Tag: education

Race and the Importance of a Quick Start

Posted on by andrew

Taylor Caldarino (she/her/hers), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

 

Have you ever wondered what age is best to start a conversation with your kids about racism? It can require creativity to come up with a way to explain this topic that is age-appropriate and ensures your child grasps what you are saying, but discussing racism from an early age helps give your child the tools necessary to prevent forming certain ideologies.

 

I believe parents should start conversations with their children about race starting around one year of age, but of course, making it extremely basic. This is because starting as early as three months old, babies start to show preferences for people that look like them. This makes it more likely that children will develop friendships that are homogenous, even if the child is growing up in an ethnically diverse area. Developing friendships outside of one’s race may help them to experience more cultures, which can lead to less ignorance or a better understanding of which ways racism affects people who experience it. 

 

Children are highly malleable, they pick up what the media and their peers say very quickly, and they believe it. This means that, since some races are portrayed in negative ways and white people are portrayed as superior, children form ideologies that the colour of your skin determines whether or not you are beautiful, a good or bad person, or smart or unintelligent. This is shown in Mamie Phipps Clark’s famous doll test study, in which kids are shown a white and a black doll and the majority of the kids applied positive attributes to the white dolls while associating negative attributes to the black dolls. I highly recommend watching this video on the doll test, it is quite eye-opening.

 

It can be hard to come up with ways to make a discussion age-appropriate or comprehensive for little ones, but there are plenty of great books and shows available that do very well when it comes to explaining how to treat others from different races. 

 

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My name is Taylor, and I am currently majoring in psychology and minoring in gerontology at Simon Fraser University. I also love to hike and cook!

Can’ts in a Box

Posted on by andrew

Shirin Malek (she/her/hers), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

 

In an educational setting it is vital to give children love, positive reinforcement and support in any way that gives them confidence.

 

I remember when I was seven years old and I told my teacher that I couldn’t do math properly, and that it was really challenging for me. Later the same day she gave me a sparkly pink box and told me to write down all the things I didn’t think I could do.

 

She said, “I want you to put all of your ‘can’ts’ in this box.” 

 

I did the assignment, but during the entire time I was confused. After class, she took me outside and asked me to bury the box. She looked at me and smiled, and told me that every time I tell myself I can’t do something I should picture that thought in a box in my mind and bury it. Instead of worrying about what I felt I couldn’t do, she wanted me to focus on all of the things I could do and write each of those things down in a notebook. Now, as a twenty-four-year-old, I can look back at that particular moment and see how helpful that lesson was.

 

A year later, I found out why I felt like I couldn’t do math. I was diagnosed with some learning disabilities. Learning disabilities are neurological disorders which “affect the way a person processes information and thus how they learn information. Simply put, their brains are wired differently.”

 

Although there are so many individuals in the world who have learning disabilities, the diagnoses seem to cause misconceptions. Rather than focusing on the evidence that learning specialists have gathered, I feel as though there are still some myths that persist. Let’s debunk those, shall we?

 

1.)   If someone has a learning disability, they are unintelligent.

 

First of all, you are not unintelligent if you have a learning disability. Actually, individuals who have learning disabilities have average or higher intelligence. Having a learning disability does not reflect your level of intelligence. In reality, it only means you learn differently than other people.

 

If you think about it, it can be beautiful to see how your own brain works and processes things in different ways. You have a new perspective on how you approach different subjects, and finding which learning styles work for you is a key component of the experience.

 

2.)   Someone with a learning disability is lazy, or they can’t learn.

 

There are so many other talents that someone can possess, especially outside of a classroom. I feel like learning disabilities can be looked at as an excuse for laziness or an unwillingness to learn. Reality couldn’t be farther from that statement. Given the right encouragement and learning skills, a student with a learning disability can thrive and make good progress.

 

I also think it’s important to get to know what learning style works best for you! When I was in high school, I learned about the VARK model. Essentially, it divides students into four types of learners: visual, auditory, reading/writing and kinesthetic.

 

1.) Visual

 

Visual learners prefer to take in information through a visual medium. This could be in charts, graphs or images.

 

2.)  Auditory

 

Auditory learners learn better from auditory forms. Saying things out loud and being able to hear instructions and information seems to help them organize their thoughts and understand the concepts at hand.

 

3.)  Reading/Writing

 

By reading and writing, these learners find their learning style through words. Text is powerful and creates a clear picture in their minds of the subject matter at hand.

 

4.)  Kinesthetic

 

Kinesthetic Learners enjoy a hands-on experience; by touching and engaging their bodies in their work, they are forming a deep connection to the subject matter that they are working with and are learning at a deeper level.

 

Figuring out your learning style is of utmost importance. Learning new skills like time management, organization and more can only strengthen the educational experience!

 

Personally, I try to remember what my teacher told me; I put all my can’ts in that pink box, and I try my best to focus on my abilities. Living with learning disabilities doesn’t have to be a hindrance. These experiences can leave students enriched and more in touch with how they learn and how their brains work. With the right tools, encouragement and guidance, a student with learning disabilities will learn in ways that leave them personally and academically as enriched as their other classmates.

 

Instead of focusing on your disabilities, always remember your abilities. You will surprise yourself with what you are capable of.

 

Sources Used

 

https://bau.edu/News/types-of-learning-styles/

 

https://www.foothillsacademy.org/community-services/parent-education/parent-articles/ld-educators-need-to-know

 

https://www.helpguide.org/articles/autism-learning-disabilities/learning-disabilities-and-disorders.htm

 

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Leave your thoughts for Shirin in the comments below – better yet, start up a dialogue with the Low Entropy community in person, at a Conscious Connections meeting or online at our community site. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube to stay up-to-date with Low Entropy news!

Educational Value

Posted on by andrew

Grace Cheng (she/her/hers), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

 

The first thing that comes to my mind when I think about education is knowledge. Education can be a powerful tool that gives us knowledge, skills, information and techniques that can expand our vision and outlook on life. Furthermore, education can help us to fight injustice, violence, corruption and other issues in our society.

 

Education provides us with knowledge of what is going on in our world. When we have education, we can develop the ability to think clearly, apply knowledge to the world and make complex moral determinations. It can give us a different perspective on the lookout of life. Therefore, education can play an important element in the evolution of our nation. Education should not be limited to books, but can be gained through life experience. There should be no end to continued education because at every stage of our lives we should be learning something new.

 

Without education, we would not be able to come up with and explore new ideas, which means we would not be able to develop our world, because without ideas, there would not be any creativity and no development of society. 

 

Education has intellectual value as well as economic value.  Since education promotes imagination, creativity and knowledge, it provides us with opportunities to get high-paying jobs. Education plays an important role in our modern and industrialized world. Because we live in a competitive world, we may need to have a good education to seek employment to make a comfortable living. Many modern conveniences were developed by people with significant knowledge of the world around them, which helped them to apply better solutions to problems.

 

The following are some of the benefits of having an education:

 

  1. A More Comfortable and Stable Life 

 

To earn a better living and live a more comfortable life, we can look to the value of education. Increased education often correlates with reduced poverty. When we can get better jobs, we are then able to meet our needs and raise our families.  If you want to have a happier and more stable life and be able to enjoy some of the good things that the world offers, education can help.

 

  1. The Ability to Read and Write

 

Since much important information is communicated in writing, we need to have the ability to read and write. Without basic education, we would not be able to read newspapers, signs, letters and books. We would depend on others to help us with our daily activities, such as banking and shopping, if we had low literacy.

 

  1. Better Communication Skills 

 

Education can help us to improve our communication skills, such as our speech, vocabulary, tone and body language. When we are more educated, we may feel more confident with public speaking.

 

  1. Increased Independence

 

Having an education can help you to become more financially independent. It can also give us the information we need to help us make wiser decisions in general. Being able to navigate life efficiently can reduce our reliance on others.

 

  1. Increased Confidence

 

Having a higher education can manifest in the way you communicate, and people may take your words more seriously. This may give you more confidence in expressing yourself and your opinions.

 

  1. Character Building

 

Education can help develop us into more mature people, with the ability to plan and make positive life decisions. It can also provide us with insights into living and teach us to learn from our life experiences. Education can make us more confident and increase our ability to think, analyze and judge. People can apply more ideas in developing their moral values and standards when they have more education, and, therefore, become more thoughtfully conscientious human beings.

 

  1. Understanding Life Responsibilities

 

With more information about the mechanisms of the world around them, educated people may have more awareness of their personal and social responsibilities. Having a higher education can teach people to think beyond their immediate interests and give them the ability to contribute to longer-term societal projects.

 

  1. Women’s Empowerment

 

When women are more educated, they can raise their voices against injustice. Women with education can make better decisions and are more likely to take charge of their lives.  Educated women can use the right to freedom of speech and expression in more complex ways. Education may be fundamental for women to achieve equality.

 

Are you convinced about the importance of having an education after reading the benefits I have listed above?

 

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Grace has an accounting and finance background. She enjoys reading, writing, listening to music, watching movies and playing sports.

Off the College Track

Posted on by andrew

Low Entropy Volunteer Writer Sejin Ahn offers a glimpse of the South Korean high school system, and argues for a more flexible approach in our attempts to maximize the potential of young minds.

 

As a Korean who spent 18 years in South Korea, I often saw students having hard times in high school. Being unable to adapt to life in high school often leads many young, beautiful souls to the edge of a cliff. Why does this happen? How can we solve this problem?

 

Every country across the world has its own educational system, and they all place value in different areas. South Korea’s educational system tends to focus too much on academic performance, leaving anything else they should learn at that age behind.

 

A high school is a place that is supposed to provide students with various opportunities to explore themselves. They deserve to learn how to socialize with others and experience many things. But unfortunately, in South Korea, the percentage of students who are admitted to colleges is considered the highest priority. Going to a university is treated as the first gate to winning at life. Otherwise, you will be a loser who failed to pass this basic level of achievement. Due to this social atmosphere, most Korean students feel enormous pressure, increasing undesirable and unhealthy competition between them. This increased competition fails to support students in widening their horizons and gaining new perspectives.

 

I remember when I was a high school student, I got career counseling with teachers. Most high schools in South Korea do this in the name of helping students find out what they are interested in and support their careers. However, all they talked about during the counseling was going to a university. If students said they wanted to have other experiences instead of going to a university, teachers kept pressuring them until they changed their minds.

 

I was no exception. I was a student who had interests in various fields, including photography, writing, composition, etc. The common ground among them was that they were not profitable fields. So when I talked about my dreams and asked teachers for their advice on what I should do, what they said was, “Okay, you can take a photo, write a novel and compose a song, but leave them just as your hobby.”

 

This harsh reality led to some hard times for me. I was confused due to conflicts between what I was interested in and what high school taught. One question came up in my head was, “What should I live for?”

 

Even students who wish to go to college to study a specific field are often not taught by high schools how to shape their future and avoid losing interest and passion. One of my high school friends wanted to declare a major in history at a college, but she was treated like a student who was ignorant of reality by teachers because, compared to other fields, what she wanted to pursue was an area that was not widely recognized by the public and not an easy one in which to make money. Individuals’ strengths, desires, dreams and aspirations always come second.

 

Time spent at high school is critical because it is often when people start forming their self-identities and preparing to step forward to the broader world as a grown member of society. In this sense, the absence of diverse options makes many people confused about who they really are and the direction they should be heading.

 

Not every student can be treated the same way. Not having excellent academic performance does not mean you are a problematic person. Not going to college does not mean you are a loser. Choosing your passion and interests does not mean your life is going to be miserable. High school is just the beginning of your life, which consists of thousands of chapters you can fill in by yourself. As institutions that take care of teens standing just right in front of the door to the world, high schools need to let students know that there are various ways of living a life, rather than showing only limited options.

 

If you’re in high school, what are your hopes and dreams? And if you’re not, what kind of advice would you give your high school self? Let us know in the comments below, or on any of our social media channels!

To Shanghai, With Love

Posted on by vwideski

Born in the bustle of a densely packed, hyper-competitive metropolis, Low Entropy Volunteer Writer Tim Ling takes us back to a childhood spent meeting the onerous demands of an exacting academic system – not only giving us a taste of what it was like, but showing how crucial and enduring friendships were forged in its crucible.

Before coming to Canada, I lived in Shanghai. It was the place where I grew from a baby crying in my mother’s arms to a 15-year-old young man. Shanghai was the city upon which I built each piece of my understanding of the world, this city that I had never left before. Until I left, I never realized that I could love a place so much.

Shanghai is a city with 27 million people. That’s like stuffing the whole population of Canada on Vancouver Island. In Shanghai, there’s never a lack of human resources. 

Then again, having a large population comes with challenges. Competition was created, far more intense than what we have in Canada. One can be doing their job one day and be fired for no reason the next, just because there are so many people waiting to take their  position. Workers often lack any sense of belonging in their companies, because there are likely any number of other companies willing to offer a better salary. 

People don’t stay in one position for long – usually no more than a couple of years, in fact. You either get promoted, switch to a better company, or get kicked out. This is one reason why we call Shanghai the City of Opportunities. With people switching positions all the time, there’s always a chance that you find a better place. 

The story I’m going to share today isn’t going to focus on the competition of Shanghai, but it’s going to be based on that. 

As a kid I didn’t know how fierce the world was outside. We were like blank paper, waiting for the stories of our lives to be written. I spent the nine years from Grade 1 to Grade 9 learning concepts that made me who I am today.

When I was in school, students formed very close relationships. We were under a system that is quite different to the Canadian educational system. The sense of intense competition was present in schools from the moment you walked in. I still remember arriving in Grade 9 every day at 6:30 in the morning, studying for 12 continuous hours doing test papers and practice problems, and not leaving the classroom until 6:30 in the evening. 

What we learnt was way more difficult than what is taught in Canada too. I was doing the equivalent of Grade 12 math in Grade 9. However, I didn’t feel stressed out then. I’d even say it felt pretty easy. Maybe it’s that I got used to it, but more likely, I believe that socializing with people around me helped me overcome that stress. 

We were all students who bore too much at that young age. So, like patients in the same hospital ward, we felt very close to each other. After all, they were the only ones to accompany you while you did your 12-hour test sheets. We could always talk to each other and discuss problems. We’d even eat and nap together. We felt like one whole. 

When we face difficulties, we won’t just stress out. We don’t even need to use words. I just turn my head around. I look at you. You are doing the same stuff I am doing. You are facing the same difficulty I am facing. You turn around and face me. We look into each other’s eyes and we smile. We are in this together. 

There is this emotion built among us, like brothers and sisters, that made us lifelong friends. School is like a second home, where those classmates who have been through the hard times with you are your family members. 

It was with those friends, who acted as an analgesic drug every time I fell, that I overcame this period of time.

Pretty strange for a Grade 9 like me to have built those kinds of relationships at the time, right? I felt surprised by it even then. I was full of resentment for the educational system we had, and thought, given a chance, I would never come back again. 

Looking back, I realize that that system actually worked. When I later flipped open a Canadian Grade 10 textbook, only to find  that I had already learnt everything in it in Grade 6, I was surprised, and joyful. 

What’s more is that I now have a group of friends forged from deep, shared experiences. I would never have such friends if it weren’t for the nine years of education I got in Shanghai. 

Shanghai was the place where my stories began. It is where I put hard effort into my studies and built my most important friendships. It is where I gained my most important understandings, and learnt how to socialize. 

I fell in love with Shanghai, without noticing.

When was the last time you fell in love with a city or a culture? What was it that captured your heart? Get us dreaming about faraway lands and special places in the comments or at a Low Entropy meeting.