Non-practice

Will this be on the test?

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Kyller - Test day

Will This Be on the Test? is a book by Dana T. Johnson and Jennifer E. Price.

The question is valid – what matters for the students? And how could you pass the test with good results?

I think these are two different questions:

  • What do you need from school to succeed in life? In these, there are multiple skills that are currently not taught in most Romanian schools, like entrepreneurship, leadership, managing finances, career decisions, how to manage your emotions, how to handle fake news, how to help someone in trouble. You don’t even learn the meta on learning – how to learn. The paradox you spend a lot of your life in school, but you’re never taught how to learn, read, take notes, memorize, improvise, be creative, write an essay.
  • Also, for the current curriculum, lots of things can be improved. You could improve a lot in the way subjects are taught and on the current information provided in school manuals.
  • On another hand, on the things that you do learn, you’re not given enough chances, in my opinion, to succeed. You have to learn a lot of things, but you’re not prepared for taking standardized tests. How about each student in Romania give a Math test three times a year? Or Physics, Literature, or Sports? The same subjects, the same criteria, applied to all students in Romania. If you could take the tests online, there will be even more standardization. For things like “informatics lab” or “physical education” or even “religion”, I would consider giving just a “passed/not passed” criteria. You could also be given lots of preparation tests. Do you want to know what will be on the test for Informatics? While you won’t be given an exact answer, you could be given 20 similar tests. By doing them all, in my opinion, you could be much better prepared for taking the “actual” test. I faced this in a lot of schools I’ve been part of, on all levels, from primary school to Secondary or Tertiary education. I would be provided with a learning phase and a testing phase. But I wouldn’t be 100% sure about “Will this be on the test?”. Oh, and do use cameras on students. More importantly, I wouldn’t have the occasion to test myself multiple times, as to be certain that even if I wouldn’t get the top mark, I would be in the 10th or 20th percentile. Also, what I’m most upset about is the lack of standardization between various schools. School can be a totally different experience and can have a totally different unit of measure, depending on the school, teacher, level of your colleagues, your level. So, if you’re the first in a poor class you will likely be treated differently from when you’re average in a top class. That’s just not fair. Also, some teachers are too relaxed with giving top grades, while others too strict in giving grades (so, they give poor grades, mostly). Moreover, while I agree that one teacher can teach differently from another teacher, I don’t agree that two teachers should give a different test, and grade this on a personal level. Not when, like it’s the case in Romania, grades in high school determine your future College.

Having a unified system for grading things makes two things possible:

  • A student will know that an 8 in a poor school is equal to an 8 in a great school. An 8 is an 8. Students will know their value.
  • A teacher and a school will know if they are able to improve a student’s performance or not. If a pupil from 5th to 8th grade is rated at 7.5/10, and then, in high school it reaches 9, if the system is the same anyone can tell that the student facilitated the growth of the student. But it will also show that a school with only students with poor grades doesn’t bring performance, so something must by wrong in there.

To conclude, some key points from this article:

  • You need some other subjects to be taught in the curriculum.
  • For the current subjects, you need better information.
  • Do use cameras when taking tests.
  • I vote for standardized tests, on a national level.
  • For things like “informatics lab” or “physical education” or even “religion”, I would consider giving just a “passed/not passed” criteria.
  • I vote for being able, before a test, to test yourself with at least 20 other similar tests. Not identical, but similar. And to see what you did wrong and how can you improve.

Looking back at my education, if these things would be fixed perhaps we would have a much better educational system.

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I’m here to provoke you, not teach you something

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khteWisconsin - Biden's inaction is facilitating the destruction of the Amazon & Palm Oil Deforestation

During a TV show – “Garantat 100% cu sociologul Gelu Duminică” (@TVR1), Gelu Duminică said something like:

Rolul meu nu este să te învăț, rolul meu este să te provoc / I’m here to provoke you, not teach you something.

When I think of flaws in the educational system, most of the flaws refer to things that I didn’t learn well enough – “Oh, I wished I had more room to learn Mathematics better”. But that was not the purpose of the education system. It was, indeed, just put there to create a spark. To incite my curiosity.

When I look at the situation from this perspective, I find that I spent four years in college, and during that time I found out about NGOs, about having an Internet connection, about attending conferences, about spending time online writing (forums, Yahoo! Groups, later blogs), about promoting things. All of these evolved in my life, I did some things afterward.

There was no class in college for photography, we barely connected online for official purposes, NGOs were 100% optional, communicating online, and promoting things were mostly not part of the courses.

While I did learn some things in the actual classes, most of the things came from human interactions – to see a teacher devote her/him self to creating a wonderful experience, to meet people from NGOs, to see people at conferences, to put some passion in your work, to love to find out more. Things like these were not taught directly, but indirectly.

And I’m grateful for the college years, from this perspective.

Following that, I did three Master’s Degrees, had some professional experience, and did some things with NGOs / events / online.

I owe it, partially, to the educational system in college.

I used to be critical to some things in the educational system, I’m less now, after that I heard the speech above.

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Life experiences make you better

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Dirk - Evolution

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche

I don’t think people should go through traumas. I don’t think it’s necessary to go through lots of pain, sufferance, difficulties to be a good person.

On another hand, living with everything you want at your disposal, no stress whatsoever, no limitations nor boundaries, being allowed to have, do and experience everything – I also don’t think that is the right path.

Tough experiences should be avoided. But a minor inconvenience, a limitation, a self-imposed limit, a boundary you choose not to cross – this might make you a better person.

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You have already won!

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Iberian Proteus - Victory

My family once received an envelope with a message: “You have already won one of these prizes!”. Three things were there.

You were supposed to pay some money, and receive another message: “Again, another one of these prizes is yours!”.

After another member of my family received the same thing, and one person from the Postal office told us that a lot of people receive the same envelope, it was clear – it was a marketing scam, and the prizes which we won we actually paid for by entering a scheme.

But coming back to the message – “You have already won!”. Now, that’s one powerful message.

How would you go to school, considering that no matter what you do, learn hard or less-than, you will graduate? What would you do – learn more or less? Focus on some subjects, or become a jack of all trades?

How will you measure success, considering that you could live your life without fear of survival? Will you work more or less?

This thing – “Winning without a possibility of losing” is one powerful thing.

Going to a football game knowing that your team will win.

This changes the perception.

I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or not, but it’s something to think about.

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Despre cearta de tip – Nu face poza!

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Pablo Garcia - Street Photography

Uneori, sunt certat pentru că fac poze.

Pe mine mă deranjează disproporția între agresivitatea cu care mi se spune uneori “nu poți face poze” și rezultatul concret.

La aeroport – “Nu poți face poze!”. Nu văzusem niciun semn. Întrebarea e – dacă nu fac eu poze, nu cumva e foarte posibil să facă altcineva? OK, te iriți, ești nervos, dar în afară că îți verși nervii pe mine, rezolvi ceva?

Am vrut o dată să fac o poză cu orarul unei piețe, era pe un panou transparent, a ieșit cineva din clădire să mă certe că de ce le fac poze lor? De ce îmi trebuie mie poză? Dar dacă mă ceartă pe mine, și într-un fel agresiv, oare pe viitor nu se vor face din nou poze de alte persoane? Nici măcar nu voiam să fac poză în interior, eu aveam ceva cu orarul.

Eram în Germania, am vrut să fac poză unui om al străzii, mi-a făcut semn să nu. Cineva cu care eram în grupul de turiști mi-a zis să fac poza. Am făcut-o. Și am plecat. Omul străzii s-a ținut după noi vreo 50 de metri, m-a ajuns din urmă, mi-a zis că ar putea să meargă la poliție. Nu mi-a zis să șterg poza, nu a țipat la mine, nu s-a iritat. Dar și-a exprimat punctul de vedere. Mi-a fost o rușine teribilă, și a fost un mesaj pe care, pe cât am putut, l-am interiorizat. Asta da eficiență. Am șters poza, și pe viitor am fost mai atent.

În România e mai greu să dai feed-back, fie și pentru că atunci când se dă nu se dă civilizat, de multe ori, ci se dă într-un mod agresiv.

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You’re not good enough for this

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LUMIKS LUMIKS - Photo

It’s my birthday today, and I can’t stop but think at this – some people don’t understand why I say I’m not good enough for some things.

I posted some photos online, some people liked them so much that they thought I should print them.

I don’t think I’m an artist-photographer.

I look for beauty, I’ve done more than 100,000 photos until now.

But I’m a beginner, still.

I haven’t studied things a lot, I just got some experience.

I don’t even look at a lot of other people’s photos, and, even if I do, in a lot of things I’m a beginner.

For example, shooting images in a room with low light or images in a theater, where’s there’s both a lot of light and not enough light should be a task for a beginner, at most a medium photographer. I’m not that good, I don’t shoot photos so well.

Even at composition, while I do know the basics, I’m not an expert.

I also don’t like to spend a lot of time on a photo, both when taking it and when editing it.

I don’t think that everybody should do everything. Yes, photography is a hobby, but I have some criteria in order to publish something, and that criteria has not been met until now.

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I need ideas! What’s the solution? 21 Lessons for the 21st Century – by Yuval Noah Harari

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21 Lessons for the 21st Century: Harari, Yuval Noah: 9780525512172: Amazon.com: Books

If you need ideas to understand the world, if you need some insights on how the world works, you might be interested in:

“21 Lessons for the 21st Century”  – a book by Yuval Noah Harari.

It’s a great way to get ideas, in my opinion, and, more importantly, related to the current situation in the world.

I really don’t like spoilers, so I won’t give you a glimpse of the book, but I’m sure you can find places to read more about this book.

How to read the book? Not as a book of solutions, but as a book for getting ideas.

You might, as I did, not agree with everything in the book.

But, boy-oh-boy, was reading the book interesting!

I plan to re-read it.

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On launching a business

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Heiner Engbrocks - business as usual

There’s a speech I like a lot: Charlie Chaplin – Final Speech from The Great Dictator.

I’m thinking a lot about launching a business.

Two things stop me from doing so:

  • I totally refuse to pay others a small amount of money. I don’t like this habit I see a lot in “I, the entrepreneur, drive a Mercedes, the employee can walk”. But if I pay big wages, it’s hard to stay competitive.
  • I don’t have an idea to sell others as a perfect gift. I don’t have anything which is really moving the needle in “I want to give the world the gift of …”. This isn’t present in my life. There’s nothing I wish to sell others. Sure, I exaggerate, there are some things, I would like to make the world better, but, mostly, I can’t find a lot of things to sell that are part of my emotions. I don’t wake up in the morning saying “World, listen to me, I want to offer you the gift of …”. If I have some ideas, I put them on this blog, but there’s none with huge importance. Sure, I’d wish people would help one another, but I somehow feel that if I want to sell this there’s some sort of imposed ideas, which I dislike.

Still thinking about this.

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Ideas multiply as they are seized

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Sean X Liu - Inquiring mind

“Opportunities multiply as they are seized.” ― Sun Tzu

I do get some ideas, I am creative at times. But there are plenty of times I’m not creative at all, I follow rigid procedures, having a poor memory sometimes is a burden.

But when I do get an idea on how to improve a procedure, what to write on a blog post, I generally tend to write that idea down and follow up with a blog post as soon as I can.

Writing an idea down helps me clarify it and save it for later. Not for too much later, as I tend to forget things.

But once I write an idea down, generally more of them follow suit.

I’m not at all at Seth Godin‘s level, but I do my best to make the world better, and also work on myself.

How to get more ideas? Not only by reading more books, or watching movies, or reading the news, but also by doing things.

You tend to get more ideas if you expose yourself to things. Sure, reading helps in some aspects, but just by reading, in my opinion, you won’t solve lots of things. You need thinking and immersion, and for that a job well done is a great tutor.

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