Rea reason behind Sg's obsesson with tuition

Real reason behind Singapore’s obsession with tuition

By Yahoo! Singapore

By Yahoo! Singapore | SingaporeScene – Wed, Jun 13, 2012

By Daniel Wong

Singapore is a tuition nation.

Previous reports from the Department of Statistics show that households spent $820 million a year on both centre and home-based private tuition.

In addition, the number of tuition centres has increased five times over the past decade. There are now more than 500 centres in Singapore.

In comparison, there are fewer than 400 primary and secondary schools in total.
Through my work as an education excellence coach and speaker, I've had the privilege of speaking to and working with thousands of students. Through these interactions, I estimate that more than 90% of students attend some form of tuition classes.
Students continually complain about their huge struggle to complete their school and tuition homework, participate actively in their co-curricular activities, and lead a somewhat balanced life.

Most students tell me that they don't get more than 5 or 6 hours of sleep every night because there's just so much they have to do!

Clearly, there's something wrong with this picture.

In this article, I'll share my observations about how our obsession with tuition reveals deeper issues we face as a society—issues that go far beyond the pursuit of academic success.

The fear of failure starts with parents

Parents send their children for tuition classes because they fear their children getting left behind. That's a reasonable fear, because it seems like every other student attends classes outside of school.

But the bigger fear that parents have is the fear of failure, not just for their children, but for themselves, too.

It's difficult to measure your performance as a parent, so parents often subconsciously gauge their success by how their children are doing in school.

Your child is a straight-A student? Then you must be doing a wonderful job!
Your child is struggling academically? Then you're failing as a parent.
Few parents verbalize it, but these thoughts are at the core of their decision to send their children for tuition classes. At the end of the day, no parent wants to feel like a failure.
What parents really want for their children

There are other implications, too. Parents' fear of failure gets passed on to their children, who grow up thinking that the best path is the one that's free from failure, risk and disappointment.
But is that really the best path? No, that's merely the good path, yet it's also the one that parents unintentionally push their children to pursue. A lot of the time, the best path is the one that's full of uncertainty and adversity.

That's why it's generally incorrect to say that parents want what's best for their children, because they usually only want what's good.

Be curious, not competitive

Moreover, parents who are fixated on their children's academic performance instill a spirit of competition in their children. In today's Information Age, however, what's needed in order to excel is a spirit of curiosity, rather than a spirit of competition.

There's an incredible amount of information available on the internet, which means that if you want to become knowledgeable in some field, you probably could. It just requires that you have enough genuine curiosity to compel you to look up the information online.

If students are caught up trying to compete with their peers and outperform them, it's difficult to cultivate a real love for learning and discovery—the things that form the basis of a meaningful education and of long-term success in the Information Age.

Success is more about will than skill

Furthermore, if students feel like they're being forced to improve academically, there's a limit to how successful they can become. To achieve success—I'll go one step further and use the word "greatness"—in any field, you need to make a conscious decision to be great.

After all, no great pianist, athlete, engineer, doctor, mechanic, nurse or entrepreneur became that way without intentionally choosing the path of excellence.

You can't force anyone to become great. It's possible to force someone to become mediocre or even good, but greatness requires commitment.

If parents make their children go for tuition classes without also empowering them to take full responsibility for their own education, it's impossible for the children to become great students.
At the heart of it, greatness is much more a matter of will than it is of skill. Before we teach our students the skill of studying more effectively and of doing better on exams, we need to encourage them to make a deliberate choice about their education, their future and their life.

Tuition isn't a bad thing

Just to be clear, on its own, tuition isn't a horrible thing. I have no doubt that tuition classes can help children to become more disciplined, knowledgeable, hardworking and determined.

Nevertheless, if it's not done with the correct mindset, sending children for tuition classes can be dangerous.

It's possible that we're currently creating a generation of sleep-deprived, overworked, unfulfilled, and unhappy students. I fear that this generation of unhappy students is going to become a generation of unhappy workers and, later on, a generation of unhappy parents.

This is a problem we cannot ignore.

So whether you, as a parent, decide to send your children for tuition classes or not, I urge you to make that decision with the right perspective. Make sure your children understand that it's more important to finish well than it is to finish first.

The future of our country depends on it.

Daniel Wong is the author of "The Happy Student: 5 Steps to Academic Fulfillment and Success". He is also an education excellence coach and speaker. He writes regularly about topics related to education, career and personal development at Living Large.

Hooligan Penguins Report 1912

Necrophilia, rape, and murder — George Levick's 100-year-old observations on Adélie penguin culture are just now seeing print, and shocking readers

Humans tend to view penguins — who walk upright and appear dressed for a formal dinner party — as adorable, even genteel, little avian half-cousins. No wonder British doctor and naturalist George Murray Levick was appalled to discover "astonishing depravity" among the Adélie penguin population 100 years ago in Antarctica, where he was part of famed explorer Capt. Robert Scott's 1910-1913 Terra Nova expedition. A hundred years after Levick studied the raw, violent sex lives of Adélie penguins, his notes have finally been published, in the Cambridge University journal Polar Record. Here, a look at what Levick found, and why it scandalized him so:

What is Levick's story?

In February 1912, Levick and five other members of Scott's expedition got trapped by ice at Camp Adele on Antarctica's coast, barring them from continuing on with Scott's ill-fated trek to the South Pole. (Scott and four companions died on the way back to the ship after discovering that Roald Amundsen's Norwegian team had beat them to the pole.) Levick spent the hard Antarctic summer observing the Adélie penguins, making him the first and (so far) only scientist to have watched an entire breeding season. All six members of Levick's group survived, and Levick wrote up his findings upon returning to England in 1913.

What kind of "depravity" did he encounter?

Levick describes necrophilia — young male penguins having sex with dead females, some of whom had been frozen for a year — rape, and (perverse to him) homosexuality, among other things. "There seems to be no crime too low for these penguins," he wrote in a four-page pamphlet, Sexual Habits of the Adélie Penguin, that he deemed too shocking to publish at the time, save for 100 copies circulated among selected scientists. (And even those were written in Greek, so only his fellow educated gentlemen would understand.) He also published a book, Natural History of the Adélie Penguin, but suppressed the sexual details from that account.

Why did it take 100 years for these revelations to surface?

At least two copies of the sex pamphlet survived the century and Douglas Russell, bird curator at the London Museum of Natural History, stumbled upon one while researching the Scott expedition. "It is the most graphic account of challenging sexual behaviour you are ever going to read," Russell tells the BBC. Levick likely omitted these sexual observations from his penguin tome because he was a man of his "era of restrained post-Edwardian etiquette, gentlemen scientists, and stiff upper lips,"

Why do penguins act this way?

Levick blames the bad behavior on "little hooligan bands of half a dozen or more" young male penguins who hung out on the outskirts of the large Adélie colonies, and he really does make them sound like "depraved little sex gremlins," says Doug Barry at Jezebel. For his part, Russell argues that Levick's observations should be taken with a grain of salt. To some inexperienced male penguins, he points out, dead female penguins might look like "females who are awaiting congress." Plus, socially inept penguins only have a few weeks in October to mate, so tend to cram in as much sexual activity as possible. Bottom line: Levick fell into "the same trap as an awful lot of people in seeing penguins as bipedal birds and seeing them as little people," says Russell. "They're not. They are birds and should be interpreted as such."

10 Things Your Interviewer Won't Tell You

By Alison Green | U.S.News & World Report LP – Mon, Jun 11, 2012 9:17 PM SGT

Wondering what's running through your interviewer's mind? Here are 10 things your interviewer might be thinking--but probably won't tell you:

1. You showed up too early. Many interviewers are annoyed when candidates show up more than five or 10 minutes early, since they may feel obligated to interrupt what they're doing and go out to greet the person. Some feel guilty leaving someone sitting in their reception area that long. Aim to walk in five minutes early, but no more than that.

2. We're judging how you're dressed and groomed. In most industries, a professional appearance still matters. You don't need to wear expensive clothes, but showing up in a casual outfit or clothes that don't fit properly, having unkempt hair, or inappropriately flashy makeup can harm your chances.

3. We don't want you to try to sell us. It's a turn-off when a candidate seems overly focused on closing the deal, rather than on figuring out if the job is the right fit. No hiring manager wants to think she's being aggressively sold; we want the best person for the job, not the pushiest spiel.

4. Little things count. Candidates often act as if only "official" contacts, like interviews and formal writing samples, count, but hiring managers are watching everything, including things like how quickly you respond to requests for writing samples and references, whether your email confirming the time of the interview is sloppily written, and how you treat the receptionist.

5. We might act like we don't mind you bad mouthing a former employer, but we do. We'll let you talk on once you start, but internally we're noting that you're willing to trash-talk people who have employed you in the past and are wondering if you'll do that to us too. What's more, we're wondering about the other side of the story--whether you're hard to get along with, or a troublemaker, or impossible to please.

6. You might be talking too much. Your answers to your interviewer's questions should be direct and to-the-point. Rambling and unnecessary tangents raise doubts about your ability to organize your thoughts and convey needed information quickly. If you're tempted to go on longer than two minutes, instead ask, "Does that give you what you're looking for, or would you like me to go more in depth about this?" If the interviewer wants more, she'll say so.

7. Fit really, really matters, so we think a lot about your personality. You might have all the qualifications an employer is looking for, but still not get hired because your working style would clash with the people with whom you'd be working. Remember, it's not just a question of whether you have the skills to do the job; it's also a question of fit for this particular position, with this particular boss, in this particular culture, and in this particular company.

8. We want you to talk about salary first for the exact reason you fear. Salary conversations are nerve-wracking for job seekers because they know that they risk low-balling themselves by naming a number first. And that's exactly why interviewers push candidates to throw out a number first. In an ideal world, employers would simply let candidates know the range they intend to pay, but in reality, plenty take advantage of the power disparity by making candidates talk about money first.

9. We're going to ask other people what they think of you. We're going to ask anyone who came in contact with you for their impressions--from the receptionist to the guy who you met for two minutes in the hallway.

10. We like thank-you notes, but not for the reason you think. Post-interview thank-you notes aren't just about thanking the interviewer for her time; the ones that are done well build on the conversation and reiterate your enthusiasm for the job.
Alison Green writes the popular Ask a Manager blog, where she dispenses advice on career, job search, and management issues. She's also the co-author of Managing to Change the World: The Nonprofit Manager's Guide to Getting Results, and former chief of staff of a successful nonprofit organization, where she oversaw day-to-day staff management, hiring, firing, and employee development.

Louis Theroux on porn: The decline of an industry

BBC  News 8 Jun 2012

The adult entertainment industry is struggling to compete with free internet alternatives - and porn stars are having to get ever more resourceful, writes Louis Theroux.

On a movie set in an industrial area of Las Vegas, Tommy Gunn, one of America's top porn stars, was describing his ideal woman: "Self-sacrificing and caring and nurturing and wants to have children. Honestly, I'm not going to find her in this business."

In the eight years he's been working in porn, Tommy's done something like 1,200 scenes. Muscular, faintly Latin-looking, with a slight touch of Robert De Niro, he's built a reputation as dependable in an industry where reliability is a man's most highly-prized professional asset.

You can get some idea of the nature of Tommy's films from the titles. Addicted 2 Sin, Call of Booty, Fleshdance.

A few days earlier, at his rented ranch house in the countryside north of Los Angeles, Tommy had showed me the small army of statuettes he'd won for his performances - the porn equivalent of Oscars.

In his garage, amid the collection of motorbikes testifying to his past life as a mechanic, he'd taken down a few of his DVDs from a high shelf.

The adult entertainment industry is struggling to compete with free internet alternatives - and porn stars are having to get ever more resourceful, writes Louis Theroux.

On a movie set in an industrial area of Las Vegas, Tommy Gunn, one of America's top porn stars, was describing his ideal woman: "Self-sacrificing and caring and nurturing and wants to have children. Honestly, I'm not going to find her in this business."

In the eight years he's been working in porn, Tommy's done something like 1,200 scenes. Muscular, faintly Latin-looking, with a slight touch of Robert De Niro, he's built a reputation as dependable in an industry where reliability is a man's most highly-prized professional asset.

You can get some idea of the nature of Tommy's films from the titles. Addicted 2 Sin, Call of Booty, Fleshdance.

A few days earlier, at his rented ranch house in the countryside north of Los Angeles, Tommy had showed me the small army of statuettes he'd won for his performances - the porn equivalent of Oscars.

In his garage, amid the collection of motorbikes testifying to his past life as a mechanic, he'd taken down a few of his DVDs from a high shelf.

One of the top male performers went by the porn name Jon Dough. So prized a performer was he that one of the high-end production companies, Vivid Video, put him on contract to work exclusively for them.

I interviewed him on-set around this time. He was starring in a remake of the adult "classic" Debbie Does Dallas, directed by an ex-performer called Paul Thomas.

Jon Dough killed himself nine years after that conversation, at the age of 43. Most of the industry put it down the pressures of the business and the difficulties of making a living in a market that was saturated with free product. Several people blamed his death on declining DVD sales.

Jon Dough was married to a fellow performer, Monique DeMoan, who is now retired and living 800 miles from Los Angeles. She said her husband killed himself because of drug addictions.

Still, it says something about the industry that so many were ready link the suicide to the plight of DVDs.

The decline of the porn industry is part of a general trend affecting music, print journalism and mainstream movies. The many ways of getting content for free have slashed the profits of the professionals in their respective fields.

But where moviegoers and music fans may feel a loyalty to, say, Pixar or U2, and understand they need to pay for the fruits of their labour, the consumers of porn have less compunction about stealing the product. Many feel it's more moral not to pay for adult content.

Female performers have been resourceful about finding other outlets for their work.

I spent a surreal evening at the home of a top porn performer, Kagney Linn Karter, while she did a live web show in her bedroom. Webcam work is one of the few kinds of content that can't be pirated, since it's live and interactive. While Kagney stripped on her bed in front of her laptop, I hid out in the kitchen with her boyfriend Monte.

Many female performers also work as prostitutes for extra cash. Where a female performer might make $600 to $800 (£388 to £518) for a straight sex scene in a movie, she can get double that - for less work - by "doing a private".

For many performers, the movies are now a sideline and a kind of advertising for their main business of prostitution.

While the wages stagnate, and the jobs dry up, the pressure on the performers continues.

During my visit, Monte expressed his unhappiness about a scene Kagney had just been booked for, involving a sex act so outlandish it can't really be described in a mainstream news forum.

The male performers' options are even more circumscribed. No prostitution for them, no webcam shows, and lower pay.

The top echelons of the profession, people like Tommy Gunn, still get regular work. But he still struggles with a sense of loneliness and the strange combination of stigma and fame that his very peculiar profession brings with it.

After his scene in Las Vegas wrapped, I joined him in his unglamorous motel on an unfashionable stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard.

I complimented him on the solid performance he'd just turned in. I was aware it was a strange thing to say, but I also wanted to acknowledge how much he'd had militating against him - the people, the length of the scene, the apparent lack of interest of his partner.

"That's my job," he said.

For a moment, there seemed something both sad but also oddly heroic in his ability to discharge the strange responsibility he'd taken on.

But for how much longer the job will exist is unclear.