I have already written about some of the evils of for-profit universities in Cambodia and elsewhere. Today I want to focus on the use (or lack thereof) of English in those universities. First, a little background on Cambodia, and many similar countries. The only requirement for university admission is a pass on the public grade-12 […]
Category: Education/Psychology
AN ‘US-VERSUS-THEM’ GENE?
In a previous post, I looked at my very young sons and saw no signs of racial or class hatred, and I jumped to the Rousseau-ian conclusion that such behavior must be inculcated by society. Not so fast! It is at least conceivable that we are pre-programmed with an ‘us-versus-them’ gene (call it ‘UvT’) that […]
ISRAEL SHOULD TAKE HOSTAGES
What would I do if my son were kidnapped, and the kidnapper demanded a million dollars or I would never see my son again? I would probably beg, borrow, or steal the money to get my son back, without any logical reasoning such as: However, any such logical reasoning goes out the window when it’s […]
THOUGHTS OF A NEW FATHER
A lot of my readers are fathers and will have experienced similar thoughts to mine: the miracle of life, the wonder of witnessing a new human being, etc. So what I’m expressing is probably nothing new, but I feel like expressing it anyway. One of my first thoughts at seeing my newborn son was that […]
PRIVATE EDUCATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Public education in almost all developing countries is under-funded, and therefore of poor quality. One result is that developing countries fall further and further behind developed countries in human capital. Their poorly educated graduates just cannot compete with those from developed countries. Private schools spring up in developing countries in order to meet the demand […]
‘STANDARDS’ and VYGOTSKY’S HIGH-JUMP
I hear so many educators pontificate about ‘maintaining standards’. In developing countries, there is a cry of, “Don’t water-down the curriculum” from the standards of Harvard, Oxford, and other top Western universities. This attitude usually comes from local scholars who have achieved their advanced degrees from top Western universities. When they return to their home […]
ARE MEN SMARTER THAN WOMEN?
This blog is essentially a lesson in Statistics 101 — one that you won’t see in any Statistics textbook. Lesson One in most statistics courses starts with means and medians, while Lesson Two moves on to standard deviations. This blog does almost the same, but starts with a question that many people are asking: “Are […]
AVOIDING THE NATURE-NURTURE MINDSET
Identical twins have different fingerprints. Let that sink in. They have identical genes and DNA, and yet their bodies are different. Fingerprints are therefore not entirely determined by genes. On the other hand, those twins didn’t learn from society to have different fingerprints. Neither a ‘nature’ theory (i.e. genes) nor a ‘nurture’ theory (i.e. learning) can […]
‘INTERNATIONAL’ HIGHER EDUCATION
A friend of mine once told me, “If a school calls itself an International School, it isn’t.” Developing countries around the world have imitated the Western model of higher education. This imitation can go to extremes, such as the graduation procession of the professors in their caps and gowns (even accompanied by Elgar’s “Pomp and […]