Our first social project

For our first social project, we hope to help orphanage with their education by means of technology. Our center goal would be building relationship with orphans through education, as opposed to simply promoting flipped learning. And of course, we'll start by knowing and adjust according to their needs.

With lectures turned into video lectures, there'll be more time for students and teachers to interact, challenge them if they learn fast and help if they can't cope. We'll also always bear in mind that it's not about technology, but how we use the technology.

Tomorrow, I'll be dropping by at the orphanage to give them the video lectures before leaving to the airport for mid-term break. Since facilities are limited as they only have 2 computers, on the 27th of October, we'll hope to have participants ranging from 20-40 people to volunteer and help out at the orphanage to solve mathematic questionnaires in accordance to their level. We'll have them to bring their laptops with them so that they can use the video lectures as an alternative to text books for reference.

If this model works, we hope to raise fund to invest in some computers for the orphanage, hoping that it can be turned like a "learning" cafe (instead of cyber cafe) and visitors can come at an allocated visit hours to help out the orphans with their studies.

Lets hope this project will be a success, and wish us good luck! :)

Update 8/9/13 : The Heart of Education

"Education is not the learning of facts, but teaching the mind to think" -Albert Einstein

To those of you who have been following my blog or who are aware of my "project" , I'm sure you guys are familiar with the implementation of flipped learning that I have been working on since early this year. The problem with flipping the class isn't technical , the challenge is persuading the teachers to at least try flipping their classes.

At the heart of education is teaching & learning. Change this , and our education will be improved , which is why education reform is actually a bottom-up approach where students and teachers are the ones who should be actively involved.Of course , looking at the bigger picture , flipping the class isn't the only solution, but it is a start for education reform.

Last week while I had an appointment with the principal regarding the flipped day (a global initiative which was scheduled to be on the 6th of September) , and I was told 2 things:
1) some may view it as "Americanism"
2) it may be an assumption that the teachers haven't done anything.
(Actually,some aspects of the flipped learning is carried out by teachers on daily basis , such as challenging the students to think on some difficult problems or having them to do some group work. However , the difference is that the emphasis on having the students the focus on the content before engaging in some challenge in class is more in flipped learning method. Students get to learn through video lectures that are prepared by teachers so that more time will be spent on teaching them how to think as opposed rote learning. Indeed knowing facts are important , but I believe that more priority should be on challenging our thinking.)

Given the circumstances , I believe it is best to get teachers with experience on flipped learning , as they have more credibility on this topic , to have a dialogue with those who are interested(not forced) to flip their classes. Therefore, I've been trying to get some teachers who may be willing to help through emails , forum in FLN(flipped learning network) and recently just started a TED conversation. For now I'm just waiting for some responses.

As for my social enterprise , Voices of Global Students , I've already made the MVV( Mission , Vision and Values) for the organisation a month ago, and I'm currently trying to figure out a business plan for my organisation. I'll be attending a social entrepreneurship bootcamp at the end of this month, in effort to refine my business plan and deliver a presentation on it. Those with the most appealing project will be funded RM250,000 by the foundation, which will be a major boost in the purpose of the organisation.

I've faced a number of setbacks , but at least I learned to pick myself up when I received a number of support from my friends.  This project isn't something that I can do alone , and I hope some of you could contribute by getting involved in the dialogue (if you are one of the teacher with experience on flipped learning) , some suggestions on the business plan , and support the facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/voicesofglobalstudents .

Aren't we preparing for jobs that don't exist yet?

How are we preparing ourselves for our future jobs that don’t exist yet? Is it by burning the midnight oil to study for exams? Have you ever wondered how are you going to apply what you learned in school in real life? What are you actually learning, to be obedient, or independent thinkers? Did you know that our education system was modelled and conceived during the Industrial Revolution?

In his article, “How To Get A Job?” Thomas L. Friedman asserts that since jobs are evolving so quickly, a bachelor’s degree is no longer considered an adequate proxy for your ability to do a particular job by employers. Whether you acquired your education through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS), homeschooling, or Stanford, all they care is one thing: how you add value to what you learned. Paraphrasing Harvard education expert Tony Wagner, “ the world doesn’t care anymore what you know; all it cares is what you can do with what you know”.  So what is education? What are we learning in school?

“Education is not a filling of vessel, it is the kindling of flames” – Socrates

With change happening at an unprecedented scale and rate, we face challenges that require us to be creative, as in combining old ideas into a new one, curious, and lifelong learners. The word education is derived from the Latin word, Educe, which means, “to draw forth from within”. It’s about “lighting” the potential in us as learners rather than filling our minds with loads of information. Having that said, how do we solve this problem within our circle of influence?

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein

In the heart of education is teaching and learning, without it there won’t be education. Hence, what needs to be improved is teaching and learning, by creating a condition where teachers not only teach the students, but making the students teach amongst themselves. It’s not about putting more effort by using the old solution; it’s about changing our teaching and learning methodology in classrooms, provided that the teachers have the autonomy since they (should) know what they do best. One of the solutions is flipped learning, or also known as the student-centered learning.

In it’s most basic sense, the flipped learning is basically where what you do as homework will be done in class and what you do in class will be done as homework by the use of video lectures. The definition of flipped learning is very slippery, as there could be many versions of it. For example,  Flipped Class 101 ( as Bergmann and Sams ,pioneers of flipped learning call it) , teachers create video lectures for students to watch at him so that they can help them with what used to be their homework in class.  Some have moved to Flipped Class 201 where students work on their own pace until they attain mastery in the topics they are studying.  Apart from that, others didn’t focus on mastery , but  rather other deeper learning strategies such as problem or project based learning, inquiry , challenge based learning etc. It’s entirely up to the teachers on how they would like to run their class.

So what is flipped class, or preferably known as flipped learning? Here are some points on what flipped learning is.

·      Transfers the ownership of the learning to the students.

·      Personalizes learning for all students

·      Gives teachers time to explore deeper learning opportunities and pedagogies with their students. (Problem based learning,  Challenge based learning , Mastery etc.)

·      Makes learning (not teaching) the center of the classroom

·      Maximizes the face-to-face time in the classroom.

Since many people tend to have misconceptions on the flipped learning , here’s a list of FAQ on it.

1. Does it make the teachers less important?

With the flipped learning, the role of a teacher is empowered, by giving perspectives, inspire and mentor the students instead of rote lecturing. The class will be student-centered instead of teacher-centered. Students will be more likely to claim ownership of their education. It's not just about the student-teacher ratio, it is about student-teacher time ratio. With this, struggling students will receive more help from their teacher, and students will also get to see things from many different nuanced perspectives, which develops their critical thinking skills. In short, technology doesn't replace, it complements with the teachers.

2.Isn't it more like an opportunity to bring boring lectures to a different location?

I believe that there are many approach that can be made to make the video more interesting, such as having more dialogue, make it approximately 10 minutes short and etc.

3.What if the Internet is simply too slow?

We can always consider using flash drive , or burn the videos into a disc.

4. What if the teachers are interested, but do not have the time to produce the videos?

Not all the teachers are expected to make these videos for their classes. Besides , as for a start , we do not need to flip the whole subject , we can begin by using the method only for difficult topics, as pointed out here (http://faizulzuraimi.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-flipped-learning.html) on myth no.2.

Flipped learning is becoming increasingly popular in universities like Harvard and Stanford University. It shows that it can bring outcome we desire , provided when we implemented it correctly. Since in the heart of education is the learner and educator , I believe learners or students should play their part in the education reform that is already happening now , especially in the U.S.A.  Do support and like my facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/voicesofglobalstudents and follow my blog on faizulzuraimi.blogspot.com
 

Update: 27/7/13 and the audition for TEDxKL

Having finished my exam , we have started on trying to implement the flipped classroom in our physics class, by having different topics assigned to different groups, and post the video lectures or any learning resources on the physics website. Hopefully, next term, we'll get to have it fully implemented for at least 1 or 2 topics. If the desired outcome is reached , I'll get to make presentation on the student-centered or flipped learning in school as part of the effort in balancing real learning and learning to answer exam questions.  I think it's just a matter of time.

While waiting for the desired outcome, I'm planning to audition for a slot on TEDxKL this Monday. Unfortunately it's on a schoolday,  I have a few problems such as lack of transport (hopefully I could find a taxi to go back to school) and  now I'm asking if I could have the audition on Saturday instead after the Speech Day(last day of school). As part of preparation for the talk on TEDxKL (that is , if I pass the audition) , I'm taking an online course on public speaking https://class.coursera.org/publicspeak-001/class/index and joined it's facebook group to hone my public speaking skills. It'll be a big challenge for me. Failure or success, I'll certainly learn a lot from this experience, and I certainly need a lot of luck and support. 

Education is Everyone's Business: Do something about it!

There's a wonderful quote from Benjamin Franklin. "There are three sorts of people in the world: Those who are immovable, people who don't get, they don't want to get it, they're going to do anything about it. There are people who are movable, people who see the need for change and are prepared to listen to it. And there are people who move, people who make things happen." And if we can encourage more people, that will be a movement. And if the movement is strong enough, that's, in the best sense of the word, a revolution. And that's what we need. - Sir Ken Robinson

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_how_to_escape_education_s_death_valley.html

"You know, I grew up in the inner city, and there were kids who were failing in schools 56 years ago when I first went to school, and those schools are still lousy today, 56 years later. And you know something about a lousy school? It's not like a bottle of wine. Right? (Laughter) Where you say, like, '87 was like a good year, right? That's now how this thing -- I mean, every single year, it's still the same approach, right? One size fits all, if you get it, fine, and if you don't, tough luck. Just tough luck. Why haven't we allowed innovation to happen? Do not tell me we can't do better than this." -Geoffrey Canada
http://www.ted.com/talks/geoffrey_canada_our_failing_schools_enough_is_enough.html

 As part of the effort in improving the education system, I've been hosting a conversation on TED( http://www.ted.com/conversations/18310/what_can_we_do_an_open_lett.html) to kill time while taking a break from studying for my exams. Through the conversation, I manage to reach many people from different parts of the world with common interest, and I've learned a lot from having conversations with them both through TED and email.

   I've received a number of articles and an ebook on education including The Big Picture: Education is Everyone's business from the TED community to help further my understanding in the field of education. In the first chapter of the book,it clearly stated the real goals of education which basically are as follows;

1) to be lifelong learners

2) be passionate

3) be ready to take risks

4) be able to problem-solve and think critically as well as constructively

5) be able to look things differently

6) be able to work independently with others

7) be creative

8) care and want to give back to their community

9) persevere 

10) have integrity and self-respect

11) have moral courage

12) be able to use the world around them well

13) speak well,write well , read well and work well with numbers

14) to be curious

15)  most importantly , truly enjoy their life and their work

  It seems that we are deviating ourselves from the real purpose of it; we've been too focused on exams. Yes , we are learning something in school , we do learn maths , science , chemistry , history etc. , but it seems that we are learning to be good at answering the exam questions rather than understanding the subject. However,exams are indeed important , we need exams or tests to check our progress and to know as to whether we have conceptual understanding of what we are learning. But it shouldn't be the dominant culture of education, it shouldn't be something that we would stay up to burn the midnight oil for, spending lots of money for tuition fees or seminars,  and have classes or lessons in school completely centered on how to be good at answering exam questions just to get good grades ( and forget what we've learned 5 days later! But still , for us students , it's better for us to follow the system and work hard to get good grades for now)

   For example,concerning the unemployment. In his article on How To Get a Job? , Thomas L. Friedman , who is also the author of of The World is Flat, said that there are 2 main reasons why people get rejected for jobs which are:

1)  Employers don't care what you know , they only care on how you can add value to what you know. And in spite that you have degrees or masters in any particular field related to the job, many can't tell the employers how they can add value. 

2)  They don't know what they want, and it comes through because they have not learned the skills that are needed.  I believe this is the fault of the education system itself, not the students or the teachers.

   Why do college drop-outs become rich while those with high credentials don't? In my opinion, the successful people have a few things in common, they are lifelong learners, creative, relentlessly "entrepreneurial", inventors and solution-finders. As Dale J. Stephens (founder of UnCollege , and he is about my age!!!) clearly asserted that the requirements are confidence, curiosity and grit, which is pretty much aligned with the real purpose of education. 

   Perhaps  flipped learning (although there are many ways to flip the class) isn't the only approach when it comes to improving the education within the constraints of the public education system. There are other approaches such as problem-based learning  and service learning . Regardless of the terminologies, learning should be student-centered as learning is personal. When learning stems from your own initiative and action , it becomes more relevant and meaningful. Of course, this is facilitated by teachers , who are acting as mentors.

   The world is changing , but schools hardly changed. Education is everyone's business, and I believe we all should do our part; whether you are a student , a teacher , or a parent. 

     As Sir Ken Robinson ended his talk by quoting Benjamin Franklin on 3 types of people, the immovable,movable and those who move, lets be one of those who move, by asking ourselves what can we do? and most importantly , by start taking action.

As for now , we are trying to replicate the desired outcome of student-centered learning. Do follow my blog on faizulzuraimi.blogspot.com for updates.

Thank you.

How do Finnish kids excel without rote learning and standardized testing? by Erin Millar

Learning from the country ranked 1 and consistently in top 3 for their education system..

some excerpts from the article 

Dr. Sahlberg argues that if we want young people with the competencies to innovate and make our economy more competitive, we need to model our schools after how innovation actually happens. “Teaching and learning have traditionally been conceptualized as linear, deterministic procedures,” he wrote in a paper on economic competitiveness and education. “Innovation is an organic entity. Teaching and learning in schools should rely on principles of active participation, social interaction and reflection.”

The reality in Canada, which is unfortunate in Dr. Sahlberg’s view, is that students are rewarded for competing against their peers, teachers are held accountable by their class’s performance on exams, and schools are compared through widely published standardized test results. Finland takes an alternative approach. Students receive only narrative evaluation instead of marks or grades until Grade 5. Thereafter, their grades rely on how they’ve performed relative to their individual potential rather than as compared to their classmates. “Teachers stress grades as little as possible,” Dr. Sahlberg says. “This means that students ‘compete’ against themselves, not one another.”

One of the ways the Finnish education system accomplishes this is by giving individual teachers greater autonomy in teaching to the needs of their classes, rather than a top-down, test-based system.

source:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/canada-competes/how-do-finnish-kids-excel-without-rote-learning-and-standardized-testing/article11810188/?utm_content=buffer508d5&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer

An open letter to teachers//educators

An open letter to teachers

"Read not to contradict and confute ; nor to believe and take for granted ; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider" - Francis Bacon

        My name is Faizul , and I'm an A-level student who is currently studying in Kolej Tuanku Jaafar, in Negeri Sembilan , Malaysia. For the past few months, I've been working on promoting the flipped learning, something I learned from the Internet while I was preparing my presentation on Massive Open Online Courses(MOOCs) for the school assembly. To those of you who are unfamiliar with the flipped learning, you can visit my blog here http://faizulzuraimi.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-flipped-learning.html . Included in this blog are some rebuttals on common misconceptions about the flipped learning.

      I'm lucky that the principal and the deputy principal in my school are in support of this idea, they are open to new possibilities. Unfortunately,not many people in Malaysia have heard of the "flipped learning"  as far as I'm concerned. When I wanted to make a presentation on the flipped learning in one of the weekly Monday school assembly in my school, I was told that I should not appear as if I'm trying to tell the teachers how to teach, for I am only a student. The deputy principal asked me to use the term break(which was 2 weeks long) to figure out an effective way in presenting the flipped learning.

      At that time I'd been reading Sal Khan's book , The One World Schoolhouse:Education Reimagined. In his book, he mentioned something about the flipped learning, and I think the Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org) really does complement with the flipped learning, so I made a presentation on the Khan Academy for the school assembly after the term break, hoping that the teachers will get a hint on the flipped learning. -- ever since then , some people have been calling me Mr.Khan!

       3 days after the presentation on the Khan Academy, the deputy principal emailed to the teachers on the flipped learning, hoping that we can have our own video lectures, which is more aligned to the A level syllabus than Khan Academy or other resources that we can find online. Unfortunately , I think most of my teachers seem to be skeptical as to whether the flipped learning is going to work, which is understandable because it is unfamiliar.

                                                      Deputy Principal's email to the teachers

Here are some common questions on the flipped learning:

1. Does it make the teachers less important?

With the flipped learning, the role of a teacher is empowered, by giving perspectives, inspire and mentor the students instead of rote-lecturing. The class will be student-centered instead of teacher-centered. Students will be more likely to claim ownership of their education. It's not just about the student-teacher ratio , it is about student-teacher time ratio. With this,struggling students will receive more help from their teacher, and students will also get to see things from many different nuanced perspective, which develops their critical thinking skills.In short, technology doesn't replace,it complements with the teachers.

2.Isn't it more like an opportunity to bring boring lectures to a different location?

I believe that there are many approach that can be made to make the video more interesting, such as having more dialogue, make it approximately 10 minutes short and etc.

3.What if the Internet is simply too slow?

We can always consider using flash drive , or burn the videos into a disc.

4. What if the teachers are interested, but do not have the time to produce the videos?

Not all the teachers are expected to make these videos for their classes. Besides , as for a start , we do not need to flip the whole subject , we can begin by using the method only for difficult topics, as pointed out here (http://faizulzuraimi.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-flipped-learning.html) on myth no.2. 

On top of that , I believe that school leaders should find those with the highest ability to combine the subject with their ability to present this in the most creative and engaging ways. For mathematics , we can also use the materials from the examsolutions (www.examsolutions.net  , this website has been very helpful with my maths!) 

        As many of us might be aware, change is happening at an unprecedented scale. New job markets emerge, technology is changing exponentially, an it is evident as we can see from Moore's law. It is most likely that we students are preparing ourselves for jobs that don't exist yet.

              The education system we have now is based on the Industrial Revolution, it is human construct and a response to certain conditions in certain places and time. The world is very different compared to back then. It is evident that our education system needs to be changed. There has also been a degree inflation , in which jobs that used to require degree , now requires masters , and jobs that used to require masters , now requires PhD. 10 or 20 years from now , does it mean all of us need to acquire PhD?  You can visit my blog here on my thoughts about the education system. http://faizulzuraimi.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-education-system.html.

          Since the world is ambiguous and ill-defined , the context always change given the pace of change, I think what we students need to be is creative, curious and lifelong self-learners. Being creative is about making fresh connections so that we see things in new ways and from different perspectives. As Robert Greene quoted, "The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways".Besides, human communities depend on diversity of talents,not singular conception of ability. I believe flipped learning is the best solution, given the restrictions of the education system. 

          I'm sure many of us heard of the cliche that change is constant, change is inevitable-- So what about progress? I believe that progress is a choice. And it is our choice if we want to progress. I believe the first step for progress , is by applying the flipped learning. The choice is ours to act within our circle of influence. And it is certainly an important choice for it concerns our education.

If you wish to be in touch , here's my twitter account : https://twitter.com/FaizulZuraimi  

or you could send me an email on faizulzuraimi@gmail.com 

        Thank you for your time to read this , I really appreciate it.

Sincerely,

Faizul

                

The flipped learning

             First things first, I think it's important for us to understand what the flipped learning is and it is certainly not something that I came up with myself; the earliest work done in this field was by Eric Mazur , at Harvard who developed peer instruction in the 1990s. The flipped learning is pioneered by Aaron Sams and Jonathan Bergmann. Above are a few videos on what flipped learning is.


Flipped Learning Defined

"Flipped learning is when teachers do not use face-to-face time to deliver direct instruction. Instead direct instruction is delivered asynchronously."

              I think it is pretty much expected , many people tend to have some misconceptions on what the flipped learning is,for it is more than just about flipping the class and I think it is best that we should clarify on that.
         

from http://blog.peerinstruction.net/7-myths-about-the-flipped-classroom-debunked/

Myth 1: Flipped classrooms are primarily about putting lecture videos online
Debunked: Flipped classrooms can be just about putting lecture videos online and having students do homework in class,  but they can and should be about much more than that. Research-based methods for flipping your classroom include Just-in-Time Teaching and Peer Instruction. 

Myth 2: You need to flip your entire class 
Debunked: You can flip just one concept or topic, many, or all. When you are just starting out with flipped teaching, it is a good idea to pick a set of the key concepts or topics that are the most difficult for students and go from there.

Myth 3: Students will love not having lectures in class
Debunked: While most of us have stared out at a classroom full of bored, half asleep students mired in the tedium of our lectures, when you try to flip you class you may face student resistance in the particular form of demands for more lecture. See this post for some tips on how to address this. 

Myth 4: Flipped classrooms are the latest edutrend
Debunked: The first modern call for pushing information coverage out of the classroom and guided practice in, dates to at least the late 1800s with the casebook method. Pre-recording lectures for out-of-class viewing shows up in the research literature in 2000.

Myth 5: There is only one way to flip a class
Debunked: According to Bergmann and Sams 2012, there are many of ways to flip a class and no one right way. Bergmann recently posted his definition here, and he says “you see there is no ONE way to flip a class and in this lies one of the great strengths of this methodology.” Peer Instruction is, of course, our favorite way to flip the classroom. However, we are also big fans of Team-Based Learning and Project-Based Learning.

Myth 6: Flipped classrooms replace faculty with computersDebunked: This is definitely not the case. In a flipped classroom, instructors are essential and they do many of the same tasks that they do in traditional teaching environments, such as helping students learn, selecting and covering content, and assessing student achievement. The most prominent difference is that a flipped classroom leverages the instructor’s expertise during in-and-out of class time in different ways.  Flipped learning operates from the assumption that content coverage occurs primarily out of class and should be more of a shared role with the students, rather than just the job of an instructor.

Myth 7: Students will not do work out of class, even for credit
Debunked: Peer Instruction Network member Ives Araujo thought this too. So, for a semester he studied his university students’ completion and  engagement with pre-class assignments over the course of a semester. On average the large majority of students did their pre-class work AND demonstrated strong effort. Read how he measured this here.  He has since gone on to observe the same completion and engagement rates in high school classrooms. We do find that you need to provide credit (points) as a motivator, however.

Here are some useful links on flipped learning:

Why follow the flipped classroom model?

Why should we flipped the classroom?(video)

So how do I get started with the flipped learning?

flipped learning at a large scale


As for those skeptics , here's a result of a survey (click on the link if you can't see the picture) made in the U.S. (I think it can be replicated anywhere in the world , provided that it is implemented properly )

                    Once again , let me clarify that this isn't my idea , I don't get credit for this. I'm just sharing it because I think it is necessary for us to have a more effective way of learning.The primary reason why this is important is that we(students) are  most likely preparing ourselves for jobs that don't exist yet, for change is happening at an unprecedented scale.  With flipped learning,we can have many different nuanced perspectives as it helps us in our critical thinking(which I believe is important for  the challenges we face in the world).

     There may be very powerful positive points that are not all obvious at first sight. That is how entrepreneurs work. They see the value that those around them have not yet spotted-- there might be more positive points on the flipped learning that I haven't spotted myself, in which you can find out.  Value and benefit are by no means always obvious.


  Thanks for your time to read this , I really appreciate that.

The education system

          Over the years , there has been an increasing consensus that the education system needs to be changed . Creativity(process of coming up with an original ideas that have value).and curiosity are the traits that I believe most employers would look for. Change is happening at an unprecedented scale. The number of discoveries and new infomation found doubles every 18 months . That is why it is important to be creative,since the real-world problem is ambiguous , the context always change.The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways . For futher details on this , you can watch Sir Ken Robinson's talk on TED , on revolutionising the education system and how school kills creativity.

           In his book , Out Of Our Minds, he explained how our education system is based on industrial revolution, where basically students are taught to suffice the needs of the industrial revolution.  It is a human construct and certain responses in certain places and time; which is obsolete in our age. There is also a hierarchy of disciplines , in which science is prioritised. I'm not saying that science is not important , I'm saying that science and art are equally important; they are not mutually exclusive , they overlap one another , they complement one another. On top of that,most students don't get to explore the full range of their ability and interest. Without being too wordy, I'll just paste a picture here to illustrate my point

"Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." - Albert Einstein

However , I think that there is no point to blame the politicians or whoever invented our current industrial-revolution based education model, it was suited at those time anyway , and it is certainly egalitarian which is a good thing. Sometimes it's not just about finding the right answers , sometimes it's about asking the right question. I think the question that most of us should us is that "What can we do about this? " " What can we do about our education system within our circle of influence?" instead of " Why didn't the politician or the authority do something about the education system." 

This question brings forward to a story that I want to tell you. First of all I'm an A-level student, who is currently doing first year college in Malaysia,  I don't even have a job and I certainly don't have much influence in the society. But still , there are 

things that I can do, and I'm still working on it, which is promoting the flipped learning method .I believe(as it is empirically evident) that it works within the constraints of the education system, and will produce students who are 

curious , lifelong self-learners and most importantly , creative ,for human communities depend on diversity of talents,not singular conception of ability.I will post my story in promoting the flipped learning in my next entry.