This was the big question posed to us in the breakup session for the Physics Education Workshop where Physics educators from Nobel Laureates (yes, 2 of them) to University Lecturers and high school physics teachers come together. This workshop was to address the worrying trend of falling enrollment in Physics across all levels not only in Singapore but in the world. One of the speakers, the former Chief Defence Scientist Prof (BG) Lui shared one gem in the workshop which if I remembered correctly goes something like this.

Our economy was driven by engineers in the past, it will be driven by physicists in the future

Most likely it is.

Amway, or Quixtar, or Britt Worldwide (BWW).. different names for the same thing.. is a multi-level marketing scheme. Unlike pyramid schemes of the past, MLM involves some real product. It is based on an idea as an alternative way to do business, to bring the products straight from the factories to the distributors and to the consumers without all the marketing, middle man, rentals etc. So if you sell a product for them, you get a cut from the money saved in all those areas. The more you sell, the more money they will give you for selling their products. The promised land in MLM is that you can earn up to 250K per year by doing nothing after working on the scheme for 5 years.

Sounds ideal, but there's a few fundamental problems with the scheme after hearing one out. As presented by NBC, this maybe a scam after all and here's why.

1.) One of the key characteristics of this MLM scheme, is that you are not employed by Amway, Quixtar or BWW, you become business associates. So you are not entitled to any benefits as an employee. That's not the main crux of the problem, the main problem is, you are encouraged to 'recruit' more business associates yourself because you will get a cut of the products sold by business associates recruited by you. And you get a smaller cut of the products sold by associates recruited by your associates... So if you want to get to the promised land of 250K per year by doing nothing, it is more likely that you will sell the 'MLM schemes' more than the products.

2.) There are no consumers in MLM, only associates. Wait, didn't I mention that MLM delivers products to the consumer directly hence you get a cut of the savings from the usual marketing methods, so what do you mean there's no consumers in this case? That's because if you are an associate yourself, you get to buy the products at discounted price so it makes more sense to join them for a nominal fee of about $30 (same as Challenger membership price), and save more than buy direct from other associates. And there's more, the associates stand to benefit more if you join the scheme to be a fellow associate than say just buy the same products from them. They will get a cut of the profits from you since they roped in you as a new associate, they don't have to serve you and you will serve them potentially by looking for new associates yourself. It's a clearly win-win situation.

How is that a problem? Well, if it's all about the money, who is going to do the whistle blowing if there's a problem with the products. Being a business associate instead of a consumer, what are your rights then? Products from Amway may be winning awards in Reader's Digests as being the 'most trusted' brands but remember, the people using them are the people selling them too so is it really that good? And what do you do if things go wrong? After all, it is very likely that you are inside this scheme because your friends introduced it to you... so what are you going to do then? They may have a liberal return policy if you are not satisfied with the products, but what about if the products harm you like the milk powder scandal?

3.) Suppose that their products are genuinely good and everybody in the planet gets into their scheme, can it be sustainable? It will be similar to the pyramid schemes where majority of the associates are actually at the base of the triangle. Stats has shown that only 1.6 out of 1000 associates make about $4000 a month, enough to lead a decent life. Only 1.2 out of 10000 associates are able to reach the promise land netting more than $10K a month. The key problem is how to get to that 0.012%. If you have only 10 associates and 2 of them drop out, none of them managed to recruit new associates and the average sales of the associates fall, your income will fall too. You may need to have thousands of associates recruited directly or indirectly so that you can reach a steady state. In other words, you need the law of large numbers. So if you thought that MLM can provide you with a steady income year after year, you may be in for a surprise.

4.) Amway sells many products, so many products that you will be tempted to buy everything from them since you need to use them anyway (like toothpaste). Why, because you can hit the minimum sales requirement as an associate and become eligible for a cut of the products you 'sold'. You will be driven by greed rather than purpose. You are using their cosmetics, not because it is the best for you but because you get some money back (to me, it's just another name for discounts). Dealing with MLM seems like dealing with the devil, because I'm hearing more about the money than about the product. They may have good products but it is a shame that it gets sold in this manner.

There are many ways to reach financial independence, MLM may be a slippery way as you bet on your friends (a.k.a. associates) more than the quality of a product that you are selling.

Financial independence for the sake of it may not even be a worthwhile dream at all.

There are many Science competitions in Singapore for students to take part in, and we can classify these competitions into some of the following categories.

Quiz type - The most common type of competition, and possibly the least scientific of them all. Quiz based competition is the easiest to organise, to judge (only right or wrong) and yet it can be the most entertaining of all types of competitions. We can do it in a Pyramid game style, Who wants to be a Millionaire style etc. The feedback is instant and the majority gets very impressed with the student who can spell "Geobacillus stearothermophilus" and identify that it is a cause for food to spoil. You don't need to know Science, you just need to memorise everything about Science. Like what Feynman said, what's the point of memorising Science when all you need is a few seconds to look up the answer? The winner will be the guy who is a walking wikipedia.

Short-term project type - Usually students will be tasked with a project and given a short time frame (hours, days or even weeks), they may be given materials or a seminar on the project and the students will come out with a product at the end of the project. On the competition day, students will have to present their product or take part in some form of race with their products. Some science may be involved in the design and making of the product but the level of science involved various from project to project. For instance, you do not need to know science to build a bridge, though some science background will help you in improving the design of the bridge. These type of competition can be very exciting and entertaining but the bulk of the competition is actually conducted behind the scenes when the students build their products.

Long-term project type - Maybe it is a new invention to improve life, maybe it is a research project that advances our human knowledge. Students usually take months and perhaps even years to make or study something that little or nobody have done before. This is Science (and perhaps Engineering for inventions) at its core. Unfortunately, these are the most boring type of competitions because it is not assessible to the general public and the winner is decided by a panel of expert judges. Much like the Nobel Prize, the excitment comes only when they announce the winners. Are you sure you want to watch 100 hopeful candidates present what they found out about Zebra fishes etc?

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Hence the most entertaining form of competition, the type that you will get to see on television, is actually the least scientific of them all. How ironic! Do we want substance over form? Is it better to have students who can give us, word for word, the definition of Newton's 3rd Law in Latin or to groom students who win awards because they know what is Science?

In the ideal world, if we tackle the substance, the form should come.... But seriously, these are two opposite directions in the approach for preparing students. (I know because I organised competitions before and the winning team comes had students who mugged University level textbooks before the quiz) In the ideal world, the public, in particular parents, will place more emphasis on substance.

I'm suppose to write a reflection after the conference trip, just like students who went overseas for their trips. I find it hard to start because to be honest, I wrote all I want about critical thinking before being tasked with this reflection. And I don't like to use them again as I wait for new inspirations to write about. And it looks like I can complete my reflection now. So what I'm going to reflect about is not really on critical thinking, but I'm going to reflect using the tools of critical thinking, and beyond. And I'm going to reflect on education, but education is too broad, so I shall narrow my reflections related to the CCA that I happened to be in-charged and also talent development. Specifically, selection of students for talent development program under in-house research opportunities for science society CCA.

When it comes to real world problems like these, I find, more often than not, that the most fundamental question to ask is 'what is the purpose'. We have a problem, how shall we select students for in-house research programs? Before we match students to the programs, we have to ask ourselves what is the purpose of research in the CCA?

Let me see if I can remember the 8 elements of thought in Critical Thinking..

There're point of views, inferences/conclusion, implications, information, assumptions, question/issue, purpose, concepts/theory. Let's see if it comes in useful.

Of Meritocracy - Singapore Story

Recent reports shows that half of the scholarship holders stays in private housing even though majority of the locals lives in their HDB flat. Naturally questions were raised as to whether Singapore is truely a meritocratic society in the Straits Times forum.

I am living a Singapore dream for some people. I was born in a lower-income family. Well.. it didn't really started off like that but the rapid pace of development and influx of foreign talents made it this way as I grow up, but that's another story altogether. Long story short. Dad poor, can't afford University fees, son worked hard (though Sucre will readily disagree with the point that I worked hard, hey it's all relative), got a scholarship to pay for his own tertiary education, comes out to serve his bond and contribute to the society. Gets married and upgrades to a 5 room flat staying with parent blah blah... If I have 3 children, I can submit my completed story to the government to sell as the Singapore story for meritocracy.

Without the scholarship, I may have to go for bursary or opt for loans which means that, instead of getting married, I'll be paying off for my loans. So what's wrong with the scholarship system in Singapore? Nothing much really... it's a very pragmatic system that awards those who do better than the rest. Remember the cat quote from Comrade Deng Xiaoping?

So the question(1) at hand, why is it that most scholarship holders come from well-to-do family.

The purpose(2) of a scholarship is to reward the scholarship holder for his/her achievements in life, be it academic or non-academic achievements. It is not suppose to finance the poor for their tertiary education or realize their dreams. Although we love success stories of people who made it with prestigious scholarships against all odds in life.

From the point of view(3) of the scholarship agencies, they select their scholars based on academic results, CCA achievements and all other merits. If a scholarship discriminates against the rich, it's a bursary meant for needy students. They need to be colour blind, ethnic blind, gender blind, religion blind, status blind etc. But the apparent imbalance in the information(4) from statistics seem to suggest that scholarship holders are chosen based on their family background, especially to those who comes from the lower income group.

The apparent imbalance in the statistics arises from the assumption(5) that in an equal society, everything should be equally distributed. Hence we should have 85% of scholarship holders staying in HDB flats rather than <50%.>

Luck is when opportunity meets the prepared. All Singaporeans have the opportunity to apply for scholarships, but not all are prepared to grab this opportunity. The equality of a meritocratic system lies in opportunities. Preparedness depends on your nature and how you were nurtured. We need luck to get our scholarships, Singapore gave us the first part, we will have to work hard for the second part.

We can choose to conclude(8) that there is nothing wrong with the system and that it is natural to have more scholarships holders coming from well-to-do families using this argument. However, it will be dangerous to justify any statistics by using these arguments without any effort to verify and strengthen our claims. If the conclusion holds, a widening income gap between the rich and poor will worsen the situation. Therefore we can infer(8) that as the gini coefficient increases (widening income gap), we will get an even larger percentage of scholarship holders coming from well-to-do families and vice versa. We can check the figures to see if the trend holds, anyone knows where to get the statistics?

Having said that, I may have gotten an overseas scholarship if say I came from an English speaking family background. That would have helped me in my SAT scores for English component and most certainly my GP to some extent. But that's the card of life I'm dealt with, it's how I play my cards that matters. And I'm still learning how to play it well.

Selected ST forum articles

Aug 25, 2008
SINGAPORE EDUCATION
Equal chances for all
IN HIS letter last Thursday, 'Elitist danger in Singapore education', Mr Muhammad Faruoq Osman is wrong that only the elite minority from wealthier households is more likely to 'receive value-added education at the expense of vast amounts of public funds' in our education system.

The Ministry of Education provides adequate resources to all schools and institutions of higher learning to enable every Singaporean child to achieve his full potential. For each level, we spend what is needed to achieve a high-quality education for all. For example, we spend annually about $11,300 for each student in junior college and about $10,300 for each student in the Institute of Technical Education (ITE). All students can develop themselves in music, sports or the arts through school-based co-curricular programmes.

Students, regardless of their family background, have done well in this system. The top 5 per cent of students in the 2007 Primary School Leaving Examination did not come only from a few schools with rich parents. In fact, they came from 98 per cent of primary schools - from all socio-economic groups.

Mr Osman noted that about half of Public Service Commission (PSC) scholarship recipients lived in private property. But to conclude from this narrow and single observation that our education system is therefore less meritocratic is neither sensible nor fair. It is true that in all societies, successful parents tend to produce successful children and Singapore is not unique here. However, thousands of students who graduate from ITE, polytechnics and our universities every year do not feel less of themselves or their achievements because they have not received a PSC scholarship. All of them have succeeded by their own efforts and no eligible student is deprived from entering our top schools, institutions or gifted programmes just because his family is poor. Admission is strictly based on merit and we have a wide range of bursaries and financial assistance schemes to assist students in need.

Our education system should motivate and provide opportunities for all students to go as far as each can. We have targeted programmes to assist those from poorer families and many are moving up. One of every eight undergraduates in our public universities comes from households who live in one- to three-room flats. We should celebrate when any student excels, regardless of his background. When that student comes from a lower-income household, we applaud his efforts because he has succeeded despite difficult circumstances. But we should not cavil or be envious when students from higher income households do well in our education system. Both have earned rewards based on personal effort and merit. And we hope both will feel a duty to contribute back to society to maintain our system that provides opportunities for all.

Jennifer Chan (Ms)
Director, Corporate Communications Division
Ministry of Education

Elitist danger in S'pore education
I READ with interest Mr Zakir Hussain's article last Friday, 'Meritocracy's hidden danger' which gives a revealing insight into Singapore's brand of meritocracy.

The article states that about 53 per cent of Public Service Commission scholarships go to those who live in private property.

While there is general acquiescence that these scholarships are indeed awarded on the basis of academic performance and individual achievement alone, the preponderance of the socially privileged among them merits scrutiny.

These students largely hail from the crème de la crème of schools and have benefited from the various schemes that cater to the academically talented, such as the Education Ministry's Gifted Education Programme.

Their dominant social status arising from higher household incomes suggests that they possess the cultural capital required to 'make it' in life, as nurtured by their parents who are likely to have attained qualifications at the tertiary level.

In their scholastic journey, this group of students are likely to be enrolled in the Integrated Programme where, since 2004, they have been allowed to bypass the O-level examinations, in favour of taking the A Levels at the end of a six-year course.

This is a manifestation of greater elitism being built into the education system, where the same elite minority continue to receive value-added education throughout their schooling years at the expense of vast amounts of public funds.

As a result, Singapore's education system, which has always been held up as a model of social mobility for all, is attenuated because one group benefits from a distinct advantage over the others. The public perception that there is an inherent link between students from wealthier households and high academic achievement is pervasive.

Over the years, there have also been concerns about the attitudes of these students who are among the best and brightest and who are likely to secure positions of pre-eminence in society in the future. The raison d'�tre for this stems from the fact that there have been several scholars who are known to have broken their government bonds in favour of more lucrative job offers, which smacks of individualistic competition and selfishness, among other factors.

There is the danger of a dichotomy developing in an increasingly stratified Singapore society, exacerbated by widening income gaps where the mentality of 'us versus them' prevails.

By then, the people's faith in our so-called meritocratic system would have shattered.

Muhammad Farouq Osman

I thought I will be writing about my first in-camp training (ICT) experience while avoiding any sensitive issues that may bring trouble to me because stuff in the army are either restricted (everybody knows but don't talk about it), confidential (need to know basis), secret (the army must conduct a background check before granting you access to these red files) and top secret (shhhh! They don't exist). It turned out that I didn't even complete my first ICT, the commanding officer should have just granted my appeal for deferment instead and not waste my precious time.

On Sunday 15/6/08, I went jogging with Sucre around our new neighbourhood, the air was bad due to the traffic by the road side. Even when I'm out of shape, I could jog for at least 1.5 km maintaining a certain pace but that day, I can barely make it to 1 km. When it comes to swimming, I'm always behind Sucre but when it comes to jogging, I'm usually ahead of her but on that day, I lagged behind by some distance. It was easy to put the blame on the poor air quality and the fact that I had a piece of bread just before jogging. But it seem that the problem could be something worse. Afterall, I jogged around Clementi road at around 5-6 pm in the past and the air quality can only be worse as the traffic is much more heavier on that road but I never suffer such a performance drop before.

Then ICT begins, I knew I was going to fail IPPT anyway given my physical conditions, but the static stations felt a lot harder to me. I could barely pass my sit-ups, a station that almost always gave me 4-5 points regardless of preparation (guess sit-up is the only exercise I get regularly when I wake up). I went from the front of the pack to the last of the pack as I needed extent breaks to catch my breath.

Friday night was book out night for the ICT, and frankly I didn't do so much in the ICT that would make me tired, but somehow I was and I rested early and woke up the next day not feeling refresh, it was the beginning of the attack. Over the day, the symptoms get worse, and by night time, taking a breath was a fight for getting oxygen in my lungs. I had such breathlessness symptoms in the past and it usually subsides within 3-4 hours, but this was different, it came with complete nose block. I couldn't sleep for most of the night and was shivering with fever in between.

Many general practitioners rest on Sundays, some of those who do practice medicine on Sunday have some kind of surcharge that will scare the sickness out of you once you know the rates. The family doctor at my old home is a nice fellow who opens his clinic for 1/2 a day on Sunday for no extra charges. Not wanting to take the risks, I decided to visit him one more time. Diagnosis, mild asthma, as posted online 2 days ago. Things seem to be better from that point onwards until I booked in to camp that night to continue with my ICT.

Another sleepless night, this time round I have some diarrhea too, 4 times in fact. By the time we were suppose to wake up at 5:45am, my fever came back with a vengeance at 311.4 Kelvins. I knew from it that I have to get myself excused from the 4 days 3 nights outfield training (in fact, those soldiers are still feeding mosquitoes in the jungle right now). The SAF medical officer seem to doubt my illness when I went to endorse a 3-days MC. Most illnesses do not require 3 days of rest, perhaps this was one of those that deserves 3 days or even more. I was ordered asked to go and have my vital symptoms checked by the medic (they didn't do it the first time maybe because this was not in the standard procedures for endorsing of MCs). The results was a fever of 311.1 Kelvin and a face mask to prevent my 'germs' from flying off. I was sent packing home from the ICT from that point onwards. I wasted a whole week of ICT training and didn't manage to clock the ICT at all so I will have to do it all over again in the future, but nothing is more precious than my health.

At this point of time, 2 doctors have certified my status. I looked as the SAF medical officer wrote down these few words "newly diagnosed asthma" on my medical note. This will go down into my medical records and will definitely downgrade my PES status when I go for FFI next time, to what will largely depends on how many attacks I get in the next 2 years.

The first thing I did after I reached home and unpacked was to sleep, I haven't been sleeping well for the past 2 nights and I really need to catch up on my sleep. The worst seemed to be over and I could start planning what stuff to do during the break as I lied down on my bed. I slept from about 12 noon to 1pm to take my medicine and carried on with my dreams. Until I woke up with breathlessness again and a fever of 311.8 Kelvin at about 4 pm, much higher than the past 2 days. I tried to sleep over it hoping that my body will take care of itself but an hour later, my temperature was shooting through the roof, 312.8 Kelvins, that is about as high a fever I ever had in my life. I got to do something about it as I tried to breath harder.

A cold shower usually works wonders in bringing down body temperature, plus it should be time for my medications soon. When my temperature went up to 313.0 Kelvins, I just had to see my family doctor one more time again. During the 1 hour period between my decision to see him and seeing him, my hands and feet were icy cold and numb, I felt very giddy and my fingers were cramped and couldn't move at all. I can't even carry my own wallet, pay for my medical bills or buckle up in my car. The doctor wasn't sure if I can go home given my condition and let me off when he knew that I had Sucre to take care of me and my dad to drive me home. For the first time in my life, I was not in control of my own body.

The problem this time round was hyperventilation. It appeared that during my sleep, the build up of phlegm and my shortness of breath tricked myself in breathing in too much for my own good. And I managed to see the doctor at the nick of the time for if I waited any longer I'm certain that I could have fainted. I was given some gas treatment for my asthma to reduce the wheezing I have for asthma and the plastic bag treatment for my hyperventilation. I was sent home after 20-30 mins but nothing was done to bring down my fever as it surged to 313.2 Kelvins and beyond according to Sucre. By this point of time, I was so cold and so sick that I couldn't find the energy to look at my own temperature anymore. For those of you who are challenged 'physically', 313.2 Kelvin correspond to 40 degrees. Essentially I had my first high-grade fever of my life, 24 hours ago.

Sucre put me on the ice-treatment to reduce my temperature and came poking my ear every 15 minutes to make sure that my temperature dropped. It did, eventually, after a few hours. Right now, I'm still accessing the damage asthma has done to my health. It definitely had affected my stamina a lot, caused me to lose quite a few pounds (now I'm about 74 kg, 2-3 kilos less than before) and it may have affected my 中气 (zhong qi). Now I may not be able to project my voice and speak like I used to without feeling breathless. Hopefully I will heal slowly because the last medical advice I got from my doctor was to go to A&E if my asthma attacks again for a complete checkout (it may not be that mild after all).

I will have to monitor my health closely, especially after my Theophylline runs out tomorrow. If you see me in school on Thursday, it's good news. Otherwise I may have to go for another 'first' in life - hospitalization. No matter what, I have to pull through with so many important things happening in life right now. If it doesn't kill you, it will only make you stronger. Isn't it?

Recently, HDB announced a change (yet again) in the system for 1st timers getting a flat. The main reason is that sales for some of the Build to Order at 'prime' locations in Seng Kang and Punggol, just to list a few, was meet with poor response (with a take up rate of less than 50%) when many applicants applied for the flats. So they decided to remove the 1 year 1st timer priorities if home seekers reject the chance to book a flat 2 times after getting a good ballot number. See press release.

I felt that HDB is tackling the wrong problem when they decided to take such 'knee jerk' reactions to the poor response when they should be reflecting on the reasons why people do not take up the flats instead. And here's my reason why I find such BTO flats not desirable at all.

1.) Deliver date 2012 - It's 4 years from now and who knows what will happen to the price of flats (maybe able to get it cheaper in the future if economy is bad) or what might happen to the relationship between the couple if they are not married. The housing demand is now, and HDB's response to the demand now is to offer flats in BTO scheme mostly and will take 3-4 years at least to complete. No policy change now will affect the demand now. If you include collection of keys and completion of renovation, that could mean 5 years before moving to your new home!

2.) Only 5-10% of the units are truely desirable units - If I'm going to pay for a flat that will be delivered in 2012, I will want only the best unit to justify my waiting time. Best unit to me is a unit with view, highest floor, no afternoon sun etc.. only a few % of the flats will fit the criteria and once those units are snapped up, I may rather spend the 4 years searching for resale or waiting for another chance.

3.) Location of the units (too near schools, not so popular LRT system servicing the areas etc, many proposed developments but as Singaporeans realized, may or may not be developed at all).

I believe the demand is real, but the supply fails to meet the expectations for demand. For many couples who do not date for more than 4 years before getting married, there is no way for them to book a flat 4 years in advanced. And for those of them who are ready to get married, they will want to book a flat that is available now. BTO is meant to solve a problem of building too many flats that nobody wants. But we can't blame Singaporeans for being picky, after all for most Singaporeans, a flat represent the largest investment we make in our life.

"Foreign talent" is a dirty word and it is associated with many negative traits nowadays, and in my previous post on "Change, for better or worse" I used the term freely and I described the experiences of average Joe in Singapore about the issue

A more appropriate term to use in replacement of "Foreign talent" should be "Global talent", as I'm pretty sure that Singapore do contribute to the global talent list overseas. I know of at least two "Global talents" plying their trade overseas now. To generalise the effects of all global talents on locals like what I did earlier do not do justice to the talents at all. I'm sure that it takes mighty lots of courage and sacrifices to leave their homeland to work in a foreign country, and most of them do it alone. This reason alone deserve some level of respect from us.

From what I observe, we can classify global talents into 3 distinct categories, blue collar, white collar and highly qualified professionals.

The highly qualified professionals are sought after everywhere. These are the top bankers, researchers, doctors, and other experts in their own fields. There is no doubt that they contributed a lot to Singapore's economy and it is hard to replace them with locals. At times we may find some with reputations far greater than their abilities, but we need loads of them to be the regional or global hub of anything meaningful. They can set the benchmark for Singaporeans to follow, aspire and achieve in the future. Their presence here may create new jobs for Singaporeans. These highly qualified professionals are usually out of sight from ordinary Singaporeans hence they are hardly responsible for the global talent issue that most Singaporeans complain about.

These professionals do come at a price though. They usually demand a high quality of living hence they usually stay in private condos and drive luxury cars. This does have an effect on the COE prices and drives the demand for top tier housing in Singapore. Though by how much it is hard to tell.

White collar here is not limited to just clerical based jobs, but jobs that locals would want to fill in. They can be global talents here to study in local universities under subsidy or scholarships hence they have to work in Singapore for a few years. They compete directly with Singaporeans in the "not so level" grounds, they would rent HDB flats, or even get PR and settle down in Singapore. We need them here to boost up our educated work force and make Singapore more attractive to investors. But at the same time they pose a great challenge for locals to compete with. Most often, these white collar talents come from neighbouring countries and willing to work for less pay given the same work compared to locals. Afterall, getting the same job in say India will pay you perhaps less than half of what you get in Singapore so to them, it is a lot more. They can work hard for a couple of years, save up some money and return to their homeland. But for Singaporean who has to pay hundreds of thousands for a HDB flat, they can hardly afford this pay cut.

Just for fun, if you have to pay off $0.5 mil for a HDB flat and would like to do so with ease (means spend 20% or less of your income to service your housing loan) within 30 years, it means you need to earn up to $2.5 mil in that 30 years, or an average annual income of $83000, monthly income of $6944. (Mind you some design and build HDB can cost up to $0.7 mil or about $1 mil including interest). Which is enough to buy several condos in our neighbouring country depending on location. Nonetheless, I will stand to benefit a little from these foreign talents when I rent out my old home to these people.

Finally there's the blue collar global talents. They performed the task that Singaporeans would normally not want to do themselves. They stay in less than ideal conditions inside hostels. They get featured on TV regularly for abused by their employers. Singapore owes a great deal to them but Singaporeans hate to see them. Their presence benefits most Singaporeans but at the same time has the greatest impact on local low-skilled workers. These global talents effective keeps a cap on the income of low skill workers. Why should a company pay you more than a couple of hundreds when they have a ready supply of workers who are willing to work longer hours and at a cheaper rate. Would locals be able to afford food, transport, education for their family with that amount of income?

Perhaps our government missed out an important point when they dish out work fare packages year after year. It is the self-esteem of these lower income earners.

They are willing to work hard to earn a living in Singapore. Yet by taking up a job as a labourer or cleaner, they still have to depend on work fare packages from the government, NTUC vouchers for the needy, financial aid scheme from the schools etc just to get by in Singapore. How degrading can that be?

There's no doubt that Global talents contributed a lot to Singapore, especially if you look at the economics figures that our leaders are churning out day after day and you read about from newspaper day after day. For example, I remember reading a forum article by a grassroot leader saying that local complaining to him about Chinese national taking away jobs from this poor worker and he commented that they didn't realise that they help create a lot of jobs. But the big question is, what kind of jobs are created and why aren't the locals filling up those jobs?

For every solution to a problem, the solution brings a set of its problems to the situation.

(I started writing this 2 weeks ago but stopped due to busy schedule. Picked it up again since my desktop crashed on me and I don't have any pics to post)

I revived this blog post for the benefit of those who just took the MBTI tests recently.

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Now is a great time to talk about personality because most of the year 6 students who reads this blog will know what I'm talking about... finally. Yes.. It's related to the MBTI test you took today. Year 5 will do it in term 2, so bookmark this page and read it after you take the test if you want.

Resources on Personality and Types online
http://www.keirsey.com - Personally, I think he got the personality stuff right... includes US presidential election stuff too. highly recommended

http://typelogic.com/ - Has good and detailed write up on different personalities. Includes US presidential election too but disagrees with keirsey's in their observations. Recommended

http://www.personalitypage.com/- Very detailed write up but webpage seems very outdated in design and information doesn't seem to be updated too. Seems to be based on MBTI works. Good reading materials.

http://www.socionics.com/prof/prof.htm - Has a short write up of the types based on MBTI's theory. Includes some other readings on type versus type but troublesome to navigate the pages. Has some really useless statistics too. Read if you are free.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keirsey_Temperament_Sorter - Wikipedia's version. Just a rehash of what others have said. Visit if you feel like contributing.

What is Keirsey Temperament?
I took my first MBTI test 10 years ago when I was in JC and I received a short description of my type and a seminar on how my personality would affect me and people around me and my career choices etc. I wasn't satisfied with the readings from MBTI, so I started to read up on books related to MBTI. But most books, like MBTI, were focused on the 'improving your life' with MBTI kind of idea, none of them seem to have a reasonable explanation in why and how the types interact in the way they do. Until I came across Keirsey's theory, which immediately made sense to me.

The problem with MBTI is they arrange the 4 characteristics linearly... like how strong is your E vs I, T vs F etc... but humans are multidimensional and I doubt that all the 4 characteristics are as important as each other. Keirsey had an unique theory behind how humans behave, and based on the theory came out with some useful comparisons and advices on how to improve your relationships with other people. If you are keen to find out more about the differences, the internet is a great resource to start with. Why don't you check out this page that talks about the differences between Keirsey's temperament theory and MBTI's theory and judge for yourself.

So what if I know my type?
The MBTI test is not a wonder test that can tell you what your career will be and who is likely to be your lifelong partner. It is a means for you to find out more about yourself and discover more about others. I have been applying Keirsey's temperament theory in life and found it very useful in understanding other people and putting myself in other's shoes. Plus, since I'm working on the Civics program for senior high, I will take this opportunity to bring in some of Keirsey's theories into the civics lesson to enrich it and make it more meaningful and applicable to the individual.

But bare in mind that the 16 personality types are just general descriptions of various types of personality. It is not possible for it to fit you or anyone perfectly. So don't take it as the gospel truth.

My MBTI type doesn't seem to describe me.
There could be many reasons why it doesn't describe you. Besides the statistical variation explanation, what could happen is that you were 'taught' to modify your behaviour from young. Keirsey termed it as the Pygmalion project. Perhaps you lived in an environment whereby you had to display traits of other personalities to be accepted. This could be due to parental influence, peer pressure or other reasons. Hence when you take the tests, you could have reflected your 'adopted' personality than your real one.

Does that mean that I'm born with my Personality?
Personalities are in born traits. After I observe the growth of xiaobudian and little princess, I observe that they display certain personality traits since as young as 2 years old after they learnt how to communicate their ideas to adults. If personality could be 'taught', then how could a young toddler learn it before they could communicate? If personality could be 'taught', then why identical twins could have totally different personalities if they were educated by the same parents going through the same experiences.

Character, on the other hand, can be derived from the environment and experience of a person. It is the product of your personality and your experience and the environment. This is the malleable part of a person's behaviour. Behaviour is the action that we can observe, so it is a combination of personality and character. We can apply a bit of physics here in that the product of the uncertainty in character and personality must be greater than the variance in behaviour. I shall called it the mastermind uncertainty principle. (Sorry... too much Quantum physics lately... after preparing 42 pages of lecture notes on QM)

Anyway, this is my own opinions and by no means a scientific truth.

其实打麻将可以是一种有益智力发展的游戏。常听人说打麻将可以预防老人痴呆症，为什么呢？也有些人认为麻将只是赌博的一种，而不肯进一步的了解麻将这游戏。我认为打麻将能让人对人生有许多的启发，对智力是一种良好的锻炼。因为我常在打麻将时思考，而所思考的范围是以数学和心理学为基础的或然率来决定这场麻将的策略方针。那么金庸武侠小说和麻将扯的上关系吗？我想打麻将就象是几位大侠在比武一样，武功高的人，能善于利用自己武功的强处来制服敌人。要把武林规矩弄清楚是很容易的，但是要成为武林至尊是需要实力。同样的，要学会麻将的规矩是很容易的，但是要成为电影“雀圣”那样的麻将王就不容易，非得有深厚的“功力”才办的到。

我们常在金庸的武侠小说中看到琳琅满目的武功，各有各的独特之处。其实这些武学中的道理，也适用与人生之中，当然也能用于麻将之中。今日我将以一些金庸武侠中耳熟能详的武林绝学来说说麻将经。

降龙十八掌
降龙这套掌法出现于<<射雕三部曲>>，<<天龙八部>>等作品。这套掌法威猛无比，靠的是雄厚的内力，不用多余的花招，一掌一掌的打出去。 虽然才十八招，却常令敌人难以正面招架。是属于正派的武功。用于麻将，就好比你光明正大的玩青一色平胡，一胡就是八番，令人不能不防，不能不避开你要的牌。宁可不吃胡也不能让你得逞，只能处于弱势，守势。当你的牌面大而对手的牌面小时，不妨打出“降龙十八掌”，让对手处于挨打状态，招架不住，那么你就能立于不败之地，最后希望能来个自模满贯。

小无相功
鸠摩智在<<天龙八部>>里靠这门武功“炼成”了少林寺的七十二绝技。少林寺的七十二绝技，终其一生能学成其中之十已经是非常罕见了，何况是样样精通。小无相功其实是一门无相内功。何为无相，就如水一样是无相的，你要水圆可以圆，你要水方可以方，只要你把水放在适当的容器中即可。所以练成了小无相功，就可以使用各派的招式武功，只是打出来时似是而非罢了。在麻将中，我们可以用这门武功来打出任何招式。比方说摆出一付清一色的架势，却又象混色对对胡，似是而非，让对手觉得你的牌面深不可测。

百花错拳
陈家洛在<<书剑恩仇录>>当中有一套功夫叫百花错拳。其宗旨在也是“似是而非”，但是与小无相功的分别在于“出其不意”。小无相功在鸠摩智的手里发挥了少林七十二绝学而震慑了少林寺的高手，百花错拳却是只打出了一招看起来相某派的绝招，让敌人招架，然后出奇制胜。说白了就是骗人。在麻将当中，百花错拳是对于高手中非常有用的一招。明明相在打清一色，其实是玩平胡，出奇不意，对手就“放炮”给你胡了。

独孤九剑
令狐冲在<<笑傲江湖>>中内力尽失，可是凭着自己的天赋学会了独孤九剑中的破剑势，破刀势和破掌势等等，在不利于己的情况下联败强敌。其实独孤九剑是兵法中的知己知彼，百战百胜。当敌人要砍你的右手前，他必然把目光放在你右手上，然后举起他的刀从上往下砍，独孤九剑能后发先制，先把剑放在他手拿刀要砍你的比经过的地方，等你砍的时候，还没砍着就先断了自己的手臂的一门高深武学。这独孤九剑在麻将中可以发挥很大的作用。当你上家要打筒子一色时，必定先把他的万子和索子牌给打掉。那你身为下家，若能料敌先知，就能故意听万子和索子，让你的上家送上门来，帮你模牌胡牌。

以彼之道还施彼身
<<天龙八部>>中的反面人物，姑苏慕容复以博学武功而闻名，往往能以彼之道还施彼身，令人畏惧。麻将中往往在盯下家时能发挥这门武功，你打一万我跟你打一万，你做索子一色我也做索子一色，你听三筒我也听三筒。做你的上家我就能得到绝对优势来截你的牌，抢你的胡。

凌波微步
<<天龙八部>>的主人公之一段誉的武功时灵时不灵。在打斗中他往往打不过人家而施展其轻功来避其锋芒与敌人周旋。对手即使身怀绝技也难伤得了段誉。其实打麻将时我们常会处于下风，对手的牌是四番五番而我们却只有臭平胡的命。这时候不妨走为上策，躲避对手的攻势，扣住他的牌来和他耗。希望能托到和局，那就是赢了。

乾坤大挪移
<<倚天屠龙记>>当中张无忌无意中炼成了明教神功，乾坤大挪移，使其体内的九阳真气有用武之地，能容汇阴阳乾坤刚柔的神功，让其潜力发挥出来。要发挥这门武功的前提是内功要练到一定的境界，否则会走火入魔。在麻将中，内功就是对于麻将的胡牌，规则和一切都了如指掌，而乾坤大挪移能教我们如何善于利用我们对麻将的知识来制胜。每个人都能认得清一色的牌，但是同样的牌，高手可能只在三两下间就能把清一色的牌做好，但是一个初学者可能得绕一大圈才能做成。其实要做好自己的牌，无非是个或然率的问题。乾坤大挪移就是把自己胡牌的或然率提高的一门武学。那么才能把牌的潜能发挥到极限。

今日心血来潮，随意地说说麻将，有不完善之处请多包含建议。

The hottest 'thing' going on in school recently is definitely the student council elections. This is our first ever SC elections even though this is our 2nd batch of students. I wanted to comment about the election long ago but I waited until all the votes were casted before voicing my opinions. Besides, the classes had their class committee election not long ago while I believe many CCAs are electing their leaders too. So the concept of leadership seems to be in everybody's mind right now. It's a shame that we are doing intra personal skills like time management instead of leadership skills in civics now.

I don't think I would want to talk about what it takes to be a leader or what are some characteristics of a leader. I believe that there are many more resources and people who can do a better job listing down these ideas. But I shall share with you some ideas that I have of leaders and to quote some of the recent issues in schools as an examples to illustrate my points.

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Types of Leadership
Obviously, I can start with a line that goes "there are many types of leaderships blah blah", but let us cut the chase and go straight to the point.

Visionary Leaders
Or what Keirsey mention as leaders of leaders are the best known type of leadership today. They are leaders who can envision what an organisation can achieve in the long term and most important of all, how to get there. They are the big picture kind of leaders who can inspire other leaders and followers alike to achieve great things together. Hitler is a visionary leader, just that his vision is evil.

The student council will definitely need visionary leaders to bring the senior high (and the junior high) SC to greater heights. They will be leading the students back to our new campus in 2009 with many unknowns, uncertainties and opportunities. They could set the tone, culture, environment for subsequent batches and bring the school to greater heights. They can inspire people to follow them with a common goal worth going for. Similarly for our new CCA, we need a visionary leader to set the directions for the CCA for the students at the beginning.

A visionary leader may feel out of place as a house captain/leader or a class chairperson. As a class chairperson, he/she may be required to take up the responsibility of keeping law and order in the class, performing a supervisory and administrator role rather than leading the class to, urm... greater heights. After all, the greatest height you can reach as a class leader may just be to win the class league or something. Similarly, as a house captain/leader, their objectives may be to promote cohesiveness as a house and perhaps to become the best house among the houses. They are required to come out with a game plan to lead their house within specific rules of the game.

Visionary leaders like to define the rules, that's how they always win (just kidding).



Moral Leaders
These are the people persons. They can be morally upright people who are great role models in school, often singled out by teachers as an example for the rest to follow. All SCs are suppose to be moral leaders first as they are expected to set good examples for their juniors. Moral leaders lead by the heart as they can empathise with others. They will always look for a cause worth fighting for when they lead. Their goals is to make the world a better place for everyone, perhaps including animals and other living things.

All students in the school are expected to be a moral leader to their juniors, to set a good example and display the positive characteristics as a role model. In fact, the society expects moral leaders out of teachers and political leaders too (even scholarship holders). We need many moral leaders to feel comfortable in the society as many would want to live in a world where they feel that the world is good rather than evil. To maintain the positive image of the school, we need these moral leaders to leave good images in the public's eyes.



Managerial Leaders
The class chairperson example given earlier will be a managerial leader. They need to manage the class and before they can manage the class, the class must be willing to be managed by them. Therefore managerial leaders tend to have good relationships with their followers. They will take good care of those they lead and are willing to contribute selflessly. As the title suggests, these leaders are there to manage a given tasks or group. They take responsibility to make sure that things get done and are done well. Most club and society CCA leaders are managerial leaders too as the person who really decides on the direction of the CCA is the teacher in charge. They are important leaders because without them, there will be no one to make sure that things get done




Ra Ra Leaders
The house captain/leader example would be a classic Ra Ra leader type. They are really fun people to begin with and are usually good with their hands/feets/words (so are good with things like cheers etc) They are spontaneous and quick to adapt to changes. These leaders can lift the morale of their followers and are willing to take risks. They usually rise to the position of a leader simply because they are the best at their trade (like sports etc). Ra Ra leaders are very important for SCs too.

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The SCs, or a CCA or any organisation for that matter needs all 4 types of leaderships to be successful. An individual student may be able to perform well in 2 to 3 types of leaderships but they definitely need others to be leaders to make things work.

As for the SC elections, I see a lot of managerial leaders who promise to do a lot of things for the school, to listen to feedback from the students and make contributions for the students in the council. I see a lot of Ra Ra leaders who are good at campaigning and are willing to take up the risks to challenge the norms so that they can have a fun and exciting school. I know some moral leaders as they have good character, academic results and attitude for example. But I only manage to find a visionary leader, and it's not through the campaigning process.

In the coming executive president elections, I hope to see a visionary leader being elected in the process, even though the visionary leader may not be the best at campaigning. Which brings me to the point of the flaws in a democratic elections which I may, or may not be discussing in the future.

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Disclaimer - do you think i need one? well.. let's just say that the stuff above is my personal opinion only. I only decided to type it out after i failed to load videos from tudou.com even though this issue has been in my head for quite some time.

I think there's a lot of history and interesting facts with regards to SI units and it will be a shame if we just study the chapter on measurement without reading some of these facts.

Fun Fact 1: There are only 6 base SI units instead of 7.
From year 3 or year 5 Physics lessons we would have know that there are 7 base SI units known as m, kg, s, K, mol, A, Cd. But Candela is strictly not a base unit as we can express it in terms of other SI units. The current definition for

The candela is the luminous intensity, in a given direction, of a source that emits monochromatic radiation of frequency 540 x 10^12 hertz and that has a radiant intensity in that direction of 1/683 watt per steradian.

Meter - The meter is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299 792 458 of a second.

Second - The second is the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom.

Ampere - The ampere is that constant current which, if maintained in two straight parallel conductors of infinite length, of negligible circular cross-section, and placed 1 meter apart in vacuum, would produce between these conductors a force equal to 2 x 10^-7 newton per meter of length.

Kelvin - The kelvin, unit of thermodynamic temperature, is the fraction 1/273.16 of the thermodynamic temperature of the triple point of water.

Mole - The mole is the amount of substance of a system which contains as many elementary entities as there are atoms in 0.012 kilogram of carbon 12

Kilogram - The kilogram is the unit of mass; it is equal to the mass of the international prototype of the kilogram.

How time flies, it's been 1.5 years since I graduated from NIE and teaching full-time. As the months pass, I have been taking up more and more projects, testing the limits of my capabilities. Getting married and in the process of settling down took up a fair share of my weekends too. And I started part-time masters in Physics and just got my results for my 1st semester today. You won't know how much you can achieve without loading yourself to your limit. Have I reached my limit? I don't know yet. Do you know your's (limit)?

Recently I came across a book titled [The 3 Signs of a Miserable Job]. I spent 5 minutes browsing it while Sucre was shopping and it seem interesting. So I bought [A Short History of Nearly Everything] because I don't think my job is miserable. If you think you have a miserable life, maybe this is a book for you to help yourself out. Buy one for your manager. Some snippets from Amazon.com

The first is anonymity, which is the feeling that employees get when they realize that their manager has little interest in them a human being and that they know little about their lives, their aspirations and their interests.

The second sign is irrelevance, which takes root when employees cannot see how their job makes a difference in the lives of others. Every employee needs to know that the work they do impacts someone’s life--a customer, a co-worker, even a supervisor--in one way or another.

The third sign is something I call "immeasurement," which is the inability of employees to assess for themselves their contribution or success. Employees who have no means of measuring how well they are doing on a given day or in a given week, must rely on the subjective opinions of others, usually their managers’, to gauge their progress or contribution.

Think of going to the Aquarama 2007 so I dropped by its website and to my horror they have a really bad picture on their site.

There's little much on the news and forum lately other than the fact that our top ranking politicians are planning a hefty pay rise (as much as 80%) for themselves and they (mass media minus internet) are trying means and ways to convince us that it is justified. Singapore Inc's CEO feel that he should be earning the same order of magnitude of money compared to the best of the best in other professions.

The same old arguments were thrown around to justify lining their pockets, including

1.) We need to attract and keep our best talents in politics by paying them millions of dollars
2.) We are "under paid" according to standards drawn out by us
3.) According to our research, we did exceptionally well in managing Singapore (Such as creating jobs for millions of people so we can employ over 1 million foreigners in Singapore while retraining Singaporeans to take up jobs at kopitiams or open their own barber shop.)
4.) "MINISTER Mentor Lee Kuan Yew called for a sense of proportion yesterday, pointing out that the annual wage bill for ministers and all office holders is $46 million - or just 0.022 per cent of Singapore's total economic output." - MM Lee (my favourite, extracted from Straits Times Interactive Online)

1.) The best talents that people want for politics shouldn't work just for money, especially since they are earning millions to start with. They should work for the challenge of the job, to serve the nation and people etc...
2.) Singapore is one of the smallest nation by area and population yet our leaders are paid more than the leaders from USA, China, Japan, India and Russia (Combined?)
3.) Rising GST, increasing medical bills, skyrocketing university fees, strained relations with our neighbours, stagnant lower income wages and all time low birthrate despites all the baby bonus (well, at least some things cannot be solved by money), there's plenty of room for improvements too
4.) If the only figure that will dwarf our minister's pay is the nation's economic worth, then that's a perspective that is scary to me. By the way, going by our messiah Lee's formula, George Bush and his team must earn S$4.26 billion per year given the GDP of USA is more than 12 trillion USD.

I'm in a very unique position in the education career. Most colleagues will either get to teach in a secondary school or a junior college at any point of time but I managed to do both at the same time now. This places me in a good position to experience both types of teaching styles, lecture - tutorial and classroom teaching. I must say that in the past I always wanted to teach in JC, especially H3 Physics where I could put my university physics knowledge to good use. Where the students taking H3 will be in a better mental position to work with geek level physics problems. To solve kinematics questions using Hamiltonian's or Lagrangian's rather than Newton's (Nay... maybe not)

But after 1 term of JC physics, I find lecture - tutorial style to be a much more boring style. Partly because the pace of JC physics is so much faster and we have so many topics to cover within 2 years. In lectures, we just talk and demo and in tutorial, we can't spend time doing interesting stuff because tutorials are always behind lectures and we need to complete all the problems set to prepare students for the BIG A levels. Laboratory work is obsessed with SPA, of which assessment starts next term so there is no time for fun stuff at all. No time for cool laser demonstrations or (supposedly) fun activities that I could do with year 3 and year 4 physics.

I missed the close interactions that I used to have with my year 5 batch when I just teach them year 4 physics. This year is not that bad with about 50 students in the LT, subsequently we expect more than 100 or more students and it will be impossible to know everyone by name. A full JC may even have over 500 students offering Physics each year. And I may not even get to teach H3 physics if the school decides to outsource the course to NUS or NTU!

If I become a full-fledged JC teacher, I know I will miss the close bonds that I can form with my year 3 and 4 students. Plus, I can't just give up on my GE training because GE is irrelevant in JC education. I just hope that I can straddle both junior high and senior high wings and torture ahem, educate my students in Physics for 4 years. In fact, this could be the selling point of the school's IP system if they could integrate and merge junior high and senior high wings together so students don't have to adjust their learning styles after 4 years. Then again, that will involve many administrative and professional work to do so.

I'm just glad that I'm in this unique position now.

I would gladly wager my ang pao money this year that everybody who comes to this site and read the articles here have taken some forms of assessment in tests or exams. In ancient China, assessment was mainly a tool to select “capable” individuals to serve in the imperial court. Today, assessment comes in all shapes and sizes, or in physics terms, all wavelengths and frequencies. (just kidding).

In the academic world, i.e. the nutty professors, assessment is divided into summative assessment (those end of year examinations and tests) typically used to assigned a grade and formative assessment (assignment worksheets and informal quizzes) usually to help in learning. And Singaporeans are obsessed with the former due to extreme kiasuism, just like Japan, Hong Kong and other fast paced societies.

Today’s rant is on summative assessment, or tests for grades.

Summative assessment mode is important in today’s society. It is how we decide if you can drive, certify us as a trained teacher or as a proof that we have meet some standards required for a position or proficiency level (i.e. swimming or piano). This is how we decide if you go into EM1, EM2 or EM3 classes, if you could get into the school of your choice or get to study the subjects that you wanted to. Even soccer coaches need to be certified by FIFA/UEFA before they can manage a team in the English Premier League. It sure plays an important role now…

But that’s it. Summative assessment is only a tool in society. It only performs the task it is designed for and nothing else. Scoring distinctions in ‘A’ level music does not make you a Mozart. Alex Ferguson does not have a coaching badge from FIFA/UEFA but he is among the greatest soccer managers in the world who achieved great things. Einstein dropped out of was a slow learner in school and couldn’t find a decent job (unless you consider working in the patent office counts as decent) before his groundbreaking papers. Bill Gates did not have a business degree but he is the world richest fellow. And blah blah blah…

Right after a summative assessment, most of us just throw away what we had gone through. There are University students who would gladly bin their lecture notes right after their exams. There are drivers who break traffic rules right after they passed driving tests. In fact, you get Harvard and MIT graduates who don’t know why is it hotter in summer and colder in winter and how to light a bulb with a battery and wire. See this http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/1997/05.29/VideoRevelation.html

I’m pretty sure they learnt these in class and perhaps even had some exams related to it. They must have scored pretty well in tests and exams to graduate from Harvard and MIT but yet they came out embarrassed in this study conducted a decade ago. Summative assessment is not a gauge on how successful you can be in the future. Getting A’s in mathematics may not even be a necessary condition for you to be a mathematician! Ever heard of Ramanujan? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan

What’s most important in education is not to walk away with straight A’s. It is a place for you to pick up life skills, make friends and learn how to be independent and how to handle stress etc. It is to gain knowledge not to memorize facts. It is to learn how to think and be responsible for yourself. It is more character building than a collection of As.

I’ll say do your best, the rest will be handled by itself and whatever grades you get, there will be no regrets.