty.

Typical careers: Accountant, organizer, data processor.

After the test I went for a counseling session and showed the result. The counselor was surprised, why in the world did I took engineering studies? My REALISTIC score is very low - less then ten. I still remember, years back after I finished my SPM, I wanted to take multimedia course because my love of arts but wasn't approved - a lot of people take this course, hard to find job, no market demand. Really?

Here is my score:

Truthfully, I can't see myself as an engineer - I never dream of it. Hell, I've been studying engineering for almost 7 years and it was really depressing.

Thank God that it has been put at end. I'll be studying business this coming semester and I'm very excited about it. I would like to thank those wonderful peoples who had supported me on pursuing business study, I really appreciates your encouragements and words of advice.

Do you have this question in mind:
"Why the hell am I doing this?"

Welcoming The Year Of Ox

First of all I would like to wish all my Chinese friends and readers
HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!!!

Photo courtesy of Birds As Art.

This year is the year of ox, the second animal of the Chinese Zodiac, and I was born under this strong characted zodiac sign. Ox symbolize prosperity through fortitude and hard work. Wonderful isn't it to be born under a zodiac sign that has powerful signs of being a born leader, dependable and possessing innate ability to achieve great things. The cool fact is that these world famous leaders such as Barak Obama, Priness Diana, Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussien and Napoleon Bonaparte are also born in the year of ox!! My favourite footballer, Wayne Rooney, is also born in the year of ox!! You definitely see the spirit of ox in him while he's playing.

Most of us now might be busy visiting Chinese Horoscope sites, seeking information and to learn more about your omens for the year. To be honest I really enjoy reading horoscope, either the Western or Eastern, mainly because some way it motivates me in the positive way, but I won't govern my life based on my sign.

Photo courtesy of Squidoo.

In Kuching, for days our nights were brighten up with colourful and beautiful fireworks, they can't even wait till midnight bombarding the sky 15 minutes earlier before new year. Which is rare back in my hometown, where you can only see fireworks shooting into the sky only on the new year. While in Gaza, they have advance "fireworks" that will explode in the sky and produce more tiny "fireworks" which will after that produce massive "fireworks" as it touches the ground - BIG BANG!!

I like festive seasons, it's time to get around visiting friends, enjoy the view of fireworks and of course feed your stomach all you can. Okay, I've done that on Christmas but this Chinese New Year I fed myself with advices and motivations.

Since my parents move to Kuching, I've been following them visiting their friends. One of my dad's senior is an avid talker on education. I've visited him last year and he and my dad had adviced me to continue on with my engineering studies. Their advice does motivates me a bit in the first semester of the year but in the end, on the second semester, I just can't force myself - I'm remarkably stubborn.

I can see the ox spirit within me, very persistent, for five years I've continued requesting my parents that I wanna change program to business. It does pays off, my parents agrees and this coming semester I'll be studying business, in the year of ox - how coincidence. I explained it to my dad's friend, he paused and agree with my opinion. He smiles and say "This is the time for you to realize your dream, God has granted your wish and now it's your turn to do your part".

Always Double Check Your Works

I'm so happy after I've completed with my programming project wich is due today.  What a relief, after all the hardworks squeezing my brain out to write a program of a Point of Sale system, now I can start concentrating on the final papers next week and on the following week.

Actually the program has completed last Wednesday but I didn't double checked whether the whole program runs without any problem. After done writing the program I just proof checked a few of the functions and assume that the other functions are working as those I've checked.

I WAS COMPLETELY WRONG!! 

Photo courtesy of Latin Snake.

Actually I was about to submit the program to the lecturer until that I discovered a glitch that one of the function is not working.  So I have to debug the program and try to look for the error and it's a lot of work!! It really stressed me out and give me a big headache because I have to check the codes line by line and functions by functions and compare it to the header file of another program within to locate and correct the error.

Debugging the program patiently and at last I found the bloody culprit.

"saveProduct(data, items)" <- WRONG!!!

This is how it supposed to be -> "saveProduct(items, data)"

Just misplaced these two entities, "items" and "data", has made the whole system gone out of order. I bet I was lucky to double check it just before I send it to the lecturer. This may have saved few marks for my project and I hope that I'll get a good result. 

Photo courtesy of The Situationist.

My parents, high school teachers, university lecturer always harps on this issue over and over:

Never leave everything to the last minute so that you won't lose the chance to revisit and double check your work. I know, I rarely listened to them, but I know why the keep stressing this out.

So folks, the moral of the story is 
Always Double Check Your Works!!

How to Stay Focus

Final exam is around the corner and my first paper is on next week Friday. I still have an assignment due this Friday and still doing it. Was supposed to finish it earlier so I can start doing my studies for my papers. The problem is that it's hard for me to stay focus on what I'm doing. I'm so easily get distracted and I always multi-task and procrastinate!! Switching from a task to another task and spend most of my time doing things that seems important but actually aren't.

As a student, I have this feeling buried deep down inside me. It's a pain to the soul, feeling guilty for not studying. It feels like something eating me from the inside and I feel like to explode. Stressed, disoriented, unmotivated, crazy, blank, blur, idle, hyper, inactive, whatever..... bla bla bla



Photo courtesy of Seif Hamdy.

Enough with these NONSENSE!!!

I need to eliminate these thoughts and re-organize my mind and seek optimum mental focusing as focusing is the key to all success.


Photo courtesy of activerain.com

8 steps to obtain optimum mental focusing...

1st... I need to eliminate all distractions.

• Plan what need to be done for the day as this will free my mind from worrying about it.
• Clear my desk.
• Strictly no Facebooking, MSN chatting and web surfing.
• Put the phone into silent mode.

2nd... Take my breakfast because it's the most important meal of the day. It will fuel me up and make me feel better and energized, this will help me to perform better. Remember eating healthy breakfast is the best way to start off your day.

3rd... Clear my mind and practice focusing by meditating. This will also help me to relax.

4th... Do a bit stretching before engage into studying. This will help to relax my tense muscles and increase blood circulation.

5th... Put on mood lifting music. I can't study without music because it'll will make my mind wander. Melodic trance and electronic musics boost my mood.

6th... Take action and discipline!! Work my plan and use it to guide and keep me moving forward.

7th... Take short breaks. So it's break time, do stretching and re-fuel myself with some water or coffee.

8th... Reward myself after the hard work. Celebrate my accomplishments and knowing that I've done my best.

Class Starts

Photo courtesy of Pragmagraphr

Week 1 and day 2 of this semester, I still haven't got myself enrolled because I've failed 50% of my subjects last semester. Pretty annoying because I have to repeat the same subject again. Now I have to consult the student counselor and the program coordinator to discuss about my problem. Hope I can enroll and start as soon as possible.

For your information, currently I'm taking Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical and Electronic Engineering). I've been studying Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) since I was in form 4 at SM Teknik Miri and then continue on with my diploma. Although I've been studying this field like for 7 years already, but I never dream of becoming an engineer.


Photo courtesy of ~narloke

I'm more interested into business field. Actually it's my parent's idea that want me to become an engineer. I've been discussing about this mater with my parents a lot of time but yet they still want me to continue on with the EEE. I've also discussed it with my friends. I'm really upset but I cannot do anything about it. I have cousins and uncles working as an engineer and they got a really high pay which is more than RM 20 thousand per month. Maybe that's the reason why my parent's want me to work as an engineer, but sorry I'm not interested.

This semester, actually I've planned to change my degree program and switch to business. Discuss and explain it to my parents but yet they still not agree. Until we went to visit my dad's friend's house for Chinese New Year. This uncle keep talking about education, about his sons and others. So I join the conversation and explain about my situation to him. He agree with my idea to switch course but he advice me just to complete it.


Diploma graduation ceremony, 2006.

And we came up with a conclusion, since my parents really want me to finish it so I just take it as a present for them. Although I'm quite a stubborn son I would really love to see my parents happy.

I'm planning to finish this course as soon as possible and I don't wanna waste anymore time spending my life with studying engineering so that I can pursue my dream - to be the greatest businessman.

Why We Should Learn English

Photo courtesy of vagabondrhythm

English, a language which is spoken through out the world. In fact that 80% of English used in the world is used between non-native speaker.

So why learn English?
Most information stored in the world's computer is in English, more than half the world's scientific journals are in English and it is the main language of the internet. With English, you can make friend with anyone in the world - who can communicate in English - despite of it's nationality and race.

I've stumbled upon some funny video clips in youtube about "Learning English". They're SOOOO funny and I laugh until I burst into tears.

I would like to share some of the videos to you guys and hope these videos will brighten up your day with some good and healthy laughter.

Guys, check these out... (Warning: Explicit contents)

Banned Commercial - Learn English


Why You Should Learn English


Japanese Learn English


French Learning English (Steve Martin)


Do You Speak English? Sprechen du Deutsch


More videos?

Japanese Girl Learning English
Speak English - Iraq
US Soldiers Teach Iraq Kids English

This is the reason why you MUST have a good foundation of English. I bet you don't wanna end up like them...