We see frequently that there are many different kind of people having different abilities in learning, e.g. an animal … sorry, an animal doctor friend of mine, Cheow Kong, has a photographic memory that he can remember all the jargon in biological textbooks and all the names that he comes across, Someone else like BoX HooX (X = a, b,...z) , another friend has (as legend has it) 'phonographic memory' that he can recall all the details of naked ladies he has come across. for my case personally i don't recall names in detail, but i tend to only grasp the major ideas. remembering name's detail can be helpful when dealing with problem solving issues in commercial line or during exam, e.g., u can impress your boss or customers with all the minor details when doing a presentation or brokering a deal. but this does not guarantee u to solve the problem at their hearts. recalling names or minor detail is more related to things that has to be handled with immediate action, e.g. in exam or in face-to-face dealing with customers or bosses. but some people over do it until they think pure memorisation of such kind of naming details are everything, so much so that they miss the point of understanding the whole picture or the core of the problem. so, if u can't recall all the details, u don't need to take it as a major disadvantage. the advantage that one gains by able to memorise all the name and details aren't that great, despite they can be helpful to a certain extent. for many serious problem solving tasks, the ability to think, reason, to make logical manipulation and being creative are far more essential. u call call up the names and minor technical details anytime 'at a click away', anyway. i read an interesting article in newsweek sometimes ago, reporting the complain of an english professor in a book that youngsters these day has nothing in their minds, and they cant spell correctly, or recall some essential names and common knowledge that everyone are supposed to know in say, 20 years ago. however, the writer of that article argued that the english professor has not taken into account the other side of the story properly. the youngsters may has less memorised knowledge in their brain, or spell words correctly, however, they have developed an even more powerful skill that old generation does not possess: the youngsters these day are much more skillful in finding and organise new information that was previously unknown to them with the knowledge in IT they acquire. in this sense the youngster's power is even greater than the old generation. Old generation, while emphasises on gathering knowledge into their brains, the y-generation prefers to keep these knowledge in the net and 'retrieve' them in the event they need them. Can u see the difference btw these two generations' way towards the way of how to handle 'knowledge'? in a way the y-generation way is more powerful than the old generation's bcos the y-generation can retrieve, in principle, infinite amount of info required, whereas old generation relies too much on the knowledge in their heads. the main difference here is the skill to acquired the required knowledge when needed (e.g use spell check tool while typing with computer). in other words, the y-generation trades the accumulation of knowledge with the ability to retrieve these knowledge from external sources (a.k.a. internet/computer). Well, the above argument on the y-generation may apply only in the context of the western societies, since the article i read was in Newsweek. I doubt that the y-generation in our society, particularly our university students, has developed such kind of information search skill apart from online-gaming/frenstering/face-booking/twittering.
Objectively speaking, i would say one must accumulate knowledge as the old generation does, and at the same time master the skill to retrieve information externally. to me 'retrieval' of information yourself is a very essential skill, which many people, primarily the local university students are lacking. e.g. when someone don't know how to build a webpage, he ought to know how to get the right answer by searching the internet or the right references. these is the kind of skill we all have developed along our career. one of the most important soft skill any student shud acquire is how to search info him/herself correctly. most of the time this kind of skill is just a matter of common sense, but to many, such command sense does not even occur to them, thanks to our spoon-feeding education system and over-caring parents.
if i were to have children, i certainly will do the following: To encourage them to read as much as possible. i read the article send to me earlier by the old mathematician friend that in taiwan the education system forces students to go deep into one phrase or one article or a book, making sure that student know all the details of the grammatical structure, the definitions and details of that article. as a result, students' continuation of learning is interrupted often because they have to check dictionary. but the most serious drawback is the student not having enough time to read more. Whereas, in western countries, students are encouraged to read widely and wildly. the emphasis in the west is not to know a book or an article in depth for exam purpose, but to read as broadly as possibly, and in due course, the students somehow can organise themselves the usage of words and language. i must say i totally agree with this approach. well, that is in taiwan and in the west. in malaysia, i dont think students are encouraged to read, but instead are encouraged NOT TO READ by loading them with exams and homework. During my time in Chung Ling High School, Penang, we are supposed to read a book in a month or per semester (or something like that). but no one cared. students end up not reading, and the school end up not caring whether u read or not. the reading project are just kept as a 'showcase' but never imposed efficiently. i dont think the system has changed much now. here in the netherland i hear Christ, a graduate student in TU Delft, told me that in high school students are suppose to read a book per month or twice a week, and such a reading is a must for the students in high school. in taiwan at least they still make a student to read a book per semester. but in malaysia ...? the school teachers may tell u that formally the school encourage reading and has lots of showcase proof that such encouragement is being enforced. but in practice i really doubt this to be the case.
i recall that when i was around 8 or 9 years old i started reading, and all the details of the all the books i read went into my mind. i can even recall the first and the last chinese character of the book i read 《绿野仙踪》. that shows a child's mind is very powerful. i owe much of my later academic development to reading. i started reading only when i was 8 or 9 years old. children these days are a lot more blessed, as their parents like a loong and wal leong feed their children with book since age of 2 or 3. i recall my mom used to scold me for bringing back/buying books, as these '输' (book, as pronounced in cantonese has the same pronunciation as the word 'lost' in cantonese ) has bad connotation and they collect dusk in our ill-condition living space. and since my family was not financially not wealthy then, spending money on books were considered 'luxurious', hence not encouraged by my mom and grandmom. but fortunately my dad is a wise person, and gave me the money to buy books. i thank him greatly for his generosity and wisdom despite that we were not rich then.
So, let your children read, and deprive them of the opportunity to play video games or watch TV. people thing watching tv makes children to learn, and video gaming train their reaction. i personally do not agree. if the children dont watch tv, they will get engaged in other interactive activities, from which they learn more. the learning outcome would be particularly good if parents spend time teaching them. since we were poor, we dont have tv when i was a kid, nor is the tv program appealing when we bought it later when i was 8 years old. so i did something else at the spare time, and learned to be creative. allowing tv program to teach children language or knowledge is much inferior than what the children can learn by engaging in other interactive activity. people who make use of tv/video game as a major tool to educate their children are those ppl who are lacking of wisdom, or themselves don't have the correct knowledge of how learning could happen. these parents are people who are superstitious in 'high tech' stuff, having no understanding of the long term impact of tv and electronic gaming on their children.
if i were to have children, the most important thing i would want my children to learn would be language and expression power. in fact i would also make encouraging creativity as a major emphasis as well. i would not emphasis on 'what-is-the-capitol-of-Peru' kind of 'by fact knowledge', math or computer skills that they could pick up themselves in school when their times come. i would also emphasis to develop their love to learn and to read. our education system actually makes our children to hate reading and learning. in the west what i see is that all adults love reading, and love learning. in our society, our children generally know much more than their peers in the west, bcos our children must learn hard due to the pressure imposed by the system. once they graduated and no more subcum to the system, no one reads anymore. i would say > 90% of my students in the university do not read other than text book/soft magazine/news paper (prove me wrong and I will be absolutely pleased).
i bet u really don't want your children to be like those students of mine who hate reading and learning. but if u dont take any proper action to educate them correctly, the trends of our society and education system are going to make them to 'flow along the natural course' to become a hate-to-learn person.
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