The Moley Prophet

You have to hand it to the Americans to think of this… 

These days,organizations are all on the hype of going electronic. Schools are turning their "year books" digital, corporations are turning their shareholders report digital. These reports are turning from the hard copy books that we used to see, to plastic compact discs. Some are praising them for a job well done - less trees to be cut. But have they ever considered the amount of electronic junk this is going to cause?

Books, can come from recycled paper, can be turned into recycled paper. Compact discs which are made from plastic, comes from crude oil, and then becomes junk, because they are non bio-degradable. How could they have overlooked this obvious fact? Maybe, they did it to save printing costs? That's the only reason I can think of. So, what is then the only way to make these reports and books environmentally friendly? Use the internet.

Corporations should allow shareholders to opt on whether they want to receive the report in hard copy, and to be digital by default. These would eliminate the electronic junk, and at the same time, reduce paper wastage. For schools, a "year book" is meant to be a lasting memory, and keeping it on the internet may not be as lasting as the hard copy. Therefore, I would urge schools to continue have both the digital and hard copy. Never cut the trees for them though, recycling is still the way…

These days the government has been giving out a lot of autonomy to colleges in Singapore. Allowing them to adjust fees on their own and intake numbers. And in response, the colleges raised their fees. However, what we need is to allow educators to have more autonomy in the way they teach their students. For example, teachers should have the ability to plan the methods of teaching.

There are times when a student may be doing very well in a subject, but because of his disabilities in other subjects, he is placed in a class of students who may be week at the subject that he aces as well. This, would be a hindrance to his development.

Also, we encourage our students to be early for school, for lessons, or at least be punctual. However, in Singapore, you would hardly find teachers who do the same for their students. They would either delay the duration of lesson time, or even when they are done for that day, they just wouldn't allow their students to leave early. Part of this is due to school and government regulations, sometimes, inadvertently due to the pressure of parents to blame the school for events leading to the injury of their children. However, this is just another issue we have to look into.

We shouldn't allow the effects of one affect the others. If we do not want the students to waste our time, then, we should not waste the students' time. "Do unto others what you want others to do unto you" 

Less than 4 years has passed since I studied in a Singapore school and you can see the drastic changes that would be the source of tomorrow's blood of our nation. When I returned to school as a relief teacher recently, I noticed a drastic drop in the standard of the students. Not that it was fantastic during my time, but these students, are down-right rebellious.

Starting from the basics, they have all been wired wrongly. I'm not picking on the minor things like improper shoes or socks, earrings or ear sticks, but as a student, as a form of respect to the institution, the teachers, and themselves, they should at least bother to dress properly. I know that students, even before my days, have the habit of having their uniform tucked out. Some were done on purpose, some may not be as it may have dropped out, but it should be their responsibility to keep their appearance in check, and at least clean their clothes if they are dirty.

Then, there's the problem of showing respect to their teachers. I know that there are plenty of teachers out there who let students "climb all over them" and failing to control them properly. Sometimes my students get out of my control as well. During these few months of teaching, I yelled or rather flared at 2 classes because they went out of control. However, there are teachers who in my opinion have no sense of responsibility at all. These teachers are the so called "Saints" in the schools. They let students do whatever they want, copy all the answers they need, and some, if I would put it crudely, flirt with the students in class. Is this what you call a good teacher? A good example? I don't think so.

There were plentiful of times when I rejected students' request for a toilet break, and these were mainly due to several reasons: 1) They request to go for their toilet breaks, every so often. 2) I was instructed to keep them there. 3) Some of these students get out of class for long periods, and when too many of them do that, it is difficult to keep track of who is in class. The final reason is mainly due to the fact that these students are not like college students. They are not able to take care of themselves, and when they get injured or something happens to them while they are in school, their parents blame the school, which in turn blames the teacher. If this were a college class, I would be more than happy to allow them to leave the classroom as and when they feel like it.

Then there are the students, who treat their mother tongue as something which is not important. There was once when I went into a class, second in their grade, for Chinese lesson. And guess what, they ask for me to speak to them in English, because they do not like Chinese. Just today, when I distributed some Chinese assignments, one of them came up to me and told me that Chinese is useless and he doesn't like it. He prefers English. Do they not understand the importance of learning about their own culture? My Chinese has never been good in Secondary school, but I never gave up on the subject. Why? Because I am a Chinese. Nowadays, even the foreigners are learning Chinese, and I'm not saying these because everyone around says so, it is because I've been to a Chinese class in the states and it was filled with foreigners - Koreans, Japanese, and Caucasians. So why should these students give up on Chinese?

In view of this crisis, there are four parties to be blamed: the parents, the educators, the authorities, and the students themselves. The parents for neglecting their students while pursuing their career in the rat race and not instilling the right values in their children. The educators who let students change their teaching career. The authorities who fail to match the right people to the right job, and being so inflexible that the right people have all scooted off. And, the students, who have no respect for themselves.

I know I tend to be strict at times, while trying to control these students. But I believe that I am not ridiculous. What I want is just for them to learn. I have heard of students complaining of a teacher who used harsh words like "idiot" on his students. I've not done that and will not do it. However, these students would have to realize that some teachers are strict for their own good, and I'm not lying. I've heard plentiful of conversations in the staff room of teachers who although appear to be strict in front of their students, complimenting some of them, even the naughtiest ones behind. The real horrible teachers are the ones who teach for the sake of teaching, and be in the class for the sake of their job. As the Chinese saying goes, "上梁不整，下梁歪" which translates to if the upper part of the beam is not straight, the lower part would follow to curve. I only hope that educators would change for the better.

I never thought I would be able to accept ThinkPad's design ever again after Lenovo spoilt it in the previous series of ThinkPad notebooks. But they proved me wrong. The X300, due to be released in about 4 weeks time here is the latest generation of the X-series the ultra-thin ThinkPads.

Known as the "MacBook Air Killer" the design of this notebook is exquisite. At just 1.905CM thick and 1.33kg heavy, it is thinner than 2 of my E61i stacked together and possibly lighter than my portable hard disks. With a Solid State Drive (SSD) having a 64GB capacity, it may seem to be too little for many, but for the executives who are the main target of this piece of art, it is more than enough. For those who do not know what a SSD is, it is a drive without any moving parts unlike traditional hard disks which spins for the drive to read data and has a possibility of being scratched if it spins while the notebook is being moved. Therefore it is quieter, more durable as it would not be scratched, and consumes less power.

To me, some of the most important things about the X300 are the return of the colored stripes on the UltrNav keys as well as the black power button, black volume control and blue ThinkVantage keys. Gone were the Grey buttons which looked so cheap. As a sweet extra, they all have LED lights underneath which lights up nicely(they can be turned off if you don't like them). They must have listened to customer feedbacks to achieve this. The addition of an ultra-thin removable(I believe so) DVD-RW drive is also well thought out as previous X-series has to be docked to use such features. 

The X300 retains the key features which makes ThinkPad an excellent choice for executives. For example, the ThinkLight, the RGB port, Ethernet port, and 3 USB ports. It practically has everything I have on my laptop minus those which I and many hardly use with addition of those we need more (the USB port). I trust they did not remove the essential built in microphone. Essential for those who travels frequently and requires the necessary communication devices on top of E-mails.

The only dislike I have about the X300 is the processor it uses. The Intel Centrino vPro system which runs on a 1.2ghz Core 2 Duo processor is far too slow if there were more things to load. If it could just be 1.6ghz and above it would have been far better. Otherwise, this notebook is a great achievement for Lenovo. Too bad, my Dad just got his X61, and it would be long before he changed a new one, so I can't lay my hands on one to try for now. However, Congrats to the team which brought it to life.

P.S. You can find a review of the X300 in Inside the Box, and a comparison chart with the MacBook Air in the BusinessWeek article.

BusinesWeek - Building the Perfect Laptop

Inside the Box

Design Matters