The State of Math in Singapore
Reviving a dead blog…
Finally have some free time this weekend. So I thought I would write down some thoughts that have been recurring the past month.
RJ did extremely well for the A levels. It was that good that the closest competitor wasn’t even close or half as good. But what was disturbing was Cambridge mentioning in their report that they feel the standard of mathematics is dropping in Singapore.
Now it doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. After the introduction of the contrasting subject (which really is utter BS imho), and in particular the removal of Further Mathematics, everything has been going downhill.
The syllabus itself is a farce. There is a difference between mathematics educators and the mathematicians afterall. The former knows only how to talk and can’t do the mathematics themselves. And they try to play god. They decide certain things should not be in the syllabus, that the syllabus should be oriented towards applications.
Some of them even think that mathematical induction should be named as mathematical deduction, as the method itself is a form of deduction. He can go screw himself, for it doesn’t take a mathematician to deduce that he is retarded.
Some 10 years ago, the US was facing the same problem. There were the educators who claimed that algebra is useless, and that it should be replaced with things like excel spreadsheets, where students observe that 2xn = 2n. I was told the person who started this movement got pelted with bottles by mathematicians at one of his conference to promote his ideas.
The problem is grave. Admissions to the UK universities have reduced significantly. Of 40+ candidates who wanted to do Economics at Cambridge (I was told), only 2 were accepted. And they took H3 Math. The reason is that H2 math simply does not have sufficient mathematical rigour or depth for that matter.
Cambridge has decided to place more emphasis on the STEP as admission criteria. Apparently, this has also been brought up in the meeting with the Board of Governors.
There are just so many things that are ‘wrong’ with the mathematics syllabus right now. The GC is doing more harm than good. I won’t even go into the details for this. The introduction of such devices serve nothing more than creating revenue for Texas Instruments.
The previous C Math and F Math syllabi were mapped out carefully by intelligent mathematicians, who were able to strike the balance between getting those who want to do math a proper foundation, and those who just want to get by the essential basics.
The current H1/H2/H3 system is an utter farce. Look at differential equations. The H2 syllabus doesn’t even cover integrating factors. 2nd order DE? y” = f(x)? Come on, you got to be joking. So what you have is something half-cooked. You don’t learn 1st order DEs properly, 2nd order DEs is nothing but integration in disguise. No surprise admissions to UK universities are dropping.
So go to the US some say. Is this what you really wish for? I doubt Singaporean students can keep up with the cream of the students over there, and it will not be long before the US realise too that the standard of mathematics of Singapore students is dropping.
Then when someone finally realises it, they will somehow find a scapegoat, and the mathematicians will come in and save the day.
As usual.
So in the meantime, I suggest the silly retarded educators create more models and philosophies, reap in more $ with their stupid models and theories, because there will come a day when they will be pelted down by bottles.
Love this article… (for those who can understand)
Universitaire
Le nouveau “Hwa Chong” diploma
http://www.bulletins-electroniques.com/actualites/54660.htm
A Singapour, les élèves à l’issue de l’école primaire (vers 12 ans) sont répartis dans les différentes filières secondaires suivant leurs résultats à l’examen de fin de premier cycle (Primary School Leaving Examination, PSLE). Les meilleurs élèves sont ainsi préparés pour le “A-level certificate”, sur le modèle de Cambridge, qu’ils passeront en fin de cycle secondaire après 6 années d’étude (encore appelées “Integrated Programme”) dans un des huit établissements dispensant cet enseignement.
Dans un souci d’élitisme et de reconnaissance, l’école Hwa Chong, en troisième position dans le classement de ces établissements, vient d’annoncer la délivrance prochaine de son propre diplôme, le Hwa Chong diplôma, en complément du A-level certificate. Cette annonce fait suite à la création en début d’année du Raffles diplôma par les deux meilleurs établissements du secondaire : Raffles Institution et Raffles Girls’ Secondary School. Cependant, ce dernier correspond à un programme spécifique (options et projets supplémentaires, approfondissement de certaines matières), tandis que le Hwa Chong diplôma sera simplement decerné aux élèves se situant dans les premiers 30% au terme de leurs études secondaires à Hwa Chong, soit environs 300 étudiants.
Ce diplôme a déjà été reconnu par NTU (Nanyang Technological University), et l’autre principale université singapourienne, NUS (National University of Singapore), a confirmé sa prise en compte dans l’évaluation des candidatures d’entrée en cycle universitaire. Des discussions seraient également en cours pour faire reconnaître le diplôme dans certaines universités étrangères.
What’s coming…
2009 promises to be a very interesting year. First of all, my official posting to RJC or rather RI(JC) should be known in late Janurary or early February, if everything goes well.
Then there is SMO training. How fast 1 year has past. Have been thinking of how to best conduct this year’s training. It might also be joint with RGS and RI. The emphasis will be actually more on the 2nd round I think, since RGS and RI have their usual programs for training for the 1st round.
I am intending to cover stuff like Complex numbers (with application to solving geometry problems of course), a bit on coordinate geometry (not a lot, as I have discovered complex numbers is way more powerful in most situations), and inversive geometry. Will still go through the basic stuff.
For inequalities, I am just probably trying to focus on some basic techniques. Been trying to solve 1 problem with as many methods as possible. The count is at 3. Hopefully by solving a problem in many ways it will help you people. In fact, this is probably one of the strategies I will try to adopt this year. Solve not much problems, but using as many different methods as possible.
Like diophantine equations which reduces to quadratics, I intend to let you guys see the difference between the discriminant method and vieta’s method. Number theory is the usual stuff, probably not much new, just some stuff to add on from last year’s.
Anyway, with the confirmation of my posting to RI(JC), should also come the confirmation of my appointment as Deputy Team Leader for IMO 2010 at Kazakstan (however you spell it). Which also means that I will be leading another team to the CWMO in October this year.
On the note of olympiads, did you know that Singapore will be hosting IBO in 2012, tentatively IChO in 2013 and probably IMO in 2014?? Exciting right?
Then there is the Edutour to France which I need to probably settle once my posting is confirmed. That will be to France in late November or early January. Very interesting right?
Before all that, my course in NIE requires me to submit in total some 10 assignments, of which only 1 is done to date. Off to work I guess…
Hiatus
Taking a break from posting for a while I think. Have been busy preparing SMO notes for next year. As well as some of the RA notes. Not much progress for SMO notes. Yet to finish geometry. Well, I’ve finished 3.5 out of 5 sessions for geometry. Yeah, there will be some serious geometry spam next year. Then I have to redo the combinatorics notes, which were too hastily done last year. Anyway, next year’s notes will be completely different from this year’s. There will be a slight change in focus, less of Round 1 spam and more of Round 2 stuff.
There will still be Round 1 stuff, but I really like to leave most of it for Maths Society people to do. Anyway, the projected outline is Intro (1 session), Geom (5 sessions), Combi (2 sessions), Algebra (2 sessions), Number Theory (2 sessions). Then there will be 1 or 2 sessions dedicated for spamming Round 1. And that’s about it. Which means training has to start like Wk7 or 8 of Term 1.
Work, work, work…
Not a very productive few days…
Have been stoning around for 4-5 days. From Friday to now. Ok Saturday wasn’t really stoning. There was this Secondary Mathematics Mastery Test I had to take, which I duly completed in 1 hour (out of 2h) and promptly left. I didn’t want to sit right in front of the lecture theatre, as it would not have been nice to the others lol. Probably could have been faster if I had written faster. But oh well…
Then went to NUS for SIMO, and had to conduct the 2nd (or maybe 3rd) last lesson for the analysis class I am doing there. Went pretty well, but I probably went a bit fast. Only a few pages left. Will need to do plenty of exercises this Saturday.
Then Sunday = stone. Went to Bras Basah trying to find some Chinese Math books, but couldn’t. So I went to City Hall, to my favourite gamestore, and bought a new PSP RPG game. BAD MOVE. Have been playing it for like 15 hours since Sunday evening. Which is a lot. But anyway, I also went to Kino and bought 2 math books. Which I have barely opened thanks to the PSP game.
Monday was well, playing PSP as you would have guessed.
Tuesday = today, and I decided to go to Vivo. That place is so huge. 2nd time I am there. Bought some stuff. Then decided to go the my favourite gamestore at City Hall again (Funan to be precise). Bought another game… sheesh. Oh well…
But at least I did something productive. Sent out 3 ‘big’ emails. Awaiting replies (i.e. others to do work). Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I have to go to NIE for 2 hours. ZZZZZZZ. At least that’s where my new PSP games come in handy… =)
Post #127 (i’ve almost given up giving titles to posts)
Well it’s been about a week without a post.
Anyway, last Friday I was at the Hodge Lodge. Playing bridge with Hanfei, Victor and Lu Yang. Remind me not to play with Hanfei again. He counts! Just like I used to when I was at SIMO. Like WTH. Sianzzz. I quote someone, “Play with Hanfei might as well go mug”
Saturday was the 1st SIMO session. Not everyone was there, as there were people with exams (or mugging for them for that matter). I was spending most of the time with the CWMO people anyway, or rather talking with Mr Thomas Teo and Mr David Chia. Anyway, Mr Teo was saying our promo paper was so bad, in the sense the weaker students would probably not learn anything from the paper. Well, I agree that the stronger students would probably learn more from this paper, but I think those who didn’t do well have lots to learn from this paper.
Anyway, lessons at NIE are really ending. I am having classes for 2 hours a day, which is more or less about the time I take to travel there and back. I had no lessons yesterday, which was why I turned up in school to help with the Math RA selection test. The usual suspects did well, it was a moderately interesting paper, nothing much else to comment on.
Had a lesson today which started off with identifying common language errors. Some examples:
1. With regards to the matter, …
2. The committee comprised of eight …
3. What evidences do you have that he did it?
4. Please provide me a description of the course.
5. He is good in Mathematics.
The last example drew lots of laughter when we digressed to: “He is good at sex and he is good in bed”…
Giving titles to posts is a pain
Today I decided to go unhealthy. For lunch at least. I had the new Filet-o-fish wasabi meal. I never really tasted wasabi is such significant quantities before. And I always like spicy food. Should see how I eat nasi lemak, you would think I am eatting chilli. But wasabi is another animal. It pricks your nose like seriously. I thought I had tears in my eyes at some point eating the burger…
Don’t think I like the sensation of my nose burning. Anyway speaking of unhealthy, to cap it off, I had a mudpie McFlurry. Which is basically McFlurry + a thick layer of chocolate fudge then mixed together. Pretty expensive lunch actually come to think of it. And not nutritious.
Oh well, then I grabbed the copy of Jay Chou’s new album that I preordered some time back. Will need another trip to the CD store this Sat for JJ’s new album.
Courses at NIE are dying. I am going there for about 2 hours per day (even less for some weeks) from next week onwards. But I will be helping with the preparation of the RA Math curriculum for next year. Quite a lot of work to be done, but looks very promising. The program will run for 1 year at least compared to 1 term this year. It’s basically like pull-out program, only that even the tutorials are separate as well now, which is great as it would provide greater continuity from the lectures.
And the latest on my depolyment is that I would be teaching J1 next year, probably not RA, but going in once in a while, then for the following year, will take the next batch of Math RA students. There’s olympiad training in between, which I actually would like to carry out for the 2nd round, leaving the 1st round for Maths Soc to carry out, which would in my opinion benefit those who carry out the sessions.
Then next Nov the math dept will almost definitely organise a math immersion programme to France! Yes! Don’t think the J2s will be able to make it due to the A levels, though there is a chance, since it’s end November, but probably the school won’t allow anyway. More details to come.
Random stuff
These photos have been a source of laughter:
Quote from Dr Ho when he saw these photos:
“Very interesting photographs.
There are three elements in the union of the two sets, of which one element underwent the least physical changes over the years, and the other two, I am afraid, have undergone scaling parallel to the x-axis by a factor bigger than one.”
zzzzzzzzzzzz
These photos were taken after the Farewell assembly, which according to Ms Wang, I have also given her a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates as well as a few university recommendations to write… Funny I don’t remember that and she does…
