Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Electronic Basics

"Human beings," Deci said, have an "inherent tendency to seek out novelty and challenges, to extend and exercise their capacities, to explore, and to learn."

With nothing to do here I decided to take a basic electronics class complementary of my employer at the local community college just across the road from where I live. In fact, my apartment complex used to be a student-only dormitory/apartment, which explains the rather unusual binary setup for four equally claustrophobic bedrooms.

The weekly classes are 3 hours in length and the first three could have been easily combined into a one hour session. The teacher is very calm and thorough. I think it comes with age. But even as well tempered and patient as he is I can see he’s becoming increasingly annoyed by the fact that I’m the only a*hole in class who refuses to use a calculator and so far it has not impaired me from coming up with the right answers. Today he launched into a speech on that fact that our employer paid good money for these calculators so we must make good use out of them! I didn’t have to look around to know who he was talking to. Surly the class and study material are subsidized by our employer and it may seem wasteful for me to not use everything. However, most of us human beings are blessed with a 3 lb calculator in our enormous heads as a result of millions of years of evolution (and not to mention the billions of years it took for our solar system to line up correctly to make earth an inhabitable place!). To underutilize ones brain, to me, would be the biggest atrocity of them all.

Sadly to say, I can be the slowest math student in China and still be above average here. And really, for a while I was one of the slowest math students in class when I was in 2nd grade (as a result of moving to a new school with a different curriculum in Beijing)! One day the teacher told me to go home and copy the multiplication table 100 times as home work. My mom had to go to school the next day to plea for more time for me to catch up. At fist, the teacher completely ignored us and looked at my mom as if she should be ashamed of herself and her daughter! Mom talks about it until this day. Fortunately for everyone, I did catch up quickly on math! Geez, people are all bent out of shape about “tiger mom” here. If only they could see and experience the combined force of a “tiger mom” and a “tiger teacher”!!!

When people talk about literacy they typically mean the ability to read and write. In reality, any one who can't carry out simple arithmetics in his/her head might just as well be illiterate.

And out of respect, I will bring my calculator to class but no guarantees that I will use it...

No comments: