Teach children critical thinking skills

I was embarrassed reading this article in thenewpaper on 6 May by a Lia Testa Teismann, head of secondary courses at the British Council. What she talked about, teaching our young critical thinking to know what is fake news and misinformation is all common sense. When our daft Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act(POFMA), oops, I mean draft, was read in Parliament, it was such a disappointment that no one dare to tell the minister how nonsensical is this bill. It was equally disappointing that none of our thinkers, scholars, academics, educationists spoke up in the same vein to debunk the myth concocted by the authority about fake news.
 
Maybe they all agree that we should bring up our children in a cocoon or bubble, screened and protected from all the fake news, no need to tell them the truth, no need to teach them to tell the difference from fake news, misinformation and the truth, just keep them away from each other. This is how irresponsible our thinking community or academics are on this matter. Life is not simply black and white and Singaporeans, including children and adults need to face them squarely in their lives.
 
If we don’t teach out young to think, how could they fend for themselves when they are brought up in an environment without fake news and misinformation? The hard truth is that the authority everywhere is the biggest manufacturer of fake news and misinformation. Look at how our history books were written by the West, the colonialists. Till today, practically every adult is still spouting the nonsense, the misinformation that Singapore was founded by Stamford Raffles. What kind of bull is this? When are we going to rewrite our history correctly to remove this fake information, that Raffles did not found Singapore? Singapore and the people of Singapore existed way before even Raffles was born.
 
The fault of educating our young lies in our adults, and sad to say many of our adults could not think, could not differentiate between truth and fake news or misinformation or propaganda of the state. When questioned about the threat of China, Mahathir told the journalists off pointedly. Where is the threat from China? Malaya/Malaysia was having good relations with China for thousands of years before the Europeans came, and the Chinese did not conquer or colonise them. But when the Europeans came, within two days, they conquered and colonized Malaya and ruled for nearly 200 years. Same as all the Asian and SE Asian countries, all suffered the same fate, conquered and ruled by the Europeans, not by China.
 
But if you ask any silly Asian, especially the bananas, they would respond like robots, to tell you how they fear China, an expansionist and aggressive country, wanting to conquer and rule the world. Who have done that and who is ruling the world? These unthinking adults did not know that they have been planted with misinformation by the West for their entire life, reading western propaganda and white lies as the truth, as history.
 
Did our govt and leaders know the difference? Who needs critical thinking skills, the adults or children or the people supposedly wise enough to implement the new ‘akan datang’ law to be obeyed without thinking?
To teach critical thinking, we need to rewrite our history books and learn a new history of our little island and the whole of Asia and the world from our own perspectives as victims of the marauding West. Do the adults understand the meaning of American Exceptionalism, Doctrine of Christian Discovery, or things like lobbying when lobbying is actually corruption and bribery at the highest level in American politics said differently? The West used different words to disguise their evilness and wickedness but used crude words to smear the rest of the world, regime change is invasion of a country. Period. Rule of law is law that you must obey, not the Americans or the West, their law for you to live by.
 
If we gag a nation of people, what kind of people will they become? Sanitized like kindergarten children, reading only fairy tales and believing in fairy tales?

Boeing 737 Max could still be flying

The deadly Boeing 737 Max could still be flying if the users stupidly listened to the American FAA. After pushing out the unsafe anti stalling software system as safe, and not owning up that it was the cause of the Indonesian Lion Air crash, it was still adamant that the aircraft was safe after the second crash of the Ethiopian Airline. It took another aviation agency, China Aviation Authority, to declare the aircraft unsafe and grounded all Boeing 7373 Max in China that the rest of the world realised something was seriously wrong. Despite of this, American FAA still refused to ground the Boeing 737 Max and was very unhappy that China did so.

Today, after some preliminary investigation, Boeing's CEO has officially admitted that the two crashes ending with more than 300 passengers and crew dead were due to the flawed software. Airline operators and passengers should be grateful to China's CAA for upsetting the Americans by calling for the grounding of these aircraft. If not, how many more crashes could have happened, how many more people would die flying the 737 Max?

Some responsible Americans are calling for independent checks and certifications of airworthiness of commercial aircraft. It is unacceptable for the aircraft manufacturers to self check and certify their own aircraft.  The American FAA is still in a state of denial, that there would need tens of thousands of men to do the checking and the cost would be prohibitive. So, back to square one with Boeing conducting their own checks and certifications?

Why don't the American FAA said it would take 1000 man years to do job if they are supposed to do it, then it would be more real and difficult to be landed with this responsibility and continue to do as per normal?

How reliable and trustworthy is the American FAA? Are they blinded by their American interest to allow this fiasco to continue because it involved American aircraft manufacturers? Is this another sign of the decline of the American Empire, the downing of Boeing? With so many aircraft grounded, so many orders cancelled, so many lawsuits and claims waiting in a long queue outside the American courts, does Boeing have enough money to pay or waiting to be saved by the American govt and taxpayers' money? Would Boeing be filing for bankruptcy?

Our SMTFA team at the Singapore Masters 2019

We started on a hot Sat morning and were perspiring like hell. The late showing up of our captain, Jason Wong, added to the tension as events were starting and all our number bibs were with him. No bib no race! This was unusual as captain was always the earliest to turn up, this time he was picking up a few runners, so cannot blame him. Karen was sweating away as her 5000m event was ticking away. I think she did get her number bib in time for the race.

We swiped all the 4 x 100m relays except for one when our best, the 45-49 men team raced against world masters champion Japan. We were leading by 15m at least in the last leg but their last runner, claimed to have broke the 10s mark caught up to beat Takayuki, our Japanese runner by a nose.

There were several other photo finished races. I lost my silver in the 60m dash to Salam whose nose was a big longer. He clocked 9.53s and mine was 9.54s. The gold went to Tang Weng Fei, ex national hurdler clocking 9.13s.

Charles Ang also lost his 200m silver by a whisker. He blamed it on the fact that he could have won if only he had put on a bra.

We had the cheap thrill of beating a 65 year old ex Olympian from India who participated in the Moscow Olympic and has a PB of 10.5s for the 100m. Myself and my team mate, Salam, both 69 going 70, out ran him in the 60m dash. Nice feeling.

We are still counting the medal tally and tomorrow is another day of excitement. The weather after lunch was much cooler, saved by a short downpour. And yes, lightning warning came on and the events were halted for an hour.

Fatimah Lateef was the Guest of Honour and gave a short speech about how great it was to run in the masters and all the politically correct words, about how good it was to be healthy and still able to run around in the stadium instead of being bedridden and sickness ridden. It is no joke and quite amazing to see so many seniors running around happily like children in the expanse of the stadium. Do not squander away your health, take good care of it, or you would be paying heavily trying to get it back in vain.

Big question, when would the govt give due recognition to the masters athletes for keeping themselves fit and running for the glory of the country? More than 10 countries took part in this Meet, Taiwan, Hongkong, Japan, India, Sri Lankan, Philippines, Brunei, Poland, Australia, Malaysia and Indonesia were all here.

Today is the final day and I will be running in the 100m this afternoon.

Singapore/SEA Masters Meet at Gombak Stadium on Sat/Sun

Hi,

I will be running in this meet tomorrow at Gombak, 9am for 60m dash and 3pm for 4x100m relay. Sunday I will be running in the 100m dash at 2pm.

I will be at Gombak for the whole Sat so unable to post. Will post again in the evening or on Sunday.

Cheers.

Protecting children from fake news - end results

This problem of fake news if not stopped in its path would snowball into crisis proportion given the kiasu, kiasi and kia chenghu mentality of parents. Children are most vulnerable to fake news though our daft sinkie adults are not spare either. The combination of daft sinkie adults as parents and the need to protect their equally daft children would like lead to many measures being taken to keep the children safe and sound.

The best way to insulate the children from fake news trauma is to keep them inside a bubble, carefully guarded by the parents. The how to do this is purely technical. Where can the fake news come from other than by words of mouth? TV, media, internet particularly google, blogs, facebook, emails and of course mobile phones like twitters and sms.

Daft parents are likely to keep their children away from these sources of fake news. The children would likely be carefully guided,guarded, restricted only to programmes that the parents approved, and all the mobile devices and laptops would be confiscated and only permitted to use under the watchful eyes of the adults. Properly implemented, the children would be very safe, reading only school textbooks and approved material by the parents, no TV, no radio, limited access to the internet and mobile devices.

The children will grow up like living in safe heavens, singing hymns and citing poetry, unaware of all the evils of fake news in the world, very safe and very sound. It is like children kept inside a bubble free from bacteria and viruses. No need immunization, very healthy as long as they are inside the bubble.

These children will grow up in their own sanitized world of purity, innocence and honesty, no fake news or unsavoury things to distract them from their way of life. The presence of wildlife will not be their problem. They would believe the wildlife would be just as goody goody as them. Everything they see and touch would be real and the truth, no lying, no cheating, no bluffing, no fakes.

Below is a picture of the 4 monkeys to represent our sanitized children of the future, free from fake news. They would not know there is such thing called fake news. I would not know how they would take it when faced with fake news.

Pic copied from Wikipedia.