May 7 2013: I totally agree with you. I've just read a book talking about the early childhood education in China, and it's interesting to see the comparison between China and US.
There is a common saying that " dont let your child lose on the starting line" in China, and the Chinese parents send their child to private school for extra lessons, fill up the schedule with math, reading, art, music all kinds of lessons. My little 3 years old cousin in China has a busier schedule than me, a 16 years old high school student in Canada.
No question the Chinese parents have invested heavily on early childhood education ( often the parents will play classical music before the child was even born! ), but does it really mean better skilled worker when they grow up? As I commented on another talk, education does not mean school. It can happen anywhere if we are willing to learn.
I can't agree more with the author said at the end of the book " wining at the starting line does not mean solve algebra when the child is 3, or remember how many poems at the age of 5. It means the child can wake up themselves every morning, understand they have to clean their own room every day, separate dirty laundry in a spare basket for mummy to wash, apologize for what they have done wrong and help out in the family because he or she is a part of it. "
May 7 2013: Human pose a serious threat to biodiversity : Why don't we destroy it?
Homo sapiens, commonly known as human pose a number of serious threat to biodiversity and many other problems to the environment. According to United Nations there are currently 7 billion people on the planet, and by the end of century the number expected to be 10 billion. This brings all kinds of problems such as food and water shortage etc.
we are just big trouble makers an't we? If Homo sapiens becomes extinct, there will no long be questions as such, and all forms of life will flourish on Earth.
I can't remember the exact word he said, but somewhere along the lines he did express a similar thought. I mean he said he did the tree plantation project because he was ill from the photography of so many death, and eventually he gain faith and passion about the future of mankind. Therefore I think it is a point absolutely true for him.
From a relatively immature perspective of a 16 years old high school student, I would like to say from my personally experience that school is not where I was inspired. Every educational system has a certain time limit, and within the time limit there is a certain number of things had to be done. The first day of every curriculum we receive a long check list of which our success is totally based on the completion of the list. Not only this restricted our willingness to learn, I mean who would be excited by a long ToDo list.
The worst problem arrise from this tight schedule is not enough time for discussion. We learn things better when we want to know, no fed to us heavy text books. We want to talk about it, share our thoughts with the class. When a group of students talk freely with the only boundary is imagination, you have a collision of thoughts and ideas that generates inovation. It's such a pity we had to be stopped and pushed forward in a hurry, in the fear we will not cover the whole curriculum. The classroom just has no space for great discussions in depth, and noting can be worse than being stopped halfway in a debate when you still have so much to say!
We do not have to be educated, we only need to be inspired.
The general public and often educators underestimates the potential of children. I volunteers at a community chess club and work with kids age range from 5-14. Talking to them and think back on how I grew up, I realize we think about the stereotypes rather than the reality. They learn new tricks of chess no by sitting in a classroom and listing at the theories, but by watching "cool" things we do when we ( my friend who also volunteers there) play chess. We learn because we want to, we think it's amazing and been totally inspired.
May 2 2013: It was a great pleasure to meet him in person last weekend in Earth Day Canada conference held in ROM, Toronto. He gave a very inspirational talk just like this one to the 250 youth attended last weekend. I was glade to hear him talk about the strategies he and his team used in the recreation of rainforest, and the little stories he told us about the journey.
He is a person with true passion and knowledge,and take in consideration of many factors in the long run , which is no surprise to me that he had such a big success . In the conference, he talked about how his team collected seeds within the 200km diameter and details of how each should be stored. The importance of plant trees in rain season so that water does not need to be provided manually to the newly grown trees. Compared to those of us who only plant trees when it's Earth day and totally ignore the environmental factors the plant required to grow, it's a shame on us.
May 2 2013: First of all, "underground" doesn't equal to "completely isolated", Earth is constantly changing, so is our underground structure. Overtime there could be massive transformation in land structure as Geography had already discovered. If there is any change in the underground structure, it could very possibly break the seal of the underground facilities and cause contamination to the environment.
Secondly, nuclear reactor is a highly complicated system, and it is very likely to have error occur in the system. The nuclear explosion in Japan was a perfect example, the control room highly relied on electricity, when there is a power cut we lost control of the entire reactor. When things go out of control in a nuclear reactor, and the level of neutron can no longer be managed, what we have there is a nuclear bomb! Do you really think a few feet of concrete will solve the problem? Not to mention gamma radiation can only be DECREASED by meters of concrete, and the extremely long half life of radioactive material we use today as fuel for nuclear reactors.
Apr 4 2013: Well as a generation I'm sure non of us is trying to forget about the past, and it should always be reminded as part of our history. The problem today is that we should view this unfortunate history for both nations critically and rationally. I think it's very important to reflect on what had happened and learn from the mistakes, and how can we avoid this in the future, We are not the only two nations who had been trough war, it was an unfortunate global event. However why only the relationship between China and Japan raise tone came such a issue? I used to study in England when I was 12, and non of the British or other nationality hated Germany. Even though the Nazis were criticised, which I think they deserved it, the angle of which it was presented was objective and they let us express our own opinions based on the historic records from both side. Whereas the education I received in China, the opinion and bias was been forced on to us. There was no time to think and reflect, all we do was memorise the textbook of those hateful words about the slaughter and the brave soilders of China. I mean, I was in elementary school and the stories were told to me when I can't even think critically. Then it's the endless media about the war, my mum's childhood was filled up with those movies, and these kind of propaganda is still on the TV channels today in china. And please be reminded the reform of education system happened only a few decades ago, and many older generations today did not receive higher education or the education was biased. No wonder why the nation will have such opinion about this issue when they are exposed to such media without the ability to think critically. What frustrates me is that they simplify believe in what the media says,without reading what the history really was. My mom does have a negative view towards Japan which I had argue with her many times. She knew nothing aboutn the trities Japan and china signed, which I thought was important.
Nov 4 2012: I do understand what you are trying to say here, and I wish to explain this a little from a Chinese teenager's point of view.
First of all, being a 16 years old Chinese girl, I do not have any opposition against Japan personally. I do watch Japanese mange, I grew up with ドラえもん, I love Japanese food and other things.
However, with all the propaganda the Communist Party have put trough education and media for so many decades, there is a opposition against Japan national wide. It is seen as a patriotic act, and the history of Japanese invasion has been mentioned over and over again. The call of refuse Japanese products is not a recent act, in fact it's been around for decades. What the event did was just let every thing come out, I guess. The tension had been there for so long that it just exploded.
The government did play a role in deed, protests can only happen in China with the permission of the authorities. Even though I do not personally agree with the protest, I can see how this happened and the reason can trace all the way back to the 1930's when the war started.
PS: Since my speech is sightly favoring Japan in the eyes of the Chinese, there will usually be some other Chinese jumps out and reply me saying that I betrays my country or something like that.
TEDCred score: +0.70 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.
A reply on Talk: Timothy Bartik: The economic case for preschool
There is a common saying that " dont let your child lose on the starting line" in China, and the Chinese parents send their child to private school for extra lessons, fill up the schedule with math, reading, art, music all kinds of lessons. My little 3 years old cousin in China has a busier schedule than me, a 16 years old high school student in Canada.
No question the Chinese parents have invested heavily on early childhood education ( often the parents will play classical music before the child was even born! ), but does it really mean better skilled worker when they grow up? As I commented on another talk, education does not mean school. It can happen anywhere if we are willing to learn.
I can't agree more with the author said at the end of the book " wining at the starting line does not mean solve algebra when the child is 3, or remember how many poems at the age of 5. It means the child can wake up themselves every morning, understand they have to clean their own room every day, separate dirty laundry in a spare basket for mummy to wash, apologize for what they have done wrong and help out in the family because he or she is a part of it. "
A comment on Conversation: Cats pose a serious threat to biodiversity: Why do we accept it? What should be done?
Homo sapiens, commonly known as human pose a number of serious threat to biodiversity and many other problems to the environment. According to United Nations there are currently 7 billion people on the planet, and by the end of century the number expected to be 10 billion. This brings all kinds of problems such as food and water shortage etc.
we are just big trouble makers an't we? If Homo sapiens becomes extinct, there will no long be questions as such, and all forms of life will flourish on Earth.
A reply on Talk: Sebastião Salgado: The silent drama of photography
I can't remember the exact word he said, but somewhere along the lines he did express a similar thought. I mean he said he did the tree plantation project because he was ill from the photography of so many death, and eventually he gain faith and passion about the future of mankind. Therefore I think it is a point absolutely true for him.
A comment on Talk: Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution!
From a relatively immature perspective of a 16 years old high school student, I would like to say from my personally experience that school is not where I was inspired. Every educational system has a certain time limit, and within the time limit there is a certain number of things had to be done. The first day of every curriculum we receive a long check list of which our success is totally based on the completion of the list. Not only this restricted our willingness to learn, I mean who would be excited by a long ToDo list.
The worst problem arrise from this tight schedule is not enough time for discussion. We learn things better when we want to know, no fed to us heavy text books. We want to talk about it, share our thoughts with the class. When a group of students talk freely with the only boundary is imagination, you have a collision of thoughts and ideas that generates inovation. It's such a pity we had to be stopped and pushed forward in a hurry, in the fear we will not cover the whole curriculum. The classroom just has no space for great discussions in depth, and noting can be worse than being stopped halfway in a debate when you still have so much to say!
We do not have to be educated, we only need to be inspired.
The general public and often educators underestimates the potential of children. I volunteers at a community chess club and work with kids age range from 5-14. Talking to them and think back on how I grew up, I realize we think about the stereotypes rather than the reality. They learn new tricks of chess no by sitting in a classroom and listing at the theories, but by watching "cool" things we do when we ( my friend who also volunteers there) play chess. We learn because we want to, we think it's amazing and been totally inspired.
Trust me, we know what we are doing :D
A comment on Talk: Sebastião Salgado: The silent drama of photography
He is a person with true passion and knowledge,and take in consideration of many factors in the long run , which is no surprise to me that he had such a big success . In the conference, he talked about how his team collected seeds within the 200km diameter and details of how each should be stored. The importance of plant trees in rain season so that water does not need to be provided manually to the newly grown trees. Compared to those of us who only plant trees when it's Earth day and totally ignore the environmental factors the plant required to grow, it's a shame on us.
A reply on Talk: Taylor Wilson: My radical plan for small nuclear fission reactors
Secondly, nuclear reactor is a highly complicated system, and it is very likely to have error occur in the system. The nuclear explosion in Japan was a perfect example, the control room highly relied on electricity, when there is a power cut we lost control of the entire reactor. When things go out of control in a nuclear reactor, and the level of neutron can no longer be managed, what we have there is a nuclear bomb! Do you really think a few feet of concrete will solve the problem? Not to mention gamma radiation can only be DECREASED by meters of concrete, and the extremely long half life of radioactive material we use today as fuel for nuclear reactors.
A reply on Talk: Yang Lan: The generation that's remaking China
A reply on Talk: Yang Lan: The generation that's remaking China
First of all, being a 16 years old Chinese girl, I do not have any opposition against Japan personally. I do watch Japanese mange, I grew up with ドラえもん, I love Japanese food and other things.
However, with all the propaganda the Communist Party have put trough education and media for so many decades, there is a opposition against Japan national wide. It is seen as a patriotic act, and the history of Japanese invasion has been mentioned over and over again. The call of refuse Japanese products is not a recent act, in fact it's been around for decades. What the event did was just let every thing come out, I guess. The tension had been there for so long that it just exploded.
The government did play a role in deed, protests can only happen in China with the permission of the authorities. Even though I do not personally agree with the protest, I can see how this happened and the reason can trace all the way back to the 1930's when the war started.
PS: Since my speech is sightly favoring Japan in the eyes of the Chinese, there will usually be some other Chinese jumps out and reply me saying that I betrays my country or something like that.