Articles
- From Straight Fs to Straight As... [Read...]
- Tips for Composition Writing [Read...]
- 4 Things We Learned From Finding Out Cheryl's Birthday [Read...]
4 Things We Learned From Finding Out Cheryl's Birthday
Recently, a post of a picture on Facebook, featuring a logical thinking question, went viral when it was initially thought to be a Primary 5 mathematics question. It was later revealed that it was a question leaked from Singapore and Asian Schools Math Olympiad, meant for Secondary 3/4.
>>Original photo of the question extracted from straitstimes.com<<
After all these hype and differing views, let us now look at what Singaporean parents and students can learn from this.
1. Have an open heart to learn from experience.
Every question, every test and every examination is a learning experience. It does not just determine how smart or intelligent your child is. We should always take opportunities like these to expose ourselves to different scenarios and learn about it. Open up and learn!
Humans learn from experience. It is part of evolution. Moreover, this is not a question in a major examination. It does not decide on anyone's future. So let's embrace difficulties and take every opportunity to learn.
2. Don't be too caught up by results.
Result is intensely important. However, there is always something to gain from every mark lost. Never get too caught up by exam results. Results are often thought to be a score to judge how well you are doing in a particular area. However, many of us forget that exams present us with another learning opportunity.
This is how we should judge ourselves for an examination (in order of importance):
- How well did we prepare for the examination?
- How well did we perform in the examination? Was it to the best of our ability?
- If we scored 85/100 after being well prepared and performing to the best of our ability, the rest are just things that we can learn from. SO even if there is such a question to find someone's birthday that you can't figure out, look on the bright side of things. You can solve it now!
It is always better to know it now rather than rest in our comfort zone for the rest of our lives, learning nothing.
3. You won't hate Math for this.
Students will only hate Math because they are forced to do it even when they are not ready for it. "You must be able to do this!" "How can you not know this?" - sounds familiar?
As long as students are taught in a proper way and in proper sequence, they will not feel the stress and pressure. They will also not feel lost. In Mathematics, it is very important to teach students in the right sequence at the right time. In this way, students will see learning Math as taking a step forward rather than an insurmountable mountain to conquer.
4. Cheryl is playing hard to get!
This is just one of the jokes that I picked up from a friend which really made me Laugh-Out-Loud.
Above is my advice for parents and students so that students can achieve higher learning value from the education he/she is receiving now.
