First, to whoever that reads my blog, HAPPY APRIL FOOL'S DAY
Ok. Now I will go through what happened today.
First, in the morning after assembly, we went up to class, MC talked about yesterday's arena. She said the first judge she said he was not even fired up as he is when top schools like RI or Hwa Chong debate. She also said that the only one who was really listening attentively was the last judge Gaurav( did I spell it correctly?). She also talked about Critical Thinking.
Now, about critical thinking. It is 'tearing' an object apart and being able to 'put it back together' or known as read between the lines. She said the debaters last night made sweeping statements like the one from SJI, ( I didn't really watch all of it. Was doing homework) he said something like," In class, teachers teach social skills when they ask questions. BUT MC pointed out that it only seemed to be that. If you dun understand, here's an example. (Let's say there is a class and a teacher is calling a pupil to stand up but u cannot hear what the teacher is talking. It would seem that the teacher is teaching something but she can be scolding or just asking something.
To clarify on sweeping statements. It is about generalization, evidence and judgment. it is usually made based on ASSUMPTIONS. Example, the Bangladeshi workers in Singapore like to hold hands, to them, it is normal but to maybe another race, it may seem they are gay that is what a sweeping statement is.
Critical Thinking is analysing and asking questions like the source and the reliability of the question to clarify and finally come to a conclusion. WE have to make choices based on evidence. yesterday's debate also covered some things which Children NEED to have in the working world.
1) initiative- initiative can't be taught rather it is whether u want to do it or not 2) listening skills- Skills- it is the ability to do something. In my opinion, it can be natural or nurtured. 3)Courage/Confidence- WE all need to have this for working life. An example will be given here. If there are 2 people working in a company, one is a person who has 'nonsensical' ideas but can talk and present an idea well and the other is one who has great ideas but cannot talk and present well. If the 2nd person gives the idea to the first guy, the first guy can claim all the credit for presenting it. 4)Social skills- It is basically the most essential thing that is needed in the working world. 5)Communication Skills- it is just the ability to communicate well with people and being able to talk about anything under the sun.
When MC finished talking about those stuff, she 'blowed up ' cus the notice board behind did not have any decorations at all and the people whom she appointed did not do anything. She also said that not 1 SINGLE person had the INITIATIVE( one of the essentials for the working world) to ask her if the board was too plain and needed more decorations. We also got the dirtiest class award for the month as no one in class bothered to stay back to clean up the class. I feel that we should not depend 100% on the teacher to do everything in the class for us cus we are also A PART of the class and we have to be A PART not APART(not do anything for those who dun understand).
