Archive
May 2, 2003
Wow, check this out. These two dudes were my roommate and friend at Princeton in Beijing 2000:
Josh Gilliland received a scholarship to enter Ohio State University in the fall, to study for a Master's in Chinese... Another recent graduate, Michael Wright, has just finished a Master's in Chinese Studies from Nanjing University in China. He will be entering law school at the University of Michigan this fall and will most likely be able to use his extensive knowledge of Chinese in the field of international law.
I guess I'll be seeing Mike next year at UMich. [ Link ]
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May 3, 2003
Writing as a Block for Asians
Mr. Hannas blames the writing systems of China, Japan and Korea for what he says is East Asia's failure to make significant scientific and technological breakthroughs compared to Western nations.
Mr. Hannas's logic goes like this: because East Asian writing systems lack the abstract features of alphabets, they hamper the kind of analytical and abstract thought necessary for scientific creativity.
This article in the New York Times starts off with a great exposition of the Eastern Asian languages, but then descends into the ignorance that its main subject proposes. Anybody with half a clue about East Asian languages can see that this is a joke; will he be prepared to argue that the Koreans and Vietnamese are exhibiting a bloom in creativity sinced they've ambraced phonetic alphabets? Hardly. Mr Hanna mistakes the cause for the effect. The lack of focus on creativity is embedded in Eastern Asian cultures in their tradition of social stability, and is the reason why parents in those cultures push their children to spend countless hours memorizing more and more characters.
Rather than switching to an alphabet, I think China would need to reduce the number of characters that children have to learn in school, and combine that with a curriculum that encourages critical thinking.
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May 8, 2003
Today I substituted for a PE coach at the high school, teaching first and second-year general physical education and a double period of weight training for wrestlers. For the first two periods of wrestling, I wandered around the room and watched people train. It's a part of the high school I never had to face during my time there, the weight room. I considered myself lucky to skip freshman PE and jump straight into Team Sports my sophomore year. As an Academic Decathlon member and somewhat of a nerd, I always assumed that the kids in weightlifting were meatheads. Well, I can't say that I dispelled that stereotype today, but I did reflect on the discipline required to train your body with weights. Lots of the kids just sat around and chatted; they tended to be the wimpy ones. The guys who were dedicated to working out had plenty of muscle to show for it. Most of all, though, I reflected on how scrawny I was in high school compared to some of these big guys. And I'm still pretty scrawny. I get asked that question all the time in various forms: "Are you the teacher?!", and "How old are you?" I don't think I would have any qualms about a son (or daughter) of mine taking weight lifting in high school, because it's another way to build self-discipline and work towards a goal, the goal of being a fit person.
I also wanted to mention that during the second-year PE class I was asked to spot for one guy who was lifting weights, because the class was mostly girls. So I helped him out, and we ended up spending the rest of the hour lifting together. It was fun, but quite exhausting.
Not as exhausting, however, as the fifth period general PE class. Those kids were monsters, and I was beat by the time we left the gym. The character trait that I noted with most disgust was how destructive some of the kids are. Maybe growing up in the relative affluence of Southern California hasn't taught them to value property and take good care of things. As missionaries in Spain, my parents lived on the shoestring budget and had to take good care of stuff to make it last a longer. These kids would benefit in a lesson like that, I think.
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May 12, 2003
Today:
Mr Hernandez,
Thanks for coming in to give me instructions this morning. I heard from a student that you weren't feeling well; I hope you recovered quickly. Classes all went OK, the students were very well behaved.
Period 0 – Integrated 1
Handed out the worksheet and told the students that it was due tomorrow morning at the beginning of class, just to make sure they worked on it a bit. The students worked in partners and some switched seats: we agreed that if the noise reached a level where I had to remind them to be quiet, they would return to their assigned seats. Luckily for them, this never happened.
Periods 2, 3 – AP Statistics
Played the video Decisions Through Data, Unit 15, which lasted about 15 minutes. Most students were disinterested, so I asked them to speak quietly so that the students who were watching could hear it. For the rest of the period, they worked on other homework, played cards, or chatted.
Periods 5, 6 – Integrated 1
Pretty much the same as Period 0. There were no serious incidents to report. Mr Weber helped out in Period 5. I forgot to take roll in Period 6, in case you keep track of that.
It was fun to take your class today, I'd be happy to do it again.
—Micah Sittig
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May 17, 2003
Quickly I'll mention that Borders gave me back my borrowing priveleges. The first two books I checked out were Steve Oualline's How Not to Program in C++: 111 Broken Programs and 3 Working Ones, or Why Does 2+2=5986. It was fun for a C newbie like me, although a lot of the data structure sections were beyond what I've learned so far. Cute intercalary anecdotes, too. I also brought home Lonely Planet's Central America on a Shoestring to plan my trip for this summer. When those were due, I checked out Let's Go's Central America 2003, which I'll use to revise my plan and decide which Central America guide to take along. Another book that has been begging me to read it is Graham Greene's Quiet American, recently made into a movie. About the time of the film's release, I read an article in the New York Times that described this book as a staple for war journalists. Sounds like an adventure book.
In the meantime, my current "project" book is El Club Dumas by Arturo Perez Reverte. If the author sounds familiar, then you follow my reading habits too closely. Also, you may have heard of his books, as several have been translated into English. I asked Julie to bring me a book when she came to visit Shirley and me in Tianjin, and she brought me his Flanders Panel. I enjoyed that book a lot, it deals with the Old European arts scene and its associated high culture and intrigue. Since I'm attempting to learn myself that kind of high-brow snootyness, it came in very handy. If you noticed from the title, I'm reading El Club Dumas in Spanish. Progress is slow, but the language is beautiful and the atmosphere projected by the book is, to me at least, more authentic.
As a postscript, I just noticed that Amazon retails this Spanish import for $16.95, while the La Habra Borders special orders team was able to find it for about seven dollars. Sweet! To quote one of the great films of our time, "[brick-and-mortar bookstores], although slow and dangerous behind the wheel can still serve a purpose."
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May 25, 2003
Push, Loop, Block
A virtually unknown Chinese teenager pulled off the biggest upset win in the world table tennis championships here, beating world number one Timo Boll of Germany in the men's second round on Wednesday.
Exciting action in the Table Tennis World Championships being held now in Paris, France. In an exciting finish, Chinese novice Qui Yike came outta nowhere and defeated the front-running German Timmo Boll. Read about it in the China Daily. Also, more at the ITTF website.
Thirty-Six High School Juniors Rubbing Balloons on their Heads
Brea Olinda carried out the state achievement testing this week, know as the STAR tests. For some reason unknown to me, a lot of teachers were out so I got called to sub all five days. The last three days were for Mrs Davis, who was out with a respiratory bug. On Wednesday, I lectured about electric charge, induction and polarization of conductors and insulators, and static electricity. On Thursday, we used a bunch of balloons, Mylar (metallic) balloons, soda cans, plastic rods and rabbit fur to carry out experiments that involved electric charge moving between objects through friction, induction, or polarization. Then I asked the students to diagram their experiments on whiteboards and explain them in front of class. They did a pretty good job, I think. On Friday, I lecture on test charges, electric fields, and electric field lines.
I told them that they may enjoy when I sub for Mrs Davis, but that if I taught the whole year they would probably get bored of my lecturing! I had second thoughts later; I'm probably sensitive enough to notice that students are bored of my class and would eventually think of more creative activities for the students to carry out. Partly, I lose sight of the reality that some of these kids will never take physics again in their life and don't need a deep understanding of the intricacies of the subject, and partly I like it so much myself that I tend to go on and on and not imagine that it could ever get boring. I spent four years at Caltech, where 98% of the students thought this stuff was fascinating, so it's hard to imagine otherwise.
On the Book Front
Wow, all three headings in one day: China, California and Books. The La Habra Borders is gearing up for a visit from the Big Cheeses in a week. The management is working hard to get the new shelving categories up, which means that a couple guys are pulling an all-nighter tonight to get the Kids section re-labelled and re-shelved. Computers will also get a big overhaul by mid-week which is cool because, along with Science, it's my pet section and maybe they'll appreciate the good order I keep it in.
The book I'm reading, El Club Dumas by Arturo Perez Reverte is keeping me deeply engrossed. Although progress is slow—it's in Spanish, for heaven's sake—the plot is great and, like I said before, it's got high old Europe snob-factor. And it's a mystery about books, which is a hard subject to beat for book-lovers like myself.
I bought a CD at work tonight. On Saturday and occasionally Sunday evenings we have performers at the Cafe section of the store (random trivia: Borders used to pay these performers a small fee for coming, but no longer does). A particularly persistent songstress has been coming to our Borders for the past few months, a woman named Marla Reid. I wouldn't normally listen to the kind of soft-pop she sings at the keyboard, but it has grown on me and the customers seem to like it. Also, I feel a sort of obligation to support live music. So tonight, I went over to talk to her and buy a CD. It turns out she has a website, and her music is sold on cdbaby.com, therefore she must be cool.
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May 26, 2003
El cine es cosa de muchos: colectivo, generoso, con los niños aplaudiendo cuando llega el Sèptimo de Caballería. Incluso mejora a travès de la tele; las peliculas se ven entre dos, se comentan. En cambio tus libros son egostas. Solitarios. Algunos ni siquiera pueden leerse y se rompen al abrirlos. Quien sólo se interesa por los libros no necesita a nadie, y eso me da miedo—Nikon masticaba el último ganchito y se lo quedaba mirando, atenta, entreabiertos los labios, acechando en su rostro el síntoma de una enfermedad que no tardarìa en manifestarse—. A veces tú me das miedo.
From El Club Dumas by Arturo Pèrez-Reverte.
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