Lions Club misbehaviour - a temporary post

This is a temporary post here on what is happening in a Lions club in Kota kinabalu. 

It is part of education. 

Comments by a Facebook friend

Dwayne Min Johnson

You really hate Lions Club. You attack a club and claim it was a crime ….to me, this is an attack.

It must be related to the April election...Hopefully, you can achieve your goals by then.

Luqman Michel my question is still the same….What’s your motive behind it, but when I saw your posting on the Mandarin version ..I guess I know why and who is behind all this…..you can tell the whole world how righteous you can be, but people with a clear view will know what your motive is…good luck to you.

Complexities & misconceptions

Below is an article on LinkedIn I have copied followed by my thoughts.

We are quick to judge and blame because it takes time to get to the root of the problem.

We also like to see the complex picture of things when it can be simple right in front of our eyes!

That makes me wonder why we always try to complicate.

John Corcoran’s post on LinkedIn (Part 2)

 

John Corcoran’s website says the following which appears to be a copy-paste effort.

His website:

While a small subset of children can learn to read no matter how they are taught, a majority of students require explicit instruction to learn how to decode and encode the written language, skills that the human brain is not naturally wired to do.

John Corcoran’s post on LinkedIn

 

Here is a post on LinkedIn by John Corcoran and my comments.

This guy couldn't read and yet was teaching high school for 17 years. 

John Corcoran CEO of John Corcoran Foundation Inc. and Education Management

I grew up in the dark shadow of illiteracy. I often think about what my life could have been like if I had learned to read at age 8, instead of age 48.

Today, over 60% of children in the U.S. are not reading at grade level. That is around 44 million children who will never maximize their fullest potential, no matter how smart or clever they may be, unless they learn to read.

We cannot leave them behind.

Our mission is to facilitate the prevention and eradication of illiteracy in adults and children. We call on others to join the mission.

"People for whom English is a second language will understand this better". I understand and empathize with them too, I think of my oral language as my first language and the written language as my second language. The written is the dominant language for success in the school house and in the workplace. Learning how to read and write is a blessing and dream come true for me. John

Dr. Richard Selznick advice to parents - Trust your gut

 

Here is another post by Dr. Richard Selznick that I have copied in full. LINK

Don't Wait for the School's Blessings: Trust Your Gut 

Anxiety over a child’s school-based problems can start very early.

After reading The Shut-Down Learner, a mom contacted me. “My son’s drowning in in school. Do you think he could be a shut-down learner,” she asked.

After asking a few more questions, I was struck by the fact that the child in question was only six in the beginning of first grade.

以下是来自《第六声》(Sixth Tone)的摘录和我的想法 (Unlocking the Potential of China's Dyslexic Students - Part 2)

 

以下是来自《第六声》(Sixth Tone)的摘录和我的想法。LINK

 

《第六声》：

 

如何在中国学校中阅读障碍依然隐形

 

在中国，承认这种学习障碍的需求迫在眉睫：根据中国科学院2016年发布的研究，估计有11%的小学生患有阅读障碍，总计约有1000万儿童。尽管这个数字惊人，但在中国大陆，对阅读障碍学生的理解几乎为零，支持也微乎其微——位于南方科技中心深圳的维宁中心是为这一事业而设立的少数组织之一。阅读障碍在许多西方国家是众所周知且经过充分研究的，但在中国大陆对这一障碍的认识仍然很低；没有支持，受影响的学生无法在学校中竞争，扼杀了他们未来的潜力。

 

小谷无法理解为什么他在同龄人轻松掌握的事情上如此挣扎。他对学校作业的厌恶与日俱增。最终，他完全放弃了努力，提交了空白的考试卷，尽管他本可以回答其中的一些问题。

我的想法：

释放中国诵读困难学生的潜力（第一部分）

 Translation of:

Unlocking the Potential of China's Dyslexic Students (Part 1) (LINK)

全球时报 (Global Times)

 

自2010年以来，中国学校开展了一项提高儿童读写能力的运动，因为教育工作者警告说，年轻人由于广泛使用电子设备，越来越难以阅读和书写中文。

 

我的想法：

我给中国驻马来西亚大使馆和领事馆的电子邮件 (Email to Chinese consulate translated)

 

这是我的博客文章翻译成普通话。

希望某些地方的中国人能够考虑减少学习拼音和英语的学生的文盲率。

主题： 我致马来西亚 Kota Kinabalu 中国领事馆的邮件

我想知道为什么中国人如此保密，不愿意给我一个预约，让我投诉中国公民通过Facebook和YouTube渗透到我的国家并腐蚀这里的中文教育。

 

这是否是某些党派试图破坏马来西亚中文教育的阴谋？

Deepseek – Much hype about nothing

                                                                

Read my post ‘Talking with a machine’ which is related.

AI cannot answer questions that are not available on social media. Since no one has said that most dyslexics are shut down /disengaged kids because of confusion due to the wrong teaching of sounds of consonants AI can’t come up with an answer. This is acceptable because AI can’t think.

However, Deepseek avoids answering questions about topics commonly censored by the Chinese government. This is understandable. 

Talking with a machine

 

The field of AI research was founded at a workshop held on the campus of Dartmouth College in 1956. Attendees of the workshop became the leaders of AI research for decades. Many of them predicted that machines as intelligent as humans would exist within a generation.

I would have never imagined talking for hours with a machine but that is what I did yesterday. This was encouraged by my friend, Master Calligrapher Huang Poh Lo.

After speaking for hours I decided to upload the article by Tanveen Hassan and the following is what AI told me.

My blog views in December 2024 and January 2025

 

                                  75% of total views in January is from the US.

For a better view, click on the two images on this page.

From October to November, there were no less than 2,000 views per day from China. This was surprising as the Chinese from Mainland China don’t have access to overseas blogs. Before that, I hardly had any views from China. This could be because of my several posts on Pinyin taught wrongly in China. You may read one of several of my posts here. LINK.

Since November 2024 I started tweeting incessantly in response to Tweets by Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk. 

Venting My Spleen (Once Again) by Dr. Richard Selznick

I have copied below the whole article from Dr. Richard Selznick’s post, dated 30.1.2025 LINK

 

Those of you following this blog for some time know there are some recurring themes in these posts.  Frequently, the blogs are my outlet for getting things off my chest that frequently come up in my interactions with parents.

 

If you’re a relative newcomer, I will help to bring you up to speed with some of the predominant ones:

The sound of progress by Tanveen Hassan

 

The Sound of Progress : A Personal Tale of Teaching Proper Pronunciation of Letter Sounds – Phonics (Tanveen Hassan)

Learning Disability Interventionist, CEO Beacon of Horizon 

 

Reading the following article in LinkedIn, first thing in the morning, has made my day.

 

"When Grade 5 Sasha reads words like cat, map, and slip, it seems typical for an educator working with children who face learning challenges. But when Sasha confidently reads words like bump, grabs, and fists, without hesitation, it stops me in my tracks. That’s where I clearly see the power of phonics in action.

Many children I work with have been exposed to English from a young age, and their struggles with blending sounds seem par for the course. Often, it's about unlearning wrong strategies  and relearning the fundamentals. But Sasha’s (pseudonym) journey has opened my eyes to something deeper: the transformative impact of teaching proper phonetic pronunciation, especially when we focus on removing those pesky ‘extraneous sounds." (Tanveen Hassan)

Read more on LinkedIn. LINK

Facts and reason may not be enough to shift firmly held views

                                                                   

In 2010, I approached the dean of the University Malaysia Sabah and requested that researchers investigate my theory that dyslexia is not caused by a phonological awareness deficit. However, the dean was not interested. Fortunately, someone from another country did conduct the research.

 

We, in Malaysia, are in a unique position to explore why students can read in Malay and Pinyin but struggle with English. I would welcome any research students interested in investigating this phenomenon. They are free to use the materials on my blog, and there is no need to mention my name - I will be more than happy to assist anyone who wants to pursue this as a research project, as it could make for an excellent PhD thesis.

Insistence on Research (Desakan terhadap Penyelidikan- sila lihat di bawah)

 

Insistence on Research (Desakan terhadap Penyelidikan- sila lihat di bawah)

Recently, I have wasted too much time answering questions that appear to fall on deaf ears. So, I decided to let the other parties have the last say as I am busy with other work.

In 2004, I realised that intelligent kids who were good at many things could not read in English. I browsed the Internet and found reports on kids reading in many languages but are dyslexic (could not read) in English. But there was no report on the reasons why.

I decided to research this by quitting my job and teaching kids to find out why they could not read in English.