Singapore Open and the disadvantage I am going through

[alpha]

The choice of date for Singapore Open is purely my fault. I happen to have a business trip to Singapore at the end of February. Since I am a WCA delegate and Singapore lacks one, I offered my services as a delegate if they were interested in hosting a competition the weekend of 28/2-1/3.

/Anders

Its okay Anders. You don't have to blame yourself for this. See you soon.

Eh!Who say I arrogant?
My religion fobids me.I am humble.
Don't anyhow say if you don't know.
( too lazy to quote the reply(s))

Don't bring your religion into this.

 

[Stefan]

22 seconds isn't very good. It's not bad, but a majority of people on this forum can beat it.

Very doubtful.

 

[Neroflux]

And I am the fastest cuber in my school I broke the former school record 22.80.whenever I compete against my friend,crowds gather to watch.
Even the discipline master says I am the school champion.how about that for well respected cuber.

Eh!Who say I arrogant?
My religion fobids me.I am humble.
Don't anyhow say if you don't know.
( too lazy to quote the reply(s))

DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD.

 

[alpha]

And I am the fastest cuber in my school I broke the former school record 22.80.whenever I compete against my friend,crowds gather to watch.
Even the discipline master says I am the school champion.how about that for well respected cuber.

Eh!Who say I arrogant?
My religion fobids me.I am humble.
Don't anyhow say if you don't know.
( too lazy to quote the reply(s))

DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD.

You're always good at digging out stuff dude.

 

[blah]

I'm not siding anyone here, I'm just providing information from a neutral standpoint to those of you unfamiliar with Singapore (heck, I'm not even Singaporean myself, but I've resided here long enough I guess).

I don't have hard stats to substantiate this, but I do have reason to believe Singapore does have the highest suicide rates in the world among primary school (or whatever school you call it in your part of the world, the one you attend from 7 to 12 years old) kids, and I'm sure most wouldn't hesitate to agree with me. Welcome to Asian education, Singapore style.

You probably can't picture an 11-year-old having stress, but Singapore is the most myopic nation in the world, has a ridiculously high number of kids having tuition classes after school (9.xx in every 10, got this stat from a newspaper), and claims to be the best in the world in Science and Math at the primary school and early secondary school level. Whatever it is, it's nowhere near Western education, at least not as it (Western education) appears on TV

And yes, having lived here for 5 years, I don't find it hard to believe 11-year-olds here have stress at all.

Disclaimer again, in case you missed it the first time, I'm not siding anyone, I'm just providing neutral information.

Edit: Besides, I'm not saying he's right, I'm just saying you can't really blame him for his lack of maturity, he is 11 after all. You'd probably feel good when your discipline master tells you you're the school champion when you're 11.

 

[rachmaninovian]

the almighty blah has spoken!

 

[mazei]

Yeah and the piece of land next to Singapore has some pretty relaxed people when it comes to studying. Take me for example

Back to something that I think is on-topic, don't boast that your the best in your school. Do you see anyone here boasting about something so insignificant like that? Heck I don't even see people boasting here about being the best in their country. Instead other people point that out(from what I observe. blahs the best at BLD in Malaysia)

 

[anders]

The choice of date for Singapore Open is purely my fault. I happen to have a business trip to Singapore at the end of February. Since I am a WCA delegate and Singapore lacks one, I offered my services as a delegate if they were interested in hosting a competition the weekend of 28/2-1/3.

Its okay Anders. You don't have to blame yourself for this. See you soon.

I do not blame myself; but I am to be blamed

I'm really looking forward to meet the Singaporean cubers!

/Anders

 

[Mike Hughey]

... claims to be the best in the world in Science and Math at the primary school and early secondary school level. Whatever it is, it's nowhere near Western education, at least not as it (Western education) appears on TV

I'm curious - I'm not exactly sure what you mean by the "nowhere near Western education" comment. What exactly do you mean by that?

We homeschool our kids, and we actually use the Singapore Math program (slightly rewritten for US students) for our math instruction. I like it a lot - I like the way it approaches the concepts, and find it is a very good system to work with, assuming you're enthusiastic about teaching it (which I pretty much am).

 

[Jhong253]

I said in my school,not the world.get your facts right man!-reply to 2nd sentence.

If its 22 minutes, how can there be 80 secs?Get your maths right man!-reply to 2nd bracket.

famous cuber in my school.please lah,the world?very funny.-reply to 2nd part of the 2nd sentence.

I know how to manage my time.exmainations obviously.Exam not even start you say this, I really don't understand.-reply to 1st part of the 3rd sentence.

Rubik's staff,your Grandmother!what the hell you talking about?-reply to 2nd part of the 3rd sentence.

Eh!Who say I arrogant?
My religion fobids me.I am humble.
Don't anyhow say if you don't know.
( too lazy to quote the reply(s))

1. I say you are arrogant. And you are rude too.
2. Your religion is not the focus here, you are.
3. You are not being humble in this thread.
4. Don't tell me what I can and cannot say.
5. You are lazy. I wonder how you can even survive in that supposedly so difficult class that no one else that posted in this thread really studied for.

 

[Neroflux]

... claims to be the best in the world in Science and Math at the primary school and early secondary school level. Whatever it is, it's nowhere near Western education, at least not as it (Western education) appears on TV

I'm curious - I'm not exactly sure what you mean by the "nowhere near Western education" comment. What exactly do you mean by that?

We homeschool our kids, and we actually use the Singapore Math program (slightly rewritten for US students) for our math instruction. I like it a lot - I like the way it approaches the concepts, and find it is a very good system to work with, assuming you're enthusiastic about teaching it (which I pretty much am).

i think you missed 'not as it appears on TV'. well like, movies and stuff, you know?

 

[blah]

I'm curious - I'm not exactly sure what you mean by the "nowhere near Western education" comment. What exactly do you mean by that?

We homeschool our kids, and we actually use the Singapore Math program (slightly rewritten for US students) for our math instruction. I like it a lot - I like the way it approaches the concepts, and find it is a very good system to work with, assuming you're enthusiastic about teaching it (which I pretty much am).

I'm not doubting you or anything Mike, but I'm kinda skeptical about the Singapore Math program thingy you mentioned. Is there any official authentication sorta thing that whatever material it is you're using to teach your kids is genuinely from Singapore?

If you like it, I really don't think it's what we're getting here. There's no way ANYONE who truly loves and enjoys math would like it. Concepts? Math here isn't about concepts. The average student here wouldn't understand a thing about simple/basic math concepts, I can assure you that. The only thing we're taught/forced to do in school here is tedious calculations to trap us into making careless mistakes and/or "standard questions" - questions that follow a specific template and are always solved using the same method/routine. That's right, we don't have math "problems", we only get math "questions" here.

I'll put it this way: There's only one place in the world where kids can shamelessly say, "Math is easy! It's just all about practice!" And that place happens to be Singapore. (Oh, and those kids are right by the way.) Math in this part of the world is stupid; it's all about drilling, not about thinking. ZERO thinking.

Okay, so that was me dissing the Singapore Math program that claims to be the best in the world.

 

[Neroflux]

Okay, so that was me dissing the Singapore Math program that claims to be the best in the world.

you diss everything singaporean.

 

[Mike Hughey]

I'm curious - I'm not exactly sure what you mean by the "nowhere near Western education" comment. What exactly do you mean by that?

We homeschool our kids, and we actually use the Singapore Math program (slightly rewritten for US students) for our math instruction. I like it a lot - I like the way it approaches the concepts, and find it is a very good system to work with, assuming you're enthusiastic about teaching it (which I pretty much am).

I'm not doubting you or anything Mike, but I'm kinda skeptical about the Singapore Math program thingy you mentioned. Is there any official authentication sorta thing that whatever material it is you're using to teach your kids is genuinely from Singapore?

If you like it, I really don't think it's what we're getting here. There's no way ANYONE who truly loves and enjoys math would like it. Concepts? Math here isn't about concepts. The average student here wouldn't understand a thing about simple/basic math concepts, I can assure you that. The only thing we're taught/forced to do in school here is tedious calculations to trap us into making careless mistakes and/or "standard questions" - questions that follow a specific template and are always solved using the same method/routine. That's right, we don't have math "problems", we only get math "questions" here.

I'll put it this way: There's only one place in the world where kids can shamelessly say, "Math is easy! It's just all about practice!" And that place happens to be Singapore. (Oh, and those kids are right by the way.) Math in this part of the world is stupid; it's all about drilling, not about thinking. ZERO thinking.

Okay, so that was me dissing the Singapore Math program that claims to be the best in the world.

We have no way of knowing whether it's really the true Singapore system from here, obviously, but I can give you their website (this is supposedly the site they've set up to sell to homeschoolers and some school systems - California included now). It's this:

http://www.singaporemath.com/

(Rather obvious url!)

It's interesting that you say it's all about drills. Among the homeschool community, the main complaint about Singapore Math is that there isn't enough drilling, and you typically have to supplement with drills in order for the students to really retain everything. But some people have pointed out that Singapore supposedly has extra "drill sessions" in the schools where they do drills to supplement the normal text and workbook, and now there are supplemental materials available for us to buy to do more drills.

Anyway, I guess most any math system works okay as long as the teacher handles it well. I just like the progression of the material and some of the alternate ways of solving a problem that the Singapore Math textbook takes on some concepts. Keep in mind we're currently only up to 5th grade; I haven't gotten to very high math yet. My opinion may change later as we get farther.

My wife grew up in the Philippines, and her description of math there is very much like what you're saying, but I suspect it's a lot worse. There it seems like they NEVER had to do any thinking to solve a problem - every problem followed the same template. But since that's anecdotal, that could easily be that she specifically had bad teachers, and it might have nothing to do with the school system there. I'm sure there are places in the USA that are exactly the same.

 

[Swordsman Kirby]

I'm just curious, Mike: why did you decide to homeschool your children? And is your wife Filipino or was just raised there?

 

[Mike Hughey]

I'm just curious, Mike: why did you decide to homeschool your children? And is your wife Filipino or was just raised there?

That's not an easy question to answer - it was something we decided to do over time and there are a lot of reasons, really. But basically we felt we were in a good position to do homeschooling and it was something we liked the idea of doing. My wife was a teacher in the Philippines, and with my math and science background we were rather uniquely qualified to do it well. And my wife's personality is so outgoing that the typical issue of "socialization" is a non-issue. (My kids get more social interaction with other kids than a lot of kids who go to school.)

And yes, my wife is Filipino.

 

[AvGalen]

I'm just curious, Mike: why did you decide to homeschool your children? And is your wife Filipino or was just raised there?

That's not an easy question to answer - it was something we decided to do over time and there are a lot of reasons, really. But basically we felt we were in a good position to do homeschooling and it was something we liked the idea of doing. My wife was a teacher in the Philippines, and with my math and science background we were rather uniquely qualified to do it well. And my wife's personality is so outgoing that the typical issue of "socialization" is a non-issue. (My kids get more social interaction with other kids than a lot of kids who go to school.)

And yes, my wife is Filipino.

I never really finished my education Mike. Could I come live with you and your familiy for a while and get some schooling?

 

[d4m4s74]

dunno why but I suspect a troll
I browse ebaumsworld too much

 

[abr71310]

I never really finished my education Mike. Could I come live with you and your familiy for a while and get some schooling?

Yeah, can I come too? I suck at Calculus, despite the Canadian education system being awesome (it used to be better back in the 60s; apparently we'd learn integration in grade 10 but NOOOO the TDSB decides that we're too dumb to learn that until OAC; then they kill OAC in 1994, then they take out 3/4 of the major calculus you need for university in Grade 12 (meaning basically only easy stuff students in the 70s would get 100s in without even having their eyes open), so us high school students are how you say "f***ed" hard)....

Ditto for Physics and Chemistry.
I remember when they used to have explosions in the lab just to test the validity of a chemical reaction.
Now they won't even let us make radioactive bromine...

Physics used to make catapults to launch pizzas at the adjacent buildings...
Now we can't even use an inclined metal board to slide down our carts without a principal (or VP) getting "disturbed" by our "unsafe activity"...

Education sucks now.

SOL and JWF... (Quote Carlin).

Back on Topic... sort of...
"Humble" is when you are told you are the best in the world and you blush and say "No, so and so is better than me".

We call the person in my school who is 19th in the world in programming "Humble" and "Modest", because he honestly does not believe he is great at anything. He might not have high self-esteem, but he sure as hell loves programming as much as I love cubing (and I have the entire high school I go to behind when I say that's a lot of love).

 

[qqwref]

We call the person in my school who is 19th in the world in programming "Humble" and "Modest", because he honestly does not believe he is great at anything.

They have a world ranking in programming? What are people ranked based on?


About the maths education, I don't really believe drilling is necessary. I think the only reason you'd do drilling is to help kids memorize something, and my perspective is that math is not about memorization. In real life you don't need to memorize addition/multiplication tables (or methods to multiply large numbers or compute integrals, or theorems, or whatever) because there are always calculators or computer programs to do that, and almost everything can be looked up. To me math is completely about concepts, understanding how numbers and concepts work and how these concepts work together. Once you know the concepts it is trivial to look up facts or input arithmetic into a calculator, but if you only know how to do arithmetic (no matter how well you know it) you will have a very tough time when presented with a problem you haven't seen before, because you will have to teach yourself the concepts on the fly.