Reflective Journal (5)

To me, being exceptionally critical in thought is never an inborn talent, but a way of operating one can choose to be in. The curriculum and mode of assessment in SES paved a pathway for us to do so.  Firstly, the curriculum brings the art of questioning. For example, we questioned why Google and Apple chose to function in vastly different ways, how both achieved maximum efficiency, how the French revolution affected Western philosophical construct, and how current China and America is affected by the past.

What we have been doing is to consistently draw congruencies between the past and the present, to piece information together and come up with substantiated conclusions. To be able to do so requires one to be critical of the actions made and its influence, to think beyond how an action is made, but why it is done. Every week, as this critical thinking process is reiterated, I find myself adopting this way of operating naturally. I believe that it is only when I am placed in an environment where everyone operates similarly, I can truly experience that change. SES places me in a short 2 hours class, to facilitate a permanent change in thinking.

An aspect of SES I love is that it encourages dissent but requires much more. It requires dissent with concrete evidence. I love questioning, but my greatest difficulty in SES is that I am faced with a situation where I have so much to question, but lack concrete evidence to back up my point. SES stresses the importance of making claims that are backed up by evidences we have, and not just plain assumptions. To achieve this, I must incessantly read up on a vast array of articles and sieve out the essential points to place in my argument. Yet again, I am always faced with readings that offer a plethora of knowledge but a paucity of assistance with regards to substantiating my argument. But this is beneficial as it not only forces me to continuously be in search of new information to use, but it also reflects the world as it is. Personally, to find evidences for my presentation, I had to consult books and various online articles, because the readings provided did not answer my question and this is true in society as well. I believe that the society is never binary, where I can find information on either one side or the other. It has evolved so greatly that I must learn to pick out information from every interview, book and oral commentaries. After which, I must choose the most useful ones.

I applaud the student-facilitated presentation for teaching us to do so, by setting a constrained time limit. By doing so, I must consider which evidence I found bear the most significance when placed in my argument and that is a useful skill in society because whether in the business sector or the arts, no one would spend a day listening to all of my research done. What society demands is being concise and gladly, SES hones that skill.

What also makes this presentation a precious asset is that it brings diversity into the class. Rather than the same teacher speaking, students coming from different backgrounds are making presentations. When they do so, they inevitably bring in their own styles of presentation and their own ways of thinking By means of juxtaposing Nicholas Tey’s presentation and Benedict’s one, we can evidently see this. I believe that this is a genuine reflection of the society I would live in in the future, where I am subjected to wide arrays of people speaking up. I have to adapt and make sound critiques on each’s ideas. In view of this, SES brings the real world to class momentarily and allows earlier preparation for the future where adaptation is key.

Areas of improvements to the curriculum would be expanding the scope of knowledge, especially in the countries we are studying on. It seems to me that we are really our entire curriculum is centred about China and America, albeit they are main strongholds in the world now. That said, there is nothing wrong about learning about China and America, their industrialization, philosophical construct, how their factories operate, and most importantly, how their actions fit the context they are in. But I suggest that we can use the knowledge learnt to apply to countries such as India and Myanmar, which are heading towards industrialization as well. That would test our skills of adapting to different contexts but using the same knowledge. It would be interesting to hear out different perspectives when we compare Myanmar’s steps of industrialization with China’s ones years ago, and then make valid conclusions. Considering that the subject is Socio-economic studies, it would be apt to do so.

800 words

Reflective Journal (4)

Discontent, anger, resentment are the words that describe one of China's most outstanding societal problem, and to me, it is undoubtedly the government who has caused this problem of the citizen’s unhappiness with the government. The government is elected by the people for the very reason of providing for the welfare of the people, but contrary to doing so, actions such as unofficial land grabs, unrestrained industrialization have taken place. Migrant workers are denied governmental welfare initiatives, the people are facing low wages, yet the governmental officials revel in luxury. These are the very things the people are angry about, and contrastingly, the things which the government should have prevented.

The flip side - it is undeniable that no government is perfect to the extent that no problems exist in their country. But yet again, what the government can do is to try their best, and I believe when they do so, irregardless of whether improvements are at a fast rate or not, the people will sense it. I dare to attest that if the people understand that the government is making the effort for improvements, they will work with the government to try to resolve the problem. But the government should make the first step, to render assistance to people having low wages by setting up labour unions, to assimilate the migrant workers by radically changing their treatment towards them, to forgo their resentful act of stealing land, all of which are solutions which do not require a genius to come up with, but a brave man to implement.

What the country needs is someone to make a difference, but definitely not in starting a revolution or riot, as many did, with China seeing 180,000 'mass incidents' ranging from labour protests to village riots, a 74,000 increase compared to 2004. It is time for an evolution, not a revolution, for the people of China to grow out of their old painful shells, for the government to restructure themselves make the appropriate legislation (land grabs) to wipe out all chances of insensible act and for China to rise up again with a reformed government leading its way. But before that, the country can start resolving the people's anger by looking at the problem, be honest to themselves about their faults and take a step forward.

A societal problem America faces would include moral degradation. The people of America are having problems such as an increase rate of drink driving and murder rates due to firearms in school – about 6000 teens killed, as I heard from Nicholas Tey’s presentation. Although the freedom to carry firearms is inextricable to the large death rates caused by guns, I believe other factors include the people’s wrong mindset.

Personally, I believe that if the people were to have a strong-willed mindset of not to resort to violence to end problems, even if the usage of firearms were legalized, such a problem would not have appeared in society. The mind is similar to the headquarters of the body, and controlling the mind would mean controlling the entire body, so I personally believe the government should formulating solutions that deal with changing the mindset of the people. This would be an important step to start a change within the Americans, since abandoning the rule of freedom to carry firearms would be virtually impossible. But this change cannot happen if the both sides, the people and the government do not do their part. The people have to realize the dire situation America is in right now, and the government has to come up with solutions to influence the already distorted minds of the people.

This leads to the next point, the lack of awareness. Evidence show increasing crime rates and usage of firearms, but newspapers only show news on economic downturns and the fall of the economy. This would eventually lead to the lack of awareness of the problem inherent in America, and that people cannot be expected to realise the problem themselves, if the government is not doing their job to tell them about it, thus the government should encourage media to spread the problem. Recently I saw on TIMES magazine an article about a boy named Trayvon Martin, who got killed because of racist issues. Although this article is more centered about the racism issue at hand, I believe a point has been brought up about the wrong usage of firearms in America. In my opinion, articles like such would serve to solve the problem at hand, as more people realises that firearms are used by teens in the wrong way, more Americans would learn to educate their children on the proper usage of firearms in schools and in public places.

785 words

Reflective Journal (3)

The Chinese perception of self mainly revolves around harmony within the society or group of people, and placing the society above one, while the American perception of self says that one has the freedom to express his thoughts and fight for his own welfare. More importantly, I begin to ponder about my classmate's opinions on the two perceptions, that the Western perception is more suitable than the Chinese one because in a classroom setting, speaking up and questioning authority as a means of fighting for one's welfare would be more apt, as it ensures that more knowledge is gained. Initially, I agreed, but now my thoughts are diverging.
My family operates in the Chinese perception of self. Every week, I would go to my grandmother's place to have dinner, My grandmother was ill that day, but she did not have the time to inform us before we arrived, and all of us including my cousins were already there. Yet despite her sickness, she had to single-handedly cook and prepare dinner for all of us, just because she did not want to disrupt the whole day by not having food ready for us. In the end, she had a very poor appetite throughout the lunch while we gobbled away. Perhaps before the lesson, I would have never linked this to any perceptions of self, and simply dismiss this matter as an act of love, and I am certainly not saying it is not. However, it comprises more than love, it expresses my grandmother's Chinese perception of self. She had sacrificed her rest in order to prevent the 'society', the rest of the family, from being affected by her illness. Then it dawned on me that sometimes, the Chinese perception is not necessarily not suitable.

Also, I have also began to notice how these beliefs are coherent to my track and field life as well. Last year, I was injured just before my national competition and I had a big part to play in the 400m hurdles event. But I had two events on my hands, the 100m hurdles and 400m hurdles. Running all out for both is tantamount to increasing the risk of myself getting injured once again, and I had to secure the first place for 400m hurdles. Because of that, my coach and I decided that I had to give up my 100m hurdles race even though I had the chance to get a top 3 placing, to prevent myself from getting injured and missing out on my main event and other relay events as well. Although I could choose to not follow my coach's instruction, I chose otherwise, because I knew that the team winning the 11th time consecutively was top priority. Individual glory had to take a step down. It was a suitable choice. Only when I reflected yesterday that I realise this was a reflection of the Chinese perception of self, of putting the team above self.

But the Western perception of self does has significant impact in my life as well. I aspire to be an architect, and to be able to make astounding designs of buildings is something I would want to accomplish. Learning to fight for my own ideas and speak up for them is essential, and this is inextricably linked to the Western perception of self. In a discussion setting, I cannot afford to not speak up for my designs just because they are different from my colleagues and would disrupt the harmony with my colleagues as I put down their ideas. In fact, I believe that it is essential everyone speaks up for their ideas and comment on others during meetings and discussions. No design is too good to be criticized on, and with people criticizing the idea, there would be changes and improvements made, leading to the best idea. One cannot afford to be conservative with criticisms and in speaking up for the designs in fear of disrupting the flow of the conversation and affecting the harmony between colleagues. Instead, I must learn how to be bold in conversing my thoughts as that is what I feel an architect should have, the courage to be different and have confidence in my designs and thoughts.

Sometimes, the Chinese perception of self is more suitable in certain settings and in this world, we not only work in a classroom setting that revolves around learning of knowledge, we work with people, with our families and with our colleagues Different situation would require different perceptions of self to be applied and being fixated with the thought that the Western perception would be the most suitable for all situations is not being wise. Being able to adapt efficiently and be flexible with our thoughts should be what I should look towards to!

797 words (*I apologise, as I put the word count late, at about 9.10pm as I forgot to do so at 9pm.)

Reflective Journal (2)

Google and Lenovo have distinct working styles that are two opposite axis when compared together, and I believe that the society they have these working styles are based is one of the main contributors to this difference. Google reflects one of the more liberal and creative society in the world, the United States of America. Thus, it is achievable for Google to adopt a working style that utilises space for innovation and creativity. This can only be done if there is already some form of creativity in their workers, such that its potential can be developed by Google. Personally, I feel that the USA comprises people who are less market-oriented and are evidently more open to views, even if it contrasts with their own. They are not constrained by the limits of their own imagination and they are willing to try out new ideas, to experiment, to explore the freedom given to them. And it is undeniable that no matter how much Google craves for creativity, it cannot be forced upon, and space is one of the main encourages one could use to find the spark of creativity. Its work force are able to handle the space given to them, are motivated by the unique facilities and most of all, enjoy this whole idea of free space for endless innovation. Google's style of peer reviewing and providing workers with 20% of their free time for their own innovations is made possible because it is based in USA. Therefore, we can see that it is the society that Google is functioning in that plays a part in determining which style they can adopt and its working style reflects the society that it is based in.

On the other hand, Lenovo is based in China, where its people require guidelines and hierarchy to guide them in the working process. Lenovo then adopts a completely different working style as compared to Google, which is giving instructions to workers as to what they should work on. This way, the higher-ups would determine which scope of job their workers would focus on and it is inextricably linked to the lost of freedom for creativity. But, the people are contented, they have no issues with this working style and this is because the Chinese lack the ability to work efficiently when given more space to work in. Instead, they would work much more efficiently within a limited scope of area they are instructed to work in. With the same amount of space, the Chinese may be lost as to which direction they should head to, so the would adopt a style of going with instructions without questioning, as stated by William J. Holstein in his "China Multinational Quandary". Their historical culture and moral education has brought them up as people possessing such qualities, and Lenovo has to utilise this workforce. With the workforce Lenovo has, it has to fully utilise what its workers are most comfortable with, and this is formulated by the society the workers live in. As such, Lenovo's working style of implementing social hierarchy in companies and not giving as much freedom to work in, reflects the society it is based in, China's society.

I have a very memorable experience in working in a group that functions in similar ways as Google. My Secondary 1 Project's Day project was a invention, a category that encourages the innovation of products that would solve limitations of products right now in the market. For me, it was a category that had little boundaries restricting the scope of my project. The time I spent thinking of ideas for the project was just like the 20% Google offers to its employees, in which I could rack my brains thinking about anything that needs improvement. There was no distinct hierarchy, we recognised one another's ideas and did not dismiss any because he is not the leader. Initially, my group dives headfirst into the beginning of our project, considering and formulating new ideas to be worked on, and we were enjoying the freedom we could work in. However, we then realise that the ideas we were coming up with were mostly based on our impressions of current products in the market, and we had no solid problem we could actually tackle. This was a problem. It never occured to me that having the freedom to do any type of invention could actually turn into a problem, because we had no direction we could follow. Just going along with an idea without thinking it through could mean compromising the quality of our project. But we went into the project with an idea related to water sprinklers and we did quite well.

To me, the experience of working in this working environment was refreshing and impactful, yet it reminded me of something I had misunderstood - that having more freedom to start on ideas does not equate to having the ability to think of ideas to work with. The prerequisite of working with this working style is the passion to continuously think of ideas and the ability to work efficiently in the given freedom.

I also have experience working in Lenovo's work setting. In my Secondary 2 Projects's Day, I started a project on Resource Development with a different group of people. But the difference was this time, we found a mentor that functions in Lenovo's working style. During meetings, she was very optimistic and excited in giving new ideas to improve our project, and what my group members do was to nod and agree on every point. Unlike our project in Secondary 1, initiative to speak up was comparatively less. We functioned according to the leader's ideas and the mentor's initiatives. Although there were times when I wanted to propose an idea, the idea was not considered very important as everyone focused only on following the leader's instructions. However in the end, our project did not do as well as my project last year.

Personally, I honestly preferred working in Google's working environment and enjoy their working style. I agree completely that the vast amount of freedom given for innovations and ideas our own plays a main role in the formulation of great ideas, given that one is able to stay dedicated and able to cope with the working style. I do admit that I face difficulties to a notable extent when in this environment, however, I believe that it actually gives me the chance to experiment different things, to try to hear out new ideas that may seem completely wrong to me initially. I wish to be someone who is receptive to new ideas, not one who is confined to his own realm of thought or one who would just follow instructions and not speak up. Google's working style would shape me to be someone like that. I also enjoy the peer review process because I get to hear out different people's opinions on my idea. Be it right or wrong, they provide a wide range of perceptions of things, and I believe that the best ideas should be able to gain the approval of many people, just like the iPhone. However, I do acknowledge that Lenovo's working style is useful as well, especially when one prefers things to be systematic. It achieves the purpose of completing each task efficiently and this whole process would almost guarantee that things are organised. Yet again, I feel that even when functioning in Google's working style, one can achieve the same. Organisation of things can also be achieved with the freedom of creativity. It is entirely dependent on one as to whether his many ideas are arranged systematically, and I believe that this form of organisation does not stifle creativity. Only when one is constrained by the system of not being able to freely formulate new ideas, then one's creativity is affected. As such, I believe that the Google's working style would be most suitable for me, as I attempt to incorporate Lenovo's organisation into it as well. I have enjoyed and learned much from this SES lesson, and as I review my working styles, I wish to discover the most suitable working style for me and try to improve it as much as I can!

Reflective Journal (1)

To me, Socio-Economic studies was completely foreign and unheard of, but I was really interested in knowing more about this subject, a subject that is finally special and different from the usual few. Perhaps, I could get something much more valuable out of it.

But unfortunately, I missed the first 2 lessons of SES due to competition, and now I am a little lost about the whole syllabus and grading process. However, I have started on the first lesson on Cultural Intelligence already! Fortunately, the content is put up on the web.

After reading through the 2 articles and going through the survey myself, I begin to realise that indeed, cultural intelligence is important in this growing economy we are all trying so hard to stay at the top of. Perhaps all these while, I have not been observant enough to notice this need, the need to be able to understand people of different cultures, how important it is to respond in the right way when among a group of people of different ethnic cultures. All of these ideas and thoughts came into my mind and I began to ask myself how successful I was as a person in terms of cultural intelligence.

As the articles revealed interesting information slowly yet excitingly, my attention was caught. I was surprised at the statistics provided about companies experiencing rise in profits as their employees take the Cultural Intelligence test and undergo methods to increase their Cultural Intelligence. It has once again reminded me that we are no longer confined to this space of our own, even as it is presented so in our classroom. Learning to interact with people of all races, not people in our classrooms, nor in our school, nor in Singapore, is highly important. How we carry ourselves, what we say, and even how we say it, these things determine whether a deal would be signed or thrown into the bin.

Another article illustrated this point once more by giving an example of a politician trying to earn the votes of Hispanics for his election by drawing some influential individuals to his side. It has hit me once more on the importance of garnering support not only from one's local side, but from one's foreign side as well. And I completely agree with a statement saying that cultural intelligence cannot be bought. Indeed, it is a set of technique, a set of knowledge that has to be sought for and worked for. Even so, I do not see why working hard for it would be a tiring thing. Instead, it could be something worth our time, trying to learn how to interact with people of our diverse world would be something useful and self-satisfactory. Wouldn't it?

I do not really think of it as gaining cultural intelligence to survive in the world, but rather, to live life better with the people around myself. I feel that instead of looking at the sum charts and profits all the time, just taking a step back would be good. Being able to interact with people of different ethnic culture around us well, being able to know their cultural habits and not having any pointless hostilities when with them, all of these would be good. If one day I were to be switched to another environment, and I could work out with the people around me amicably, I would be glad of myself as well! Perhaps, thats what we can work towards to!

SES to me is probably a road of self-discovery. I am looking forward to touching issues that can affect us in the future and are affecting us even right now. The topic on cultural intelligence is one of the topic that bears great importance but yet, have not caught my attention ever since I read the articles about it. I am looking forward to more of such topics, where I can learn about things that can help better myself as a student, or even just as a normal human, because I believe these are the things that are truly worth spending the time studying on. SES to me is similar to walking into a maze, and to me, this maze has no traps. The deeper I go, the more fun it gets. And I think that is the fun part about learning issues I never expected to learn. The thrill of learning is ever present.

Although I have missed the introductory lessons, I have roughly saw the guide on the internet and the whole layout of this programme. However fun it can be, I do acknowledge that the assessments are a little challenging. But I am willing to try out, the research papers and the speech assessment as well. They bring about a whole new requirement of different dynamics, not just writing or memorising content anymore. It is something different, and maybe my results will sway a little, but I believe that the experience gained would be something new as well. And learning is about gaining new things, not repeating the old again and yet again.