Enhancing Pedagogy In Cambodia (EPIC) I just participated in an education conference in Siem Reap, Cambodia. I was pleasantly surprised by a genuine desire to improve Cambodian education, by government officials, NGOs, and foreign agencies. Notably absent was any input from private schools, as though they were not interested in enhancing education. Why? When I […]
Category: Education/Psychology
TOXIC MASCULINITY IS GENDER DYSPHORIA
What? I’ll bet you never heard anyone make that claim before. But hear me out, as I make my case. My understanding of Gender Dysphoria The basic dilemma is that some people’s physical sex is male, while their mental make-up (gender) is female. Most transgenders will state that they have always been that way; there […]
IT’S NOT RACISM; IT’S RACE HATRED
‘Alligator Auschwitz’, the concentration camp built in the Everglades, really brings out the race hatred in Trump and the MAGA world. Did you see the smiles of jubilation when they described alligators eating 65 million immigrants? While liberals are aghast at the cruelty of the concentration camp, MAGA folks are rubbing their hands in glee. […]
CAMBODIA’S S.T.E.M. PROBLEM
Let’s face it – STEM education in Cambodia is terrible. First, some statistics: Countries the world are ranked by PISA scores of 15-year-olds in math and science. Of 81 countries measured (Africa excluded), the average score is 472, while Cambodia scores 336 in math and 347 in science – in both cases dead last, far […]
MUST A SYMBOL REPRESENT SOMETHING?
Almost all Cambodian homes have a red cloth talisman, called a yantra (or yo-an in Khmer) hanging in their house. It is covered with all sorts of symbols, the most common of which is a squiggly spiral called an ounalome. Yantra with dozens of ounalome spirals The ubiquitous ounalome is a well-known and revered symbol in […]
WHAT IS INTEGRITY?
Sure, we all know what integrity is: honesty, sincerity, morally upright, etc. Merriam-Webster defines it as: firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : incorruptibility. But somehow, I feel there’s more to it than that. This essay is the sort of exercise that Plato engaged in: taking concepts as real things, […]
Ozymandias in Central Asia:
History Repeats Itself Merv — former capital of the world Few people know anything about Turkmenistan, and far fewer have actually gone there. But its former capital of Merv was once the hub of the universe: a major stop on the Silk Road, a center for science and culture (home of Omar Khayyam), and in […]
INTIMATIONS OF MORTALITY
I’m reaching that age when one’s body starts to fall apart. It could happen any day — that first stroke, that first cancer diagnosis. I can’t pretend that it’s not going to happen. I’m so blessed that it hasn’t happened yet. As a result, I am savoring every moment of happiness. My family is a […]
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE ELECTION
For most of the history of mankind, and in many countries today, the leader has usually led a luxurious life of debauchery and corruption, oblivious to the needs of his people. Yes, absolute power corrupts absolutely. But for millennia, the People accepted that system as inevitable, so they accepted the status quo and even loved […]
THE RETURN OF POST-MODERNISM
If truth is beauty, does truth lie in the eyes of the beholder? Around 30 years ago, post-modernism was the darling of the intellectual set. I tried to read the main authors — Derrida, Lyotard, Foucault, Habermas — but found them impossibly pompous and dense. The best I could make out was that their message […]