Sticker diplomacy
I am heartened by the sticker put out by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs this week in response to the volatility in Vietnam.
The sticker says: “I am from Taiwan.”
What this sticker does not say speaks volumes.
The sticker does not say: “I am from Taiwan Province, but do not agree with the policies of Beijing.”
It does not say: “I am from the other China.” It does not say: “I am not from that part of China,” or “I do not agree with my government putting the oil rig on the reef.”
It just says: “I am from Taiwan.”
What the sticker said spoke volumes.
Being from Taiwan is not the same as being from China. This sticker is essentially an official statement that Taiwan is not part of “one China” and that the world is expected to understand that Taiwan is unique and different from China.
The things left unsaid speak beyond that.
It stopped just short of saying that Taiwan is in reality a completely separate and independent country from China.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) cannot openly admit that Taiwan is a separate country, but to aid Taiwanese businesspeople, as is their duty, they have had to back off from the fairy-tale that Taiwan is part of China.
To help their voters, they have had to make a public admission that stops just short of declaring de facto independence.
There is hope that Taiwan no longer has to be the “red-headed stepchild” of the international community.
There is hope that it can be accepted as a full and equal member state alongside all the other nations.
Shervin Marsh
Luodong, Yilan County
Breaking chemical rules
I recently weighed 50 school bags belonging to the children at my school and the average weight was 6kg.
The children are eight years old.
There is no research that shows giving children more work makes them remember more. It is a contradiction that does not sit well in the mind. So why do people keep on making the same mistakes?
I work for an independent team of scientists, who among other things advise the Taiwanese and UK ministries of education on curriculum development.
Our research has been ongoing for 23 years and it is results based. If we cannot prove something, it counts for nothing.
Here is a summary of all the work.
We have been selected by evolution for our toolmaking, not our ability to understand what we are doing. People may know what they are doing, but they do not know why they are doing it.
In short, people just follow a simple set of rules.
All complex systems work on this principle. People all get a different mix of the same chemicals, which drives them to act in certain ways. This generates complexity, which makes it hard to see what is really going on.
People are hard-wired to mimic behavior, so that overrules the results of research that shows increasing the quality of a lesson always produces better results. Mimicking tradition gives people a feeling of wellbeing and is mated to an innate drive to compete.
A drive to do what has gone before, but do more of it until it starts to fail, then back off a bit. That is where people are now.
So if everyone takes a deep breath and tells themselves to stop and think, then they can do the most intelligent thing rather than the most innate.
Children remember most readily when they are engaged in something that is interesting. Teachers do not have the time to prepare truly inspiring lessons every day, they waste most of their time giving out information that is forgotten and must be retaught.
To make a change requires the backing of parents, so we have made a video for the ministries, teachers and most importantly, parents. The video talks through the problem, then provides the solution.
The UK government wants to teach more core principles in mathematics and science, but many will be shocked to learn that the core principles have not been taught, until now. By simply looking at humans from a universal perspective rather than a human one, people can see the simple set of rules that drive them. These rules can then be used by adjusting to them and using them as tools.
Some subjects require a lot of practice, like writing Chinese, but these can all be made more interesting by teaching something stimulating that requires children to pick up the language to get what they want.
This is the most important finding of our research: information must be related to other information in the brain to be remembered.
The topics in science books are taught as if hermetically sealed from each other. This is a disaster, because as children get older they get an uncomfortable feeling that something is not right.
The video details how to teach all of mathematics and science using the perspective of how it all fits together.
People behave relative to each other and there are no absolutes. Society imposes rules and regulations, but they only give the illusion of being absolute, they can be changed.
Our research shows that teachers perform best when left alone, children perform best when they are doing things they are interested in and families perform best when there is a peaceful atmosphere.
Relative behavior means that all parties should be in balance with each other. Most parents push their children to finish their homework late at night, work they know is of little benefit. Tired children do not remember easily — try to find some research that shows otherwise, there is none.
Parents must have autonomy about what happens in their own homes, legally it is their time (loco parentis). I give my parents choices about how much homework they want their children to do. Many schools at present do not have a homework timetable that parents can agree to, no choice. Consent is a powerful tool, so it should be used.
Arguments that people will do as little as possible are complete nonsense. Two of the rules that drive people are: Be curious and compete. It is in the DNA, but curiosity can be rubbed out with repetitive tasks. Children concentrate on completing the task. All parents will agree that giving them control of what happens in their own homes makes sense.
All teachers and parents will benefit from the video because it helps them to understand themselves.
The best part is that it is free. My team is paid for by industries that want competent human beings with good emotional quotients. Industry is results-based and there are no industries that are based on remembering bits of unrelated information.
The parents, schools and teachers who have already seen the information agree it is what they want. It provides a method that is based on common sense, that means common to all people who see it, not just one culture or country.
Peter Cook
Taichung
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