The impact of poverty on educational outcomes for children (fanxi and Maychie)

SUMMARY QN:

In about 100-120 words, summarise the impact of poverty and readiness for school (paragraph 5-6).

Summary:
It has been shown that poverty lowers a child's school readiness. This is primarily because of the duration of poverty, timing of poverty, community characteristics and also the impact that poverty has on the child's network. Children from low-income families often do not receive the stimulation and they do not learn the social skills required to prepare them for school due to parental inconsistency, lack of supervision and poor role modelling. It is found that children from low-income families arrive at school at a cognitive and behavioural disadvantage due to the environment that they were brought up in. These differences between children from low-income families and children from more privileged families were already evident by grade 3, yet schools are not in the position to equalise this gap.

READER RESPONSE QN:

What do you think should be the key intervention strategy to help children in poverty to excel in their studies. Write your response with reference to one strategy proposed by the author in 200-250 words.

In my opinion, developing a child early is the key intervention strategy to help children excel in school. By development, I mean in different aspects that could aid a child in school, such as social skills or cognitive thinking. I feel that developing a child early is essential for this intervention strategy to be key, as one absorbis the most when he or she is young, and since education is something that happens throughout a person's life, including when the person is young, thus starting early is important to ensure that children learn while they are young too. One example would be the High Scope Learning Approach, where children aged 3 and above develop skills with the concept of 'learning by doing', and are split into groups and interact with each other in the process of learning. I feel that this method is effective as it helps develop a child's cognitive thinking when they learn by doing, improve social skills when they interact with other children in group work and last but not least, this is aT class for young children when their brain is like a sponge. The effectiveness is even proven by statistics, as children who went through this program were more likely to have a better pay and a secure job. Being an example of a strategy where kids are developed, I thinks that this have shown how starting early can be the most important key intervention strategy. From this, I think that starting early is the key intervention strategy for kids to excel in schools.

Assignment 3: what's so scary about smart girls? Fanxi Maychie 4C

Summary:
Educated girls are the greatest threat to extremism because they have a force powerful enough to transform a society. Firstly, they can change demography. Educated girls help curb birthrates which leads to stability, by reducing the youth bulge. An uneducated girl on average, will have a significantly smaller family than educated buys. Secondly, educating girls can double the formal labour force, boosting the economy, raising living standards and promoting a virtuous cycle of development. Lastly, when a country educates and unleashes women, those educated women often become force multipliers for good. They tend to become the backbone of large companies like Grameen Bank, development organizations like BRAC and the garment industry.

RR:
In my opinion, those countries mentioned in the article has to firstly educate their girls, and also then unleash them with their knowledge, into the working population. Only educating them is not enough, but it definitely is the primary step towards liberating the countries, bringing them better economies, better standard of living and also ridding them of oppressive extremist groups. Educating girls will double the labour force and bring about better economy, and an example will be in Bangladesh, which emphasised on education, causing them to have more girls than boys in high schools. These girls then grew into women who formed the backbone of Garmeen Bank, developmental organisations like BRAC and the garment industry. Girls should be accorded the same right to education as boys and this is no longer just a moral problem that is about equality or rights, but in fact, it is an obvious solution that can solve many of the pressing problems in those societies mentioned in the article. Only when girls and boys work together with their knowledge gathered from school, these societies can truly escape the poverty cycle and even escape from the claws of those extremist groups and celebrate their country. They will not be forced to remain under the oppressive Boko Haram or Taliban after they have knowledge to think and plan for themselves. These girls will also have to be free to use their knowledge for their country as opposed to being kept at home after that, which is equally important as educating them. According to the article, countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran refused to empower their women despite educating them, causing their country to continue to stagnate in the past, unable to move forward. Many women have already shown their capabilities with their knowledge, thus it is key for the countries to starting educating girls. In conclusion, the battle against the groups opposing this idea will be tough, but it definitely is something worthy for other countries like USA to invest in as it is a straightforward solution to many problems within those countries in the article.

Assignment 2: Why we shouldn't worry about teenagers using mobile phones

Assignment 2: Why we shouldn’t worry about teenagers using mobile phones

READER RESPONSE QN:

Discuss, with reference to this article and to any other sources of information you may gather, the impact of technology on youths nowadays. Provide reasons for your answer in one paragraph, with reference to a specific argument in the article, within 200 – 250 words.

Living in a revolutionizing digital age where everything is fast, instant and, most importantly, on-the-go, people are disengaged from having one-on-one face interactions. Technologies impact negatively on youths nowadays, they get so obsessed with them. Researchers have indicated that 77 percent of people aged 14 to 24 are nomophobic, having an addiction with mobile phones. An average teenager spends 144 minutes a day on their mobile devices. For those who suffer from nomophobia, the fear of being disconnected from the virtual world is heightened when they are restrained from checking their phone. The lives these teenagers that are addicted to mobile devices are so contingent on their need to feel socially connected on their phones that without mobile technology, they begin to express a sense of vulnerability that can trigger certain moods and behaviors like anxiety. Many are fanatical about being always available and are extremely uneasy if unable to contact their friends countless times each day. If the trend continues, teenagers will soon be incapable of forming and maintaining relationships without the help of a mobile devices. One study showed that Japanese children didn't make friends with peers who didn't have mobile phones. This shows how important technologies are to teenagers. Therefore in conclusion, technologies impact negatively on youths nowadays as they have become obsessed with them.

SUMMARY QN:

Summarise the key points for why people worry about teenagers’ use of mobile phones and why they shouldn’t be in 100-150 words

People think that mobile phone technology harms teenagers by making them stupid and stopping growth in terms of the way they think. People are also worried about their addiction to their phones and even health problems it might bring like brain tumour. Yet, people should not be worried as teenagers become more self-reliant and are able to do many things at one time, resolve challenges, attain data and think quick with their mobile phones, and these are all important and valuable characteristics for a teenager. This shows that mobile phones in fact better their cognitive development, instead of stopping it. As for addiction, the reason why teenagers check their phone so often is due to boredom and insecurity and adults are like so too. Everyone is struggling with the unfamiliarity of mobile technology, thus the reason why teenagers are doing some things wrong may be because of bad examples set by adults.

Done By: Loo May Chie & Tang Fan Xi 4C

Assignment 1: Can schools survive in the age of the web article by tang fanxi, Loo Maychie

Summary: Summarise the main arguments as to how education is likely to change in the future within 100 – 150 words.
Education in the future is going to be internet-based. There will be more recorded lectures, online tests, digital documents, and blue chip institutional endorsements. Rich educational pickings are also made easily available and accessible as the most prestigious universities offer online educational materials. Education can be unbundled, if technology promises not so much to replace older institutions as to break up the packages they once offered, providing particular parts of education at a scale and cost unmatchable by the current education.
How far do you agree with the writer’s view that the future of education needs to be ‘unbundled’ and redefined ?  Explain in one paragraph, with reference to specific details in the article, within 200 – 250 words.
I agree to a large extent that the future of education needs to be unbundled and redefined. This is because our current education system has already shown many flaws and these flaws are preventing us from forwarding in many aspects. One of them is the rigidity in our education system, where students are being taught through rote learning and flexibility is a skill that would be hard to come by, especially in students of asian countries with education systems that strongly emphasises on this fact. Therefore, merely bringing it online still does not get rid of the current flaws of education. Of course, more people will now be accessible to higher levels of education according to the article and this is something great as more people can attain degrees and pursue their interests. However, it actually just brings more people to a virtual lecture theatre in actual fact. The major irony is that classroom teaching has gone under heavy critique, yet the moment it goes online, it is widely celebrated, thus making many to be blind to the fact that there is actually only a slight difference between the two types of education as they only differ in the way they are conducted in. The article has also presented that children in less developed countries are learning well when technology is thrown to them, even when they do not have any prior knowledge on how to operate them. It is a vastly different way of learning and definitely harder, but this has proved to be effective. Thus, governments worldwide can take these kinds of learning into consideration by moulding their systems after it. It would not work if they merely further develop from current systems, but if they were to totally change it and start from scratch on the question of what education exactly about, breakthroughs will happen and it will be even more relevant for our society. Afterall, our education today is still based on the very beginnings of it, which dates back all the way into history and this already shows how it may have lost some of its value in helping humans to continue progress on way into the future.